Shooting Star: Dan Cates

You may be surprised to hear that Dan Cates, better known by his online moniker jungleman12, has never played in a WPT event. Therefore, it is all the more impressive that the 21 year-old online poker phenom earned the honor of being a Shooting Star in his WPT debut.

Just because Cates hasn’t logged time on the WPT felt, doesn’t mean he is some inexperienced rookie though. Like online wunderkinds Annette Obrestad and Tom Dwan before him, Cates cut his teeth at the online tables and is one of the most successful nosebleed cash game players in the past couple of years.

Since he started playing the nosebleeds in the fall of 2009, Cates has won an impressive $6,780,000 at the cash game tables, which is good enough to put him in the top ten of lifetime online cash game winners. He is currently embroiled in the second incantation of the Durrrr Challenge and holds a substantial lead in the 50,000 hand prop bet. While the duo have only played a little over one-third of the total number of hands, Cates is already out to a more than $940,000 lead in the prestigious heads-up battle.