Interview with Jungleman
Below are excerpts from the conversation with my customer, legendary Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates.
(Photo: Rachel Kay Winter)
Oleg: Let’s start from the beginning. Timofey (Trueteller) introduced you to me in 2017. You were already an extremely successful player. Why did you decide to make the deal with me and start using my solvers?
Jungleman: Well, obviously, it would make me more successful. I thought there could be things I could learn that I couldn’t learn without solvers.
Oleg: For which games did you use my products?
Jungleman: For all games… Omahas, No-Limit Single Draw, Triple Draw, Razz. Mostly for Heads-up. Ring games helped a bit, but Heads-up was where it really shined.
Oleg: In which games did you get the biggest winrate improvement?
Jungleman: No-Limit Single Draw helped me become pretty good, especially because you can’t play it online. Razz was also very useful.
Oleg: Give me an estimate on how much studying with my solvers increased your win rate per game?
Jungleman: For No-Limit Single Draw, it took me from being break even/losing small to winning decently, 2.5–3 big blinds / 100.
2–7 Triple Draw improved my Heads-up play by about 1 big blind/100, less for Ring [Commentary: 6-max Triple Draw solver became available only in 2024]
For Razz, it added about 25%.
Oleg: Did you study with my solvers before your back-to-back WSOP $50k Players’ Championship victories in 2021 & 2022?
Jungleman: I used the Single Draw one quite a bit, for sure. Limit O8 one I used a little bit. I didn’t use Triple Draw that much, I already had a big intuition for it.
Oleg: How many hours did you spend on solvers with me?
Jungleman: Maybe 100 plus.
Oleg: On all games in total?! That’s very little
Jungle: I didn’t use it that much, but I have a lot of poker experience and learn very fast. I got most value from the first 100 hours
Oleg: When a person starts using a solver and encounters a counter-intuitive decision, they start to doubt whether the solver is correct. What convinced you that the solver is right?
Jungleman: Looking into the visual system and seeing the ranges made sense.
Oleg: Which area of the game did the solver give you the most improvement?
Jungleman: Preflop for certain games, and the folding / value-bet thresholds for certain spots. It also helped a lot with bluffs and bluff catchers, both for blockers aspect and strength thresholds.
Oleg: What was your workflow with the solvers, how did you study?
Jungleman: I mostly played against it, and then I knew I didn’t know anything. I’d look at some spots a little bit. I had to kind of freestyle it, and play a bit. I also filtered for certain spots. Did a mix of those things.
Oleg: Did you study with anything else before the Players Championship?
Jungleman: Yeah, I had another arrangement with someone who had some software. We realized some things were wrong, but it helped plug leaks.
Oleg: How do I and my products compare to other software makers?
Jungleman: Mostly pretty good. Sometimes difficult to use or a little laggy, but for mixed games, it was top quality.
Oleg: If you could give yourself advice back in time about the solvers, what would you say?
Jungleman: Find good programmers earlier. Solvers could really expedite your growth. I wish I had found someone like you earlier
