Biography of Daniel Cates

Daniel Cates, also known on Full Tilt Poker, as Jungleman12,
or on PokerStars as w00ki3z, is an excellent poker player. Both
in high-stakes cash games and in live tournaments, Cates has
what it takes to beat his competitors. In total, he has won over
11 million dollars from various competitions and we believe this
is only the start to his successful career.

Cates most recently received his first major title from
winning the 2014 Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) on
PokerStars.com, proving yet again how advanced his poker skills
are, both online and in person.

Early Start to His Career

Cates was born November 14th, 1989 in Bowie, Maryland. At a
young age, he was addicted to playing video games, but that
didn’t stop him from excelling in high school and scoring in the
99 percentile on the SAT, with a perfect score on the math
sections. When Cates was first introduced to online poker at age
17, he immediately fell in love with the game, applying a
mathematical approach to it.

After he graduated from high school, he attended the local
University of Maryland to pursue a degree in Computer Science.
Cates started playing No Limit Texas Hold’em for a $0.25/$0.50
buy in online and at the local casinos near the school he went
to. He eventually starting applying a new strategy called,
“reverse game selection.”

By using this strategy, he would challenge all of the
regulars at the local casinos he visited to a few rounds of No
Limit Hold’em. He would study their techniques and look for
their weaknesses so that he could come up with individual ways
to beat them. It took him awhile to master this strategy, so was
forced to work at McDonalds to fuel his bankroll.

Poker Career

In 2009, Cates lost the majority of his bankroll to Viktor
Blom in a single session of No Limit Hold’em at Full Tilt Poker.
It took him almost a year to fully rebuild his bankroll and
recover from the substantial loss.

Cates accepted the Durrrr’s Million Dollar Challenge in
August 2010, which meant he had to play a series of No Limit
Hold’em games against Tom Dwan at $200/$400 buy-ins for 50,000
hands. If Cates had even a $1 more Dwan by the end, Dwan would
give him $1.5 million. Cates not only beat him, but he was able
to win more than $5 million from him by the time the competition
was over.

In April, 2012 Cates entered the No Limit Hold’em event at
the PartyPoker.com Premier League Poker V in Vienna. He finished
runner up to Scott Seiver, bringing home over $300,000 with him.
Nearly a year later, Cates won the No Limit Texas Hold’em event
at the World Poker Tour’s Venice Poker Festival, cashing in at
$45,000. He then went on to win WPT’s Alpha8 No Limit Hold’em
Super High Roller event for the grand prize of $500,000, beating
both Kinesh Pather and Jason Mercier.

When in an interview with Bluff Magazine, Cates was asked how
he managed to become so successful so fast and in response he
said,

“I watched videos, read some books, but mostly watched
videos,”

he added,

“I played a variety of opponents and took
notes on all the different details. I played probably three or
four hours a day on average.”

Cates loves to help inspiring young players that have similar
questions and concerns that he had when he was first starting
out, and he once went as far as giving up his seat at the main
event at the WSOP so that another young player could step in and
get the experience instead. He’s willing to tutor anyone when it
comes to poker skills, even football legend, Emmett Smith.

Personal Life

Cates currently resides in London, England, having moved over
there after the Black Friday incident so that he could continue
to play online poker. He has always enjoyed travelling and
trying out new restaurants, so he was actually very excited
about the move.

In his spare time, he enjoys listening to music, hanging out
with friends, and playing video games, which is typical of
almost any twenty-six year old bachelor. Cates also has a great
relationship with his parents and is always spending his money
on them, buying them plane tickets so that they can come to
London to visit him.