One Of A Kind

He was the Jim Morrison of the casino, a legend before he was of legal age. Stuey Ungar, the son of a Jewish bookie on Manhattan's Lower East Side, dropped out of high school to become an underground card-table sensation, eventually taking out every top gin-rummy player on the East Coast. Bankrolled by the Genovese crime family, Stuey would soon travel around the country in search of new opponents and opportunities -- including poker.

He would go on to win the World Series of Poker a record three times. And then his luck began to run out. One of a Kind is the startling tale of a man who won at his game and lost control of his life. Whether tossing away his winnings at the racetrack or on a single roll of the dice, Stuey was notorious for gambling every single dollar in his pocket.

Though he had won an estimated $30 million in his lifetime, Stuey had no bank account, not even a home address. He was found dead in a Vegas motel -- with $800 in cash on his person, the only money he had left -- at the age of forty-five. An intimate, authorized biography -- Nolan Dalla was commissioned by Stuey in 1998 to pen his story, resulting in hundreds of hours of taped interviews and conversations -- One of a Kind illuminates the dark genius of one of poker's most memorable figures.

Review: A standout among this year's bumper crop of poker books. -- New York magazine