Daniel “jungleman12” Cates finishes 2010 as a $5.4m winner

Daniel “jungleman12” Cates finishes 2010 as a $5.4m winner

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

This time last year, no one knew who Daniel Cates was. We knew of jungleman12 as one of the many victims of the rampant rise of Isildur1 in 2009 but besides being known as “that high stakes heads-up guy who lost half his bankroll” he was totally unknown.

How things change – one year on and not only has Cates rebuilt his losses since taking on Isildur1 but has become recognised as perhaps the best heads-up NLHE player in the world. Now he tops the leaderboard of 2010 online cash game winnings ahead of Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Phil Ivey.


Cates was running away with the title before the ball dropped in Times Square with $4.9m profits racked up throughout the year but put in a last-minute session against Patrik Antonius and luckexpress10 to win over half a million dollars and put him over the $5m yearly milestone.


Cates has around $500,000 of that 2010 profit from the durrrr challenge, in which he is taking on Tom “durrrr” Dwan for a side bet of $1.5m if he wins. Should he lose after 50,000 hands then he will pay Dwan $500,000. Dwan himself came in third on the 2010 winnings list with by far the swingiest graph – up to $7m in the middle of the year before dropping down millions and steadying out into $3.6m profit.


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