Last week a staggering amount of money was wired to US players with funds stuck on Full Tilt Poker and super star Daniel ‘Jungleman12’ Cates was one of them. We managed to get a hold of Cates, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions, and some of his answers might come as a shock.

“I received my balance in full, and the first thing I thought was that there was going to be some kind of problem,” Cates said, as he anticipated his bank to cause issues because of the large amount he was receiving.

“I really thought the bank was going to call me, but in the end I heard nothing,” Cates added, as speculations about the amount he received go well into the millions. It has been assumed that Cates had the biggest amount of any player on Full Tilt Poker.

In earlier interviews Cates explained that he had about 80% of his bankroll stuck on Full Tilt Poker, and receiving his full balance will have an immense impact on his life going forward.

“I can now take bigger pieces of my myself and play bigger games,” Cates said about the effect the money will have on his poker playing aspirations, “I suppose I can also be more relaxed and buy stuff I really want.”

I MUST be dreaming. I got the wire for my FT balance. #Gardencity — Daniel Cates (@junglemandan) February 28, 2014

Online Poker is Dying

While Cates managed to get his long-lost money back, his trust in online poker will forever be damaged. “Poker sites are much less professional than I once thought, and personally I think that the entire online poker industry is dying,” Cates stated.

“Online poker action will continue to decrease further. My win rate has gone down by about 25 to 30% since Black Friday happened and that’s largely due to there being so much less action. I’m not saying poker will die right not, but I think eventually it will happen,” Cates said, as he’s clearly not positive about the resurgence or poker in the United States.

For now Cates is back in action and looking for big action with his patted bankroll. The high stakes games that have been running recently involve not only No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha and Cates says he’s also looking forward to being very active in those games.

“In particular I’m looking forward to playing the deuce game regularly, the $2,000/$4,000,” Cates said, referring to the 2-7 Triple Draw game on Full Tilt.

“If I could I would play the biggest games in Macau as well, but nobody can get into that game,” Cates added, as it’s common knowledge only a select few Western pros have been able to play in those games.

Durrrr Challenge

One of the regular players in the Macau games is Tom Dwan, someone with whom Cates still has an ongoing challenge.

“I’m trying to work out things with Tom,” Cates said regarding the Durrrr Challenge that has seen no progress in recent months. “It’s complicated and we have some disagreements on it, but hopefully I can say more about that later,” Cates said as he was not ready to uncover more on this hot topic in the poker industry.

Cates is fully back in action after three years of presumably having to be cautious with his endeavors, and we’re very excited to see what kind of high stakes action this will bring to the table.

A few months ago we published an in-depth interview with Daniel 'Jungleman12' Cates and you can read Part 1 and Part 2 right here.

Front page photo credit: WPT.com