She was thinking of maybe trying to get a movie made out of his life. We talked a little bit and she said we could meet later on to talk more in depth about Stuey … but it never panned out. I got a cab for Caesar’s Palace, to see Stuey’s wife. He was older than the new guard of boy poker geniuses-Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Huck Seed-but he was always “The Kid,” with the Ratso Rizzo accent and the little gold pinky ring. Jaws was playing mute on the bar TV.Įight hours a day for years, Stuey Ungar sat down in the poker rooms of Vegas-the Mirage, for one, which is now Steve Wynn’s Bellagio. A withered lady smoked a thin, dark cigarette under a floppy hat. A tuft of stuffing from his parka floated to the green felt. At the craps table, a red-faced man called for a hard eight.
