The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is the right phone number, an extra seat pulled up and a fresh rack of cranberries for the afternoon poker news big game. Today in the 3-Bet we find Dan "Jungleman12" Cates naming names and lamenting his current seven-figure financial limbo, Dan Bilzerian getting racked up at the Aria in Las Vegas and Ben "Bttech86" Tollerene opens up about his path to self-improvement.
1) Cates: Perky Owes $1.9m, Viffer Still Weird
Everyone knows it's hard to make money at the top of the poker world. It's even tougher when you can't get your hands on money you've already made. Dan "Jungleman12" Cates is one of the best high-stakes heads-up No-Limit Hold'em players ever but, from the durrrr Challenge to getting shut out of big live games to cross-books gone bad, he's had a rough road actually getting money into his pockets.
In Part 2 of a new interview with iGaming.org Cates shares a few of his problems with unforthcoming poker debtors including David "PerkyShmerky" Lerner, David "Viffer" Peat and, of course, Tom Dwan. There's also the small matter of a large % of his net worth locked up at Full Tilt Poker. Add it up and it's millions of dollars in poker limbo for Cates - although things are looking good for his Full Tilt money.
“It’s like I’m in limbo right now with all these things. It’s rather unfortunate, and the only good thing is that I have plenty of money. Right now though, I can’t play the stakes I was playing pre-Black Friday comfortably without selling a bit of action. People underestimate variance a lot, but I can play pretty high comfortably." - It's a great interview with one of our favorite poker players.
2) Bilzerian Shows Off $2.5m Rack at Aria
Speaking of the big games Cates says he's struggled to get into... The Aria in Las Vegas regularly features some pretty astonishing - and, reportedly, soft - games but unless you have the right kind of currency (literally and figuratively) it can be tough to get your seat. A guy who's got both? Millionaire playboy Dan Bilzerian, who let us know he was one of the chosen few again this weekend with an Instagram of his $2.5m chip rack and a fitting quote:
-- "Say what you want about my shitty personality, my credit is good"
3) Ben Tollerene: Why Can't it Be Me?
One of the most surprising juxtapositions we find regulary in poker is how confident/tremendous some can be in their poker game while struggling to deal with the basics of day-to-day self-esteem and anxiety management.
EPT winner Ben Wilinofsky has written extensively on his struggle with depression and now Ben "Bttech86" Tollerene - one of the best high-stakes online poker pros in the world - is opening up about some of his same struggles.
Two years on from his low point, Tollerene says in a new blog post, he's hoping to provide relief for others dealing with this stuff by sharing his thoughts. Drawing from a couple of inspiring sources Tollerene says meditation and making himself vulnerable were two of the key steps in the process:
"One of my favorite quotes in the last year came from another poker playing friend of mine. He told me, and maybe you can guess who he is by his use of language, 'Yo Ben, look at it like this – nobody knows how to act. Everyone just looks at other people and does the same shit that they’re doing.'
"This was big for me, because when I started to think about what he said I realized that someone out there is starting this stuff. The way that we speak, dress, the music we listen to, the things we buy and do, someone is out there choosing stuff and popularizing it by people following their choices. The next thought was, why can’t it be me?"
