Daniel Cates
American poker player
Daniel Cates (born November 14, 1989) also known as Jungleman, jungleman12 or w00ki3z. is a professional poker player from the United States, once considered to be one of the best heads-up No Limit Texas Hold 'em players in the world. By 2014, his online cash game earnings at Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars was over US$11 million. In 2010, he won over $5 million, making him the biggest winner for the year.
Early life
Cates was born and raised in Bowie, Maryland, and began playing poker at the age of 17. He has said that at first he was a big loser and even took a job at McDonald's in order to refuel his bankroll. He describes his childhood as "weird, a bit aloof and mostly spent alone". He spent much of his time playing Command and Conquer and had an uncontrollable obsession with video games. He studied Economics at the University of Maryland before dropping out of college to make poker a full-time career.
Poker
Cates began playing online poker under the screen name "jungleman12" at the $0.25/$0.50 level as well as losing money in his local casino game before employing "reverse game selection" in order to take on and beat the best players at his stakes in heads-up matches before moving up the limits.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5216778. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 2014 and 2010.
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This entry incorporates text from “Daniel Cates” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.