Daniel “Jungleman” Cates is among the most enigmatic players in the elite world of high-stakes poker. While Cates has been more vocal on the big stages in recent years, he is still something of a mystery for many fans of the game.
Of course, his game speaks loudly enough on its own — as the first and only player to go back-to-back in the coveted Poker Players Championship, Cates is in a league of his own. A few players, including Brian Rast and Michael Mizrachi, have more wins in that particular event overall, but none of the other multiple winners have won in successive years.
But off the table, “Jungleman” has been somewhat less vocal, letting his game speak for him through much of his career. That seems to be changing somewhat as Cates recognizes his unique position in the poker world, and when David Tuchman picked him up in the 888poker taxi, he was ready to talk about the future.
Jungleman Looks to Build Community
The main focus of the short talk with Cates was on the future, though less his own future and more that of the game. On his future goals, he said one of the main ones was “to collectively make people’s dreams happen in a way that parabolically benefits society”.
That may sound like pretty dense academia, but the main point seems to be that he’s looking to turn his own personal success outward to the larger poker community. “I’m building a poker community because poker has a lot of hidden benefits that benefit society.”
He continued by adding that his success in the game puts him in a rare position to be able to help build the poker world up.
Some of the things he’s looking to inject into poker include “more fun” as well as a more equitable distribution of money in the game and more people playing the game. While he is light on details about how to achieve his goals, he has been putting a lot of thought into it, and says “I feel like I’ve figured it out, kind of.”
“What’s it like to play against the best in the world?”
That was the question that prompted his answer “Why don’t you ask Phil?” It was posed during a big Triton event while Cates was sharing the feature table with Phil Ivey, widely regarded as one of the best players to ever play the game.
Cates admits he was being a bit of a “douchebag” with his response, saying he just thought it would be funny. Tuchman, who leads the interview with the interaction, agreed the humor value was solid. Catch the full interview with Jungleman at the link below.
888poker Takes the Games’ Best for a Ride
Cates is just among the latest to feature in the 888Ride. Among the other recent players and industry giants to jump into the vehicle for a ride from David Tuchman include GPI #1 Jesse Lonis, Canadian crusher Daniel Negreanu, and broadcaster Jeff Platt.
Tuchman covers a lot of ground in his double-duty job as driver and interviewer. While that is a metaphor for the wide-ranging and pointed interview questions he comes up with, Tuchman also covers a lot of literal ground as he physically drives his guests around Las Vegas.
While the samples above show the caliber of guests he manages to pull, the list of legends Tuchman has had in his passenger seat is a long one. Phil Galfond, Brian Rast, Benny Glaser, Ali Nejad, Chance Kornuth, Chris Moneymaker, and Shaun Deeb are just a few of the other names to grace the 888Ride and dish out details on life and poker.
Check out pokerfuse’s list of the Top Ten 888Rides and get a full look at the 888Ride roster on the 888poker YouTube page.