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Dave Ulliot - Devilfish |
Last updated October 2008 |
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Dave Ulliot is well-suited to the tension of high stakes poker games. He knows how to talk the talk and can bluff with the best. But in poker, a single card can ruin the best-laid plans. Having wound up Phil Hellmuth by being over an hour late to a Party Poker Premier League game, Ulliot found himself seated next to him at the table. Hellmuth with K♦ 2♦ called from the small blind position and Ulliot turned to face him. He looked at his cards which were K♥ 5♥ and decided to check. The flop was 10♣ 3♣ Q♣ and both players quickly checked. The turn was a J♣ and Ulliot gave a chuckle. Hellmuth, looking worried, bet 10,000 chips as Ulliot dryly told him, ‘Well, I know I’ve got the five of clubs pal, is that good?’ Ulliot matched his bet as Hellmuth bit his lower lip, a frown forming on his face. Ulliot sat back in his chair observing Hellmuth, revelling in the discomfort he was causing the other man. Hellmuth’s face had given the game away and it was obvious he was not holding any clubs. What should have been a tense moment as the final card was turned was dissipated when the 5♣ was drawn on the river. Everyone at the table including Ulliot burst into laughter as his bluff had dramatically failed. Hellmuth clapped his hands in relief and checked. ‘I’m playing the board,’ Ulliot said and the pot was split. ‘I was going to take that right off you until she spun that on me,’ Ulliot observed. The rivalry between the two would last throughout the Party Poker heats and Hellmuth would get lucky each time. Once he hit a straight with 7♥ 5♥ against A♠ 8♠ and another time beat Ulliot’s pocket aces with pocket nines. ‘Have you ever seen such a lucky guy in your life?’ Ulliot asked before blurting out some rather stronger sentiments.
Dave Ulliot grew up on a council estate in Hull and played cards with his mother and father at the kitchen table from an early age. Uninterested in education, he left school at fifteen without qualifications and went to work making trophies for a company called G K Beaulah's. Soon after his father took him to a bookmakers and he won the first bet he placed on a horse with odds of fifty-to-one. His work breaks began to become dominated by gambling, either on the horses or at the card game he had recently learnt, poker. However, gambling began to take over and he was sacked from his job when he was caught skiving off of work to go to the races. What followed was a life of crime as part of a team of safe crackers. At first things went smoothly with everyone in on the scam, the police were bribed and the shop-keepers got their insurance payouts. But after some time, arrests were made and Ulliot ended up in jail, spending his twenty-first birthday in solitary confinement. After he was released he went back to his lawbreaking ways and was arrested for armed robbery though released. Later he was involved in a fight and imprisoned again for eighteen months in 1982. When he had finished serving his sentence this time, he got married for a second time and went on the straight and narrow. Ulliot and his new wife Mandy opened a pawnbrokers shop with the winnings from his gambling which over time, developed into a jewellery shop. He tried to continue with the poker and race betting on the side but few people invited him to games as he would usually win and he was banned from the bookmakers for a similar reason.
In 1990, Ulliot met Gary Whitaker and the pair began travelling with each other to games around the country where Whitaker would put up money in return for a stake in the winnings. He also accompanied him to private games that were often played in dubious surroundings. Ulliot used to carry a gun with him to these games and once fired it into the air to scare off a group of defeated players who were ready to jump him for his winnings. In 1993, he had his first taste of tournament play and began to play regularly at the Victoria Casino in London. He remained successful in cash games too and Stevie Au-Young, one of the organisers of one particular game he frequented, likened Ulliott to a devilfish, a notoriously difficult to prepare fish that is poisonous enough to kill if not cooked properly. A few weeks later, Ulliot found himself in his first Las Vegas heads-up in the Pot Limit Omaha Four Queens Poker Classic against Men Nguyen. Nguyen’s supporters were encouraging him with cries of ‘Go on the Master.’ In response, Whitaker, who was at the rail, shouted ‘Go on the Devilfish,’ and after Ulliot took the title, the moniker stuck.
Just three months later he won a World Series of Poker bracelet, at pot limit hold’em. It remains his only WSOP bracelet to date, though he has come close on several occasions, finishing second four times and third twice. In 1999, he became a household name in Britain when he won the first series of the poker show Late Night Poker. The programme was the first to use ‘hole-cams’ which were cameras that showed the players’ cards whilst the hand was in play. It cemented the popularity of poker in the UK and an unprecedented 1.5 million people watched Ulliot’s win. Since then, Ulliot has had success on both sides of the Atlantic, including victories at the British and French Opens and four titles in tournaments affiliated to the World Poker Tour. His biggest cash finish was in 2007 at the Five Diamond World Poker Doyle Brunson Classic when his third place finish earned Ulliot $674,500.
Ulliot has been honoured with the European Poker Lifetime achievement award and has also written his autobiography entitled ‘Swimming with the Devilfish.’ He used to be a regular at Ultimatebet.com but now has his own website, Devilfish.com where he hosts the ‘Fight the Fish’ challenge. He is also a keen guitarist and pianist and croons in the style of Elvis Presley, as he showed when he sang live at Jennifer Harman’s charity poker tournament. He still owns the jewellery business but poker is his primary earnings and he is the most successful British player having won over $4millon. Still, some habits die hard and despite accumulating vast legitimate earnings, he has been known to carry his winnings in polythene bags. Unfortunately, that did once lead him to throw away $40,000 in a Paris wheelie bin and return home with a similar looking bag of rubbish.
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