A Man Turned From Nothing in to Everything

Dave will go down in the history books as one of the best English poker players of all time. He was born on January 4th 1954 in Hull, UK. His father was a World War II paratrooper that became a truck driver. John grew up in a small working class neighborhood. In his early years he was not enthusiastic about school and decided to leave at the age of only 15 without any kind of certificate of education. After he had gotten a job making trophies his father had taken him to his first horse race. After winning there it started up his gambling career as he would often go there with coworkers during lunch.

Shortly after at the young age of 19 Dave got involved with a safe-cracking team. Eventually the team was caught and he spent time in prison. Shortly after his release he got arrested for armed robbery but released with no conviction after 3 days. He ended up getting a job at a timber yard but also got back into safe-cracking while working and gambling. When he was 28 he was arrested again for a fight outside of a night club and served another 18 months in prison. While in prison he met a fellow criminal who was going to carry out a bank robbery. However in a life changing incident, the day it was supposed to happen, John was arrested and John’s wife told Dave to go straight. Dave met his second wife and has been clean ever since that day.

During his younger years as a poker player he Dave was so effective at the game many people refused to play with him. After beating his parents on several occasions he started playing with coworkers. After his coworkers lost all of their money to Dave they refused to play with him as well. By this time he had became friends with Jack Gardner who owned a casino. However, Dave was shut out again because none of the players would sit at his table after being continuously crushed. Following the events of the casino he and a friend he met at the casino would go to all of the betting shops. He was banned from all of the shops after constantly winning as well.

Shortly before going to play professionally, Dave started a jewelry business that he still runs today. He even started playing in cash games a few times a week. This was short lived as well since he kept winning too much money from his opponents. Finally in 1996 he got his big break. When facing Men “The Master” Nguyen in a heads up game Dave’s long time friend Gary Witaker cheered on Dave by saying “Go on the Devilfish”. Since then the name has stuck as well as his reputation for being a poker player. The Devilfish has won over $5.2 million all together in his professional career.