This week’s guest on The Showdown is jungleman12, otherwise known as Dan Cates, who is currently taking on Tom Dwan in the DurrrrChallenge and has a big lead.
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There is no votedown segment in today’s episode, where host Jon Friedberg asks viewers about what they think about television poker shows. Instead, Friedberg moves directly into the Twitter lowdown. The first topic was the spark of controversy with Kathy Liebert when she tweeted that she felt that Howard Lederer would be completely bust without his relationship with Full Tilt Poker because his poker game is so weak. Although it might be true that Howard’s skills might not be what they used to be because of how much he does with Full Tilt, according to Friedberg, you can’t really judge him in that way. Friedberg thinks that if Lederer were to be only making his income from poker you could make such claims, but because he’s so involved with so many business aspects of poker, he shouldn’t be judged unfairly.
In other news, Erik Seidel won the NBC Heads Up Championship and has won over $4 million in 2011 already. Friedberg thinks, however, that he does not deserve all the attention he is getting because the tournaments he’s won have been so small field-wise but with huge buy-ins so the numbers might be swaying opinions. The HU NBC Championship though was definitely the most impressive feat, according to Friedberg.
Guest Dan “jungleman12” Cates then joins The Showdown. Cates started at the small stakes and now dominates the nosebleed stakes games, taking on the best players in the world. “It’s been real interesting,” said Cates of his journey. “It was a gradual process, I didn’t just wake up playing nosebleeds. I went to being an okay to being a good player and moving up stakes.”
This is Part 1 of the Showdown, Episode 11. Be sure to catch The Showdown – Episode 11, Part 2.
