morris: I strongly disagree with you saying Dwan is better than Cates, how so?
I didn't put it exactly that way, I said Dwan has had better results than Cates. But okay fine, I'll bite -- as we know, over the long term, results do favor the better players.
So how about point me to something that shows Cates has had better results than Dwan? Or even close to Dwan? Please back up your assertion with evidence rather than your liking one over the other and your questionable perception of their popularity among poker pros.
Since I'm asking you to provide your evidence, I'll put forth mine. The issue here of course with cash players is that their live winnings aren't all publicly reported or acknowledged, and since BF and the drying up of nosebleed online games, both Dwan and Cates have primarily transitioned to live games.
We can however look at a few different things to draw some conclusions as to how their results might compare.
First of all, let's start with their PTR earnings from FullTilt, which is where the highest online stakes were played, and where both made their marks on the poker world.
PTR FullTilt Earnings:
Dwan = $5,276,739
Cates = $4,194,143
Interesting note: Dwan's peak FT earnings were ~$9M, so he lost $4M before it went down. As I recall, Cates took about $1.1M of that in the incomplete Durrr Challenge. Also interesting to note that Cates played 3x as many
hands and has a higher bb/100 despite the lower earnings, due I'm sure to the lower stakes he played. Cates also has a 97/100 Tilt factor compared to Dwan's 52/100, which isn't surprising as Dwan is cool as a cucumber at all times.
Okay, so let's look at their tournament results. Live tournaments are tracked fairly accurately, and although neither are known as big tourney players, both certainly have results. And neither are skewed by a single huge win, like Jamie Gold's or Antonio Esfandiari's would be. I'll note that even I was surprised at Dwan's results here, as I didn't remember him as being very successful in tourneys.
According to GPI and Hendon Mob, Dwan smokes Cates in virtually every category tracked. Total money earned, total popularity, you name it.
GPI Index:
Dwan = Currently #13962, Highest #147
Cates = Currently #29943, Highest #21491
GPI/HM Earnings:
Tom Dwan = $2,213,937
Daniel Cates = $572,697
HM All Time Money List Rank:
Tom Dwan = 380th
Daniel Cates = 1,876th
HM Popularity Rank:
Tom Dwan = 13th
Daniel Cates = 655th
Finally, we can look at the reports from the cash games they play, which of course isn't written down anywhere so we must base it off of hearsay and speculation. Dwan has been playing in the Macau games now almost every day for going on a couple years -- he *moved* there, it's now his legal residence. Do you think if he was bleeding millions and hurting that bad, he'd still be there? He's making millions off these guys. A $3M swing can occur in a single game at the stakes these guys play (which have reportedly reached as high as $18K/$36K, higher than anything ever played online, to my knowledge), while he's probably earned 10x that or more from these guys. Now let's look at Cates. I'm sure he's had some live cash success because he is an awesome player, but I can't recall hearing of anything significant. Honestly the only thing I recall hearing from Cates since BF was his involvement in the Lock Girah scandal and the beating his reputation took from supporting Girah and MA'ing on Girah's account. So I'm not sure where your view of his popularity in the poker community is coming from.
So there's my argument. I said Cates was a great player and I certainly stand by that, but show me how you back up your assertion that Dwan is "overrated" compared to Cates, and how Cates is such a better player than Dwan?
Now it's quite possible that Cates is Dwan's kryptonite -- sometimes those dynamics develop between players, where no matter what, one cannot beat the other, but outside of that there is simply no basis I can find to conclude Cates is the better player, if you're going to measure their success by their overall results
