Dan “Jungleman” Cates

Dan “Jungleman” Cates, is a well-known poker player and personality. He was born in Maryland on November 14th, 1989, growing up in the generation of the poker boom. 

He spent his teenage years obsessed with gaming, specifically the game ‘Command And Conquer”. After finishing school, Dan “Jungleman” Cates enrolled at Maryland University. However, before completion, he left college to pursue a poker career, and the rest is history.

Dan “Jungleman” Cates: Early Life

Dan “Jungleman” Cates started playing online under the screen name “jungleman12” as well as at cash tables at his local casino, where he was initially losing consistently. 

Cates was adamant about improving. He started using ‘reverse game selection’ so that he could play against the higher-ranked players. This was in order to watch, learn, and improve. Jungleman quickly improved and ranked up. Playing higher stakes each time, Jungleman eventually evolved into a heads-up expert who became a force to be reckoned with.

Dan “Jungleman” Cates: The Durrrr Challenge

In August 2010, Heads-Up specialist Tom Dwan offered Jungleman a challenge; 50,000 hands of $200/$400 for $1 million + $1.5 million on the side if he beat Tom even by $1. Just before Black Friday, Jungleman was up over $1 million after close to 20,000 hands. Things weren’t looking good for Tom. After that, the challenge was never resumed. Jungleman even publicly called Tom out on social media for backing away from the challenge after a bad start. To this day they haven’t finished the challenge. It’s speculated that Tom did settle an amount with Jungleman, although not the initially discussed amount.

Tournament Poker Results

Dan’s first live tournament cash was in 2010. He has cashed in at least one live tournament every single year (barring 2020) since then and amassed over $12 million in live earnings. 

In April 2012, Jungleman had his first Top 3 finish at an NLHE PartyPoker event in Vienna. He finished second and cashed for $300,000. His maiden first-place finish came in Italy in March 2013 at a WPT NLHE event, cashing for $45,612. 

2014 was a big year for Dan. He had a 1st place finish in February at a WPT event in South Africa where he cashed for $500,000, Shortly after, the biggest live cash of his career. In April, at an EPT event in Monte Carlo, Jungleman finished in 2nd place and walked away with a mammoth prize of $1,774,145.

In 2015, Dan had another two first-place finishes, both in Prague. The first win came at an NLHE Super High Roller 8max event where he cashed $92,475, and the second was a smaller stakes EPT event where he cashed $29,012.

Between November 2016 and February 2018, Jungleman played five live tournaments and had five top 5 finishes. His most notable cashes were a 1st and 3rd place finish on the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in the Philippines. Between these two events, Jungleman cashed close to $1.5 million.

In August 2019, at a Triton Poker Super High Roller Event in London, Jungleman came close to matching his all-time best live cash, finishing in 5th place in a private ambassadors event and cashing $1,651,023.

In Dan’s first event after live poker could be resumed following the pandemic, he finished 1st in a WSOP event and cashed just under $1 million as well as earned himself his first WSOP bracelet. Again in his very next event, although with lower stakes, he finished in 1st place, cashing $34,680.

Jungleman achieved his 2nd WSOP bracelet in 2022, finishing 1st in a $50,000 Poker Players Championship 6max event, cashing $1,449,103.

Conclusion

Dan “Jungleman” Cates wasn’t always the eccentric character he is today. When he’s been at the table with talkative players like Phil Helmuth, he appears visibly socially awkward. He addressed this in his post-game interviews. Jungleman said it was something that he’d like to change, which he definitely did. In 2019, he posted a photo surrounded by topless women, followed shortly after by a very spicy music video featuring Jungleman playing poker with some naked women. His acts were met with mixed reactions from the poker community, with some outraged and others enjoying the show. Regardless, it worked for him. Not only does he provide entertaining poker, he now has the charisma to match, and he can be seen leading conversations and making players and commentators chuckle.