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The primary reason for why Mr. Ungar changed from gin rummy to poker was that Stu was a tiny bit too good at it. So skilled in fact, that no one possibly could equal him. Even the commonly called champions who were supposed to be the most favorable at gin were beat when they faced Stu Ungar. One such gin rummy professionals was Harry Stein, nicknamed, "Yonkie". Mr. Stein was handed such a crushing defeat at the hands of Stu Ungar that he evidently stopped playing it as a pro and never showed up at a gin tournament.

Certainly, with a notoriety like that it was not long before players became weary of gambling against Stu Ungar. He could find no games and in his bleakness he started doing something no one had attempted before. Stu began offering starting handicaps to potential competitors in the hope that they might just compete with him if they thought they held an edge. He deliberately started from a bad position and one story has it that he even played with a consistent bad egg. Mid game, he received warnings that the bad egg was at it once more but Stu Ungar guaranteed that he was aware of the dishonestly and he would still actually win, which of course, he did.

The same trend followed Stu Ungar into Las Vegas. He won so much that the casinos started requesting that he not to wager on their poker rooms anymore. The reason for it was that other poker room visitors refused to sit at the poker table if Stu was seated.

Stu Ungar is recalled more for his accomplishments in texas holdem poker but he always insisted that he was far more accomplished at gin rummy.

He defeated Doyle Brunson in the World Series of Poker in Nineteen Eighty and became the youngest world champion. Because of his features that made him seem far younger than he was, he was nicknamed, "The Kid".