After issuing a heads-up challenge following EPT Prague back in December and not getting any takers, Dan “Jungleman12” Cates has been lying low, but he did recently do an interview in which he had much to say about his failed challenge, his poker promoting faux pas with known cheater Jose “Girah” Macedo, and his thoughts on the never finished Durrrr Challenge.
In the interview, Cates touched on why he didn’t’ get any action on his heads-up challenge, he said, “It’s a combination of a couple of things. People aren’t jumping at the chance to play me heads-up, and it’s Prague, which is an okay location, but not everyone wants to go there at that particular time, so it’s a little inconvenient. In addition, there wasn’t any extra incentive like there was with the Durrrr Challenge to overcome their lack of wanting to play me.”
Perhaps Dwan’s lack of motivation to progress the challenge is thanks to the $582,000 lead Cates holds on him, though the last session between the two ended in Dwan’s favor.
And speaking of the Durrrr Challenge, Cates explained that while he and Dwan have played about 20,000 hands, they are nowhere near done. Cates expressed that it has been very difficult to complete the challenge. He said of Dwan, “He has not settled. However, if he’s incredibly flakey about following up with the Challenge, and it doesn’t seem very high on his priority list, then I would like him to settle, or play out his hands pretty soon.”
Cates also discussed the Macedo scandal, explaining that he is still somewhat haunted by the fiasco. He said, “It’s not exactly gone; people still needle me about it occasionally. I think Haseeb (Qureshi) and I took way too much shit for it, more than we should have. Maybe other people disagree, but it’s more or less blown over, I guess.” He further explained, “I should be less trustful with randoms that my friends vouch for, which is essentially what happened with Girah. It was something neither of us (Qureshi) could have predicted.”
In 2010, Cates profited $5 million playing online poker, and while 2011 wasn’t that bad with $2 million in profits, he did have a rough year. He hopes to re-focus on poker and have a better year in 2012.
