Daniel Cates

—

hire our pros!

Corporate Appearances, Endorsements, Speaking & Autograph Signings.

—

How does one earn the name Jungleman? In the case of Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates, the name evolved from being hairy, looking like George of the Jungle, and most notably, playing poker like a wild man. With over $5.5 million in online earnings in 2010 alone, it’s hard to imagine Dan’s poker career beginning just a few years ago in high school, where he and his friends used ripped up pieces of paper in $5-20 sit-n-go’s during lunch time. Growing up in Bowie, Maryland, Dan attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School and describes himself at ‘good at academics’, while casually mentioning his perfect math score on the SAT, and near perfect score on the remainder of the test.

Dan’s journey to the elite rankings of online poker players would not come without some humbling experiences, and after losing several thousand dollars to local players in his hometown, he was forced to get a job at McDonalds to pay back a debt. It was during this time that he began reading as much poker literature as he could get his hands on, investing in the books written by poker legends Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson. Dan entered college as a computer science major at the University of Maryland and became more involved in online poker. He grinded in sit-n-go’s for months until summer 2008 when he cashed out after finally winning a tournament for $5,320, using some of the money on training videos to further his knowledge of the game.

Soon after, Dan found his niche in playing head’s up, and has since grinded his way to the highest stakes of head’s up play. In 2010, notorious online player Tom Dwan could no longer ignore Dan’s rise to the top of the online player hierarchy, and offered the newbie the opportunity to participate in the second installment of the “Durrrr Challenge”. Jungleman confidently accepted, and had been leading the battle for most of the way. As of March, 2011, Dan finds himself $941,000 ahead of Tom in the challenge, with 17,500 of the 50,000 hands completed.

What’s next for poker’s newest Super Nova? Having turned 21 in November 2010, Cates plans on participating in many more live tournaments, so perhaps it’s an epic showing in the 2011 World Series of Poker? Dan “Jungleman12” Cates has accomplished so much in such a short period of time that anything seems possible for the young prodigy.