It was 2010 that was Cates' breakout year when he became the biggest online winner of the year with online profits of over $5.5 million dollars. Cates also rose to prominence being selected as the second challenger in the Durrrr Challenge, putting up $500,000 to durrrr's $1.5 million on the 50,000 heads-up match. He currently leads Tom Dwan by $819,213 after 17,108 of the 50k hands scheduled. He recently lost his Superstar Showdown match with Viktor "Isildur1" Blom by around $51k and the two have had numerous tangles since. He currently lives in Bowie, Maryland.
Things you might not know:
- Cates began playing poker with his friends in high school during his lunch breaks, playing $5 SNG's.
- Cates tried playing local live cash games at .50-$1 and $1-$2 and lost over $3,000 over the summer of 2007.
- Cates once worked at McDonalds.
- Cates is an economics major at the University of Maryland.
- Cates is good friends with fellow Terp and high stakes player Scott "Urnotindanger2" Palmer.
- Cates approaches his game with a heavy analytical and math approach.
- Cates revealed his identity, behind "jungleman12" in the summer of 2010 when he joined CardRunners as an instructor.
- Cates biggest losing days have seemed to come at the hands of Viktor "Isildur1" Blom, having lost $500k in one day a couple years ago, and recently another epic $343k playing $25/$50 essentially $150/$450k PLO in a little4 over 2,000 hands.
- Cates has expressed frustration with Tom Dwan's inability to find time to complete the challenge that he is losing handily.
- Cates enjoys listening to a lot of underground music.
- Cates will make his NBC National Heads-Up Championship debut at the beginning of March.
- Cates recorded a massive $600k win against Patrik Antonius playing $300/$600 HA for a couple hours on February 27th.
Daniel "jungleman12" Cates is clearly one of top five or so NLHE and PLO players in the world right now. Cates shares some thoughts on his game and approach...
“When I was a losing player desiring to succeed, negative stimuli forced me to embrace good traits. The extent of my loses had upset me deeply, and made me want to play lower so that I could afford to lose comfortably: proper bankroll management.
I had become so accustomed to losing that I embraced close to the ideal methodology of improving: I ignored the short term pain I had felt after each loss, and instead focused on why I was losing and how I could prevent it in the future: I focused on LONG-term results.
I can’t say that I’ve handled all my failures appropriately, but I am fortunate that I utilized these failures well and [have] not experienced the extent of setbacks that some of you have felt. Long ago, I dreamed I would succeed if I acted wisely given my circumstances, but to be honest, I did not really imagine it would be to this degree, and especially not this fast.”
I had become so accustomed to losing that I embraced close to the ideal methodology of improving: I ignored the short term pain I had felt after each loss, and instead focused on why I was losing and how I could prevent it in the future: I focused on LONG-term results.
I can’t say that I’ve handled all my failures appropriately, but I am fortunate that I utilized these failures well and [have] not experienced the extent of setbacks that some of you have felt. Long ago, I dreamed I would succeed if I acted wisely given my circumstances, but to be honest, I did not really imagine it would be to this degree, and especially not this fast.”
Additional interview with Dan Cates at Poker Curious
Cates interview from the PCA and a short strategy video of Cates:
Other famous poker player profiles:
Phil Ivey
Gus Hansen
Daniel Negreanu
Doyle Brunson
Phil Hellmuth
Scotty Nguyen
Johnny Chan
Barry Greenstein
Jennifer Harman-Traniello
Eric Seidel
Patrik Antonius
Viktor Blom
Chris Ferguson
Chris Moneymaker
Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier
Tom Dwan
Greg Raymer
Ashton "theASHMAN103" Griffin
John Juanda
Chau Giang
Kathy Liebert
Dan Harrington
Dario Minieri
Allen Cunningham
Phil Galfond
Carlos Mortensen
Annie Duke
Erick Lindgren
Mike Matusow
Michael Mizrachi
Howard Lederer
Antonio Esfandiari
J.C. Tran
David Pham
Annette Obrestad
Vanessa Selbst
Huck Seed
Men Nguyen
David Benyamine
Jason Mercier
Phil Laak
Layne Flack
Lex Veldhuis
Ted Forrest
Joe Hachem
Dan “jungleman12” Cates
