Online Poker’s Big Winner [Did the NY TIMES Get Snookered?]

NY Times Magazine ^ | March 25, 2011 | JAY CASPIAN KANG

[ml/nj]

Daniel (jungleman12) Cates, a 21-year-old self-made multimillionaire, lapsed economics/computer-science major and one-day Bubble Trouble champion of the world, was mildly annoyed. A reputedly solid player under the gun had just bet, and Cates needed to figure out if he was bluffing. Cates consulted the stat readout and deduced that the kid’s erratic betting over the past 200 hands was a product of emotional fragility. With no pair, no draw and no hope of winning a showdown of hands, Cates again raised the pot. At a second table, Cates had just made his flush. He put out a value bet that was precisely calibrated to resemble a bluff. At a third table, he folded. At a fourth, he called for time. At a fifth, his mouse slipped, causing him to accidentally fold. He muttered a profanity before turning his attention back to the first two tables.

Both plays worked. The reputedly solid player was, indeed, bluffing. He folded. Cates chuckled and said, almost seductively, “That’s right, spew monkey, spew all those chips over here.” At the second table, Cates’s opponent called the value bet and showed the worst of it. Cates had just won more than $30,000, but his attention had already shifted over to Table 3, where he had been dealt a monster hand. He turned to me and said: “Sorry if these stakes are boring. I would be playing bigger, but it’s been a rough week.”

[ml/nj]

My wife left this story for me. She knows I'm a player and thought I would be interested. I was.

There are sites that track the performance of on-line players. I mostly look at OfficialPokerRankings.com. When one searches for "jungleman12" at OPR, over all the sites they monitor he only turns up at FullTilt (as do I). You probably have to log into the site to get the data I report here. What I found is that for all games OPR tracks (admitedly not all games that get played) is that jungleman12 has been in 667 tracked games and collected $57,671 in prizes with a -25% ROI. What I think this means is that this guy paid about $77,000 to collect that $57,671.

Another site that collects results is Sharkscope. I'm not a registered user there but still I was able to obtain this graphical record of jungleman12's record at FullTilt.

My reading of this is that jungleman12 has played in about 3200 games that SharkScope has tracked and lost about $42,500.

Whatever other games he might play in that neither of these sites track, I think there is enough data here to surmise that this guy is a LOSER.

So the question really is: what sort of fact checking does the New York Times do before they go to print?

ML/NJ

[GeronL]

Fact checkers have been laid off after the MSM decided they wanted to be more like bloggers. lol.

[razorback-bert]

Facts just get in the way of a good Times’ story.

[rockvillem]

You need to check highstakesdb.com. He in fact was a HUGE winner on Full Tilt last year and a winner on his Poker Stars account (wooki3z or something). Sharkscope tracks tournament play - he crushed the high stakes cash games last year.

[sten]

the graph is very interesting.

after almost 3000 games of consistently increasing profits, the player hits an extremely erratic win/loss pattern unlike anything he had seen. that seems very strange.

either its a different person playing, he changed his algorithms, or the ‘house’ has adapted to his play style (ie: cheating)

[bajabaja]

I don’t pay the NYT toll, so I did not click through, but is there an email address for the reporter or the ombudsman? Not that they would admit a mistake, but it would be entertaining to know their response.

You uncovered another of those whiz-kids who make “multimillions” but, in the end, just pulled a hoax.

[TigerClaws]

He likely has multiple IDs. if he is making major $$ he wants to hide his identity I’d think.

[ml/nj]

You need to check highstakesdb.com

You need to know that I'm a math guy. I have a reasonable background in statistics. Unless this Jungleman12 is really clever and wanted to build a losing profile, I would have to take the data I presented as a reasonable sample. You don't play thousands of games and lose and play an equal number not in that sample and win, unless it's a lottery win. Your site wrote this about Jungleman12:

Short handed and heads-up games seem to be his favorites, where his aggression offers him a true edge. By looking at his cash game stats, it’s easy to tell that he is indeed adept at hammering that edge home.

That doesn’t mean he’s not a good tournament player too. He finished 8th out of 1,635 players, for a $6,540 haul in the Sunday Mulligan at the end of February. He played in several $2,200 and $1,100 SNGs recently, mostly in heads-up ones, and he seemed to do just fine in them.

This doesn't ring true to me either after reading the Times article. I don't know if you've ever played in Heads up SNGs (not tracked by OPR, BTW) but you cannot play in more than one of these at a time. They are very intense. (And BTW, I've compared larger games to flying an airplane: hours of pure boredom interrupted by seconds of heightened alert - at least.) So the Times has him playing multiple games at a time, and the quoted passage has him playing in heads up SNGs.

Something isn't right.

ML/NJ

[ml/nj]

if he is making major $$ he wants to hide his identity I’d think.

If you want to hide your identity, you don't sit for an on the record interview with the NYT.

See also my post at #8.

ML/NJ

[Rezod21]

The sites you listed show SNG games (18+ players)they do not list cash games which they said he played. Look up his stats here and he is crushing the cash games. Looks pretty legit to me.

http://www.pokertableratings.com/fulltilt-player-search/jungleman12

[Rezod21]

Here is his buddy. Also legit player.

http://www.pokertableratings.com/fulltilt-player-search/Urnotindanger2

[Rezod21]

Graph is better for people like me who will be blocked at work tomorrow. lol Uploaded with ImageShack.us