Before 2010, Daniel “jungleman12” Cates was a nonentity in the online poker world. He began his career at the $0.50/$1 heads-up tables in 2008, made the move to sit and gos, and then went back to cash games. He busted his bankroll, was forced to get a minimum wage job at McDonald’s, and started the cycle all over again. Sound familiar? In 2010, Cates profited a healthy $5.5 million online.
Fast forward to March of last year. Grinding away in his parents’ basement, the Maryland native had built a bankroll big enough to play alongside the likes of like Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, “Isildur1,” and Tom “durrrr” Dwan at Full Tilt Poker’s nosebleed games. He was suddenly having daily swings of $500,000, sometimes more. Cates was a fixture in the biggest poker games on the internet and crushing them on a regular basis.
Cates saw his fame explode in July 2010. He joined the CardRunners team as an instructor and his real name was revealed to the poker community. In August, Cates agreed to take on Dwan in the second edition of the Durrrr Challenge, putting up $500,000 against Dwan’s $1.5 million in a 50,000-hand heads-up match. The community quickly awoke from the coma induced by the lull in Dwan’s first challenge with Antonius and saw some added intrigue generated by Cates’ limited media exposure.
Cates got off to a blazing start and is currently on top by $819,213 through 17,108 hands out of the 50,000 required for completion. He took $319,103 from Dwan in a 2,918-hand session late Monday night to increase his lead further and appears to be in the driver’s seat in the competition, having taken more than $1.3 million from Dwan lifetime.
It wasn’t just Dwan who had troubles with the young whiz kid in 2010. Cates was a big winner against Ivey, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, Aaron “aejones” Jones, and Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin, along with many others. By the end of the year, Cates was the biggest winner in online poker, amassing around $5.5 million in profits according to HighStakesDB.com. He’s now considered by his peers to be one of the best poker players in the world.
Cates discussed his climb in limits in his blog in late 2010: “When making the jump to $25/$50, I ran into some players of a whole other caliber – players that understood the game at a significantly greater level than myself for the first time since I began. Still, I took them on and lost/swung for a decent time. This kind of downswing/recovery combo dragged on for a couple months, but eventually, I fixed all my flaws and even began conquering some of the same players. LOL, I never imagined my $25/$50 win rate would ever be near what is now.”
Cates finished the year as the overwhelming leader in profits on Full Tilt Poker. Norwegian pro Andreas “skjervoy” Torbergsen finished a distant second with $3.7 million, Dwan was third with $3.6 million, Ivey finished fourth with $3.0 million, and Jared “harrington25” Bleznick landed in fifth with $2.2 million in profits.
Cates reflected on his rise to prominence in his blog: “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.”
Follow Cates’ heads-up challenge with Dwan at DurrrrChallenge.com.