Dan “Jungleman” Cates Challenge: HU Duel vs. Content Creators

High-stakes poker professional, podcaster, and YouTuber Dan “Jungleman” Cates has just issued a challenge to his fellow poker content creators. Believing himself to be “the best content-creating poker player, for sure, that's out there,” Dan is willing to face any of his peers who have at least 10,000 subscribers in a high-stakes poker showdown.

Basic Challenge Info

Dan released the details of this challenge on his YouTube channel (@JunglemanDanCates) in a video dated April 18, 2025. The video is entitled, “I want to battle poker content creators…Who should it be?” with a thumbnail image asking, “Do You Think You Can Beat Me?” You can watch the video below:

Cates is willing to face anyone who qualifies at minimum stakes of $100/$200 for 10,000+ hands. What's more, Dan's ready to play his opponent's best game during the challenge.

This is an open challenge, meaning that any individual who meets the criteria of having 10,000 subscribers can participate. “If someone would like to battle and stream it, that would be perfect,” Cates said. Dan named a few specific potential opponents, including Phil Galfond and Mikael Thuritz.

About Dan “Jungleman” Cates

Daniel Cates, known as Jungleman because of his online screenname “jungleman12” at Full Tilt, was one of the legendary online high-stakes pros during the pre-Black Friday era. He began playing seriously in 2008 at the age of 18 in $0.25/$0.50 heads-up games. Employing an unusual “reverse game selection” strategy whereby he sought out the best players at his stake level to play against, Dan rapidly advanced to bigger games.

Dan “Jungleman” Cates

Poker Winnings

Within a few years, Dan was playing in some of the biggest games on the internet against the likes of Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and Patrik Antonius. In 2010, he recorded $5.5 million in winnings, making him the biggest online poker winner of the year. In total, Dan has collected more than $11 million from his online poker adventures.

He has supplemented this income with takings from major live poker tournaments, which he began playing in 2011. His record shows more than $17 million in winnings from such contests, including two World Series of Poker bracelets (consecutive victories in the 2021 and 2022 $50,000 Poker Players Championship event)

Off-the-Felt Endeavors

Of course, being a huge winning poker player doesn't capture the whole Jungleman story because he has also made a name for himself as a content creator. Dan has been a coach with RunItOnce since 2021, and in 2022 he started a podcast called “Winning the Game of Life” where he interviews prominent figures in the world of poker to discuss mental health, nutrition, philanthropy, and other related topics.

Dan's YouTube channel has 28k subscribers, and he boasts nearly 132k followers on Instagram. Meanwhile, his X account has close to 82k followers.

Reasons for the Challenge

There are any number of reasons why someone might issue a challenge like Dan's: the excitement of high-level competition, the belief that one has a positive expectation against the field, or even an insatiable craving for stratospheric betting action. At the beginning of his video, Cates shed some light on why he's ready to put himself on the line with this challenge:

There's lots of poker content out there, and it can be hard to figure out who's truly good and who's not so good. And I'm going to make this a lot simpler for you guys because I'm going to openly challenge all of them to play me at their best game and prove that I'm not the best because I think I'm the best content-creating poker player for sure…I would like to call out people who are a little bit full of shit of how good they are, put them in their place as delicately as possible.

It seems Cates' motivation is twofold. He wishes to demonstrate that some of his poker peers are not as good as they claim thus educating viewers. At the same time, he thinks he's the best and wishes to prove it to the world.

Later in the video, Jungleman explains that, “Poker players these days don't have a whole lot of balls. I don't really think it should be that way, and I think that somehow, boldness should be glorified.” So he's looking to get away from the GTO-optimized, grind-small-edges philosophy of poker and into more of a realm where individual courage and nerves of steel are rewarded.

Of course, sometimes the most obvious motivations are the true ones. Dan's YouTube channel has fewer than 30k subscribers: not a lot for a three-year-old channel by a poker player of his caliber. It's likely that's he's looking to drum up some traffic and engagement for his content.

Not Jungleman's First Rodeo

Though the player pool for these kinds of high-stakes duels is limited to those with the necessary bankrolls and mindsets, Dan Cates has been in this demographic for a long time. Indeed, he has participated in many such battles in the past.

Perhaps the most famous of these was the “durrrr challenge.” This was a 50,000-hand challenge from Tom “durrrr” Dwan with stakes of $200/$400+ and four tables played at the same time. Besides the wins and losses incurred at the tables, there was a side bet involved: If Dwan won, he would get an additional $500,000 from his opponent, but if the other player prevailed, “durrrr” would have to hand over $1.5 million.

Cates accepted the challenge, and they began playing in August 2010. Dan started off solidly, winning more than $1 million. However, the venue for the event, Full Tilt Poker, went belly-up due to the events of Black Friday before the match could be concluded. There were several half-hearted attempts to resurrect it over the years, but as of April 2025, only around 20,000 of the minimum 50,000 hands have been played.

More recently, Phil Galfond issued a challenge, which Dan accepted, and they began playing in early 2023. This was a smaller challenge for 7,500 hands of PLO, but the two competitors only managed to put in six sessions at the tables before the challenge was suspended indefinitely.

Practice Your Heads-up Game Today

Although many online poker sites have ceased to offer two-player tables, there are still some that feature them, like Ignition. This lets you practice for the kinds of heads-up duels favored by the likes of Dan “Jungleman” Cates and Phil Galfond. When you make your first deposit at Ignition through crypto-currency, you'll get a 150% up to $1,500 bonus, which can definitely be cleared through heads-up play. Press the button below to sign up:

To learn more about Ignition before proceeding further, check out this comprehensive Ignition Poker review.

April 15, 2025 – by Max Golden, Editor-in-Chief