Stu Ungar's World Series of Poker Results?

I have to earn my title of the World's Greatest Unknown WSOP Historian somehow.

I just found his 1996 result last week as I was looking for something else in the Conjelco reports, so here's an updated list with some more details like field sizes:

1980: 1st of 73 (youngest Main Event champion at 26 [record until 1989])
1981: 1st of 75 (youngest two-time Main Event champion at 27)
1982: no cash (Day 2 [3:30pm])
1983: no cash (57th of 108 Day 2)
1984: no cash (109th of 132 Day 1)
1985: no cash (Day 2)
1986: no cash (early Day 1)
1987: no cash (Day 1)
1988: no cash
1989: no cash (176th of 178 Day 1 [just 15 minutes in!]; maybe 175th)
1990: 9th of 194
1991: no cash (76th Day of 215 1)
1992: N/A
1993: N/A
1994: no cash (Day 1)
1995: no cash (131st of 273 Day 1 [late; maybe early Day 2])
1996: no cash (264th of 295 Day 1)
1997: 1st of 312 (only three-time Main Event champion)
1998: N/A (on official entry list but sadly not healthy enough to play).

From what I read Stu didn't play in the main event much between 82-89. But that's cool that you found information otherwise.

Have you ever found end of day chip counts related to wsop main events prior to 1995?

But a great player from prior era would likely be able to use the tools of today and certainly compete. Then there are those from prior eras (like Ungar) who showed signs of a deeper understanding back then. Give them the current tools plus their apparently inherent abilities and you can't say they would crush but it would not be a surprise if they did crush today.

The reality of NLHE poker today is that crushing needs to be redefined vs. 50 yr ago. The game is "too solved" for anyone to completely blow out all people.

It is quite possible that he was so high those years that he did not even know he was playing the ME.

Had he not had his inner demons, who knows what he would have done. He might have actually been a good person. He might even have left poker for who knows what.

In some aspects, he was a genius but w/o his demons that genius may have been targeted elsewhere.

I'm only missing nine chip leader counts now. In six cases I also don't know the leader and in three the number of players left:

1973 Day 2 Puggy Pearson (4 left)
1977 Day 3 ? (6? left)
1989 Day 1 ? (100 left)
1990 Day 2 Stu Ungar (36 left) [I'm pretty sure it was Ungar as he's the only name anyone mentions]
1991 Day 1 ? (? left) & Day 2 ? (27 left)
1992 Day 1 ? (112 left) & Day 2 Hamid Dastmalchi (27 left)
1999 Day 1 ? (? left)

Can anyone help me out here?

Supposedly he didn't start drugs until after his stepson Richie committed suicide in 89. Although he was Stu's step son he treated him like his own child.

Other things I have read said he started drugs once his mother passed away in 79.

I doubt even in a drug fueled bender that you would forget playing in the wsop for that long of a span.

Not sure what you are trying to say. Lets just say 1990. Do you have start of day 2 chip counts for only stu ungar? Or everyone but him?

I know every single End of Day chip leader except for these. End of Day X = Start of Day X + 1.

In 1990, Perry Green led after Day 1 with 55,450 chips and 107 players left. Stu Ungar led after Day 2 with an UNKNOWN number of chips and 36 players left. Mansour Matloubi led after Day 3 with 403,000 chips and 9 players left.

Most of the time, I have the top 9 for the end of every day, but there are many more holes in that data, especially in the early years. I don't have even have the final day starting chips for 1971-72, 1974-77, and 1979; for 1978 and 1990, I know only a few chip stacks.

Prob powder cocaine beginning late 70’s/ early 80’s to stay up and play then shifting to free base / rock cocaine in mid 80’s like a lot of addicts.

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Thanks for the insight. Pretty amazing you have all these details!

Is there any of your data that shows Stu Ungar with about 33,000 chips at the end of day 2?

There is not one single person who saw Stu play gin who says anything other than he totally destroyed everyone without breaking a sweat. He might’ve been better at gin than anyone ever was at anything.

As for poker though, lol. If you could go back to 1980 and show Stu, Doyle, Moss, Straus, Baldwin, Slim, Chip & Puggy DVDs of the final three tables of this yearÂ’s Main Event and some HSP episodes (obviously complete with commentary, chat, blog/forum posts), theyÂ’d be so baffled, astounded and intimidated by the intricate plays and penetrating insights theyÂ’d immediately quit poker and take up tiddlywinks.

I mean, can you just imagine a dropout like Stu trying to understand GTO?

All that said, itÂ’s a shame thereÂ’s never been a regular poster here who actually knew and played against those guys and could objectively comment on how theyÂ’d adapt to todayÂ’s games.

I have read some posts of people talking about playing against some of the old timers. Some said they were great. Others brushed them off like they weren't that good.

But poker is a marathon not a sprint. Long term results are proof of how tough some of the old timers really were

IIRC Stu had a gigantic chip lead after Day 2 in 1990, but they found him ODed in his room when he noshowed the next day and broomcorned him into 9th.

Unintended Consequences of Bumping Nine Year Old Threads for $800, Ken.

There was a private game I played in for a while where the worst player was a math professor. I think in maybe 50 sessions I played with him, he won twice. His math understanding of the game was OK but he would make absolutely terrible adjustments. I remember one session, I played a hand that went straddle UTG to 20, I raise to $65 UTG+1, call $65 MP from the professor, 3bet to $200 from a loose player in the CO, and then a super nit player who was a casino dealer went all in from the BB for $2k. I tanked for like five minutes and eventually folded QQ correctly. CO called with something that wasn’t good. After BB took it down with his aces he asked me what I had and I told him queens.

A couple orbits later I open from the BTN, professor shoves from the blinds, I snap call him with tens. Tens hold vs his 98 suited or something like that and he goes on this rant like what do you mean you fold queens with all that dead money in the pot and call here with tens? I just laughed.

Hah! I learned how to play poker in the summer of 2003, the summer after I graduated from high school. Senior year of high school, my AP Calc teacher was a guy by the name of Dr Dietrich Kuhlmann. He was 'on loan' from the university that was affiliated with our high school, and he took our class extremely unseriously. I sat in the last row with my two friends who eventually ended up teaching me poker, and we'd pass a yellow folder filled with fantasy sports rankings back and forth all class. That bright yellow folder became notorious, as Dietrich would inevitably catch us in the act of handing it off while he was scrawling integrals and derivatives on the chalkboard. He'd reprimand us with mock seriousness, as he really seemed to be giving about 40% effort in teaching that class all year. We seemed to care about as much as he did.

One day in the spring of 2003, he asked the class if any of us happened to be fans of the World Poker Tour. He caught my friends and I a few months too soon with that question, and so our hands were not raised in response to this polling of the class. He pledged to love the WPT before probably engaging in a push-up contest with the class' future West Point cadet (these competitions happened on multiple occasions. He also took the liberty of bashing religion at a Jesuit high school, something I recoiled from at the time but appreciate now).

Fast forward several years. I take my seat at a monthly $160 at the local casino. Who's at my table? None other than Dietrich. Turns out he was a regular player who's cashed the Main at least once. I found his play to be solid if unspectacular. It was always fun to run into him up in Niagara Falls before the pandemic killed the room. I have fond memories of the drunk 2/5 I played with him in April 2018, the weekend of my biggest live tourney score ever, 40k for 2nd in a 1k.

As for Stu Ungar, One of a Kind was a tremendous read, and I wish Stu had survived [more than] a bit longer, because he's the only 'old-school' player I've ever truly wished I could've met

Great stories.

I bet couple people in that game werenÂ’t happy about a five minute tank-fold with QQ to a supernitÂ’s 4-bet AI shove.

It was my experience that most guest professors dgaf about the class. One guy took it too far, wanted the students to essentially teach the class by reading the textbook out loud. That didnÂ’t last long lol.

he won three Super Bowl of poker main events too

Some say that poker has gotten tougher, but I actually feel like it has gotten easier. In the past you were just guessing what strategy is correct, now we can easily find out what is the best play with a solver. The way to get better in the past is to bounce ideas off of other good players and ponder strategies in your head while off the table. Today you can do that, but you can use a solver as well which is a much clearer path to success.

Would great players like Stu have used a solver to get better if he was around today? I'm not sure, but he for sure would have adapted to the tendencies of the pool today. The pool today still tends to overfold in a lot of spots and so I believe he would do well strategy-wise. Unfortunately, I don't think his mental game is on point and he would be unable to maintain a bankroll before blowing it all on his addictions or go on bad tilt. Having the mental toughness to withstand a downswing and not go on tilt are definitely a part of the equation to being a great poker player. If you were to add up Stu's stats on those aspects they would be quite low from what I've heard about him.

If the rumor that Stu sucked at cash games is true then that could be an indicator that he may not have had the discipline to play without tilting away his money in modern tough games. It is easier to not tilt in a tournament than a cash game and tournament poker tends to have a lot more weaker players and easier decisions. Tournament poker and cash game poker are almost like completely different games in terms of strategy. Though Ungar was undoubtably a genius, his lack of discipline and mental toughness may have prevented him from being successful in today's games.

If Stu at been alive during the original TV boom of 2002-07 it would have been some great viewing. Being such an interesting character with such a wild play style would have led to him being one of the stars of that era imo.

Win rates were way higher during the boom for good players than they are now and it's not even close.

There were a lot more big public games filled with tons of recreational players back than than there are today and that's before you adjust for inflation.

It's easier today to at least be decent at poker than it was back then. That makes games a lot harder not a lot easier.

You don't need a GTO solution to beat your opponents - you need to make better decisions than them,adjust better and not tilt.

The bigger the gap at those things between you and your opponents the more money you make.

Id rather be a 6 poker on a 1-10 scale player playing a bunch of 1 and 2s and than 9 playing a bunch of 8s.

People who are great at studying and being spoon fed solutions would do a lot worse than those who are good at figuring things out and adapting on the fly in the old days. But that doesn't make games harder back then.

You still see this today when twists are added to a game like the standup game ,double board bomb pots, 72 etc. when something hasn't been studied people are really bad at it. Those good at figuring out the best solutions have a massive edge in that pool. It doesn't (and won't be) have to a solution a computer would spit out. It just has to be better than everyone else's and you have a massive edge.

A "clearer path to success" would make games easier for you if very few people people had access to that information but that's not the case at all.

Id much rather play 2005 games with my 2005 poker knowledge than 2024 games with my 2024 knowledge and it isn't remotely close.

You're absolutely right that withstanding swings and being mentally tough is a huge part of winning at poker ESPECIALLY in live poker where the pace is so slow and it takes forever to get a good sample size. The game can really **** with your head when you're running bad or give you a false sense of confidence when you're running great.

It's amazing how much someone can lose in ev in just one hour playing on monkey tilt.

That's a fair point. My reasoning was mostly anecdotal. I started playing poker more seriously around 2013ish so I never got to experience the games in 2005.

Fortunately, I have a limited opportunity to play in a geofenced pool and the tables can be really soft at times. I should have taken that into account. Back in 2013 I would play against these aggro russians that would really put me in tough spots. Now it is all USA.

This type of blindness factor is amazing. But the flip side is it also applies to us, perhaps in poker, perhaps elsewhere, where the factors in play are obvious to other but lost on us. Makes for good poker games. Makes the world go round.