A Weekend With the Devilfish

What does Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott have in common with Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Diego Maradonna, W.B. Yeats, and Kermit the Frog?

The answer is that they have all addressed the world famous Oxford Union, and here’s how the Devilfish joined that elite band of legends.

It’s Saturday morning in Oxford. The top floor of the Union has become the ‘poker room’ for the day. I hear my phone ring — it’s the “Devilfish.”
“I’m driving to Oxford in my Hummer. Where can I park?” And so begins one of the most memorable weekends of my life.

We greet Dave and his girlfriend Jade at The Randolph Hotel and amble our way back over to the poker room where several games are in full swing. The contest is soon graced by more musical accompaniment with the World Series of Poker bracelet winner and England’s most successful poker player. It doesn’t take long, however, before both Dave and Jade are embroiled in poker game action themselves. Devilfish opts for 20p/40p Omaha, generally his preferred game (even if the stakes are not) and everybody around enjoys a good lesson from the super-aggressive poker master.

The atmosphere is buzzing, the bar is open, Devilfish is in the house. What more could you ask for from a Saturday afternoon? The weekend’s main event is Devilfish’s Q & A at 8.30 p.m. and while the lads take Dave and Jade to wine and dine at one of Oxford’s swankier joints, I go over my few words of introduction.

This is the second time I have met Dave Ulliott. After he was unable to make the very first Oxford Cup student/celebrity poker tournament back in 2003, Dave invited a few of us from the Oxford University Poker Society to join him for dinner at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London. Ever since, I have been sending him my annual Oxford Cup invitation, and now, six years on, we’ve finally found a mutually convenient date, before he jets off back to Las Vegas for the 40th World Series of Poker at the end of the month.  

As the seats fill up and we await Devilfish and his entourage, members of the audience are treated to a screening of Dave’s How To Become A Poker Millionnaire DVD. We also have a stack of Des Wilson’s Swimming with The Devilfish books available on the side.   

Graced by a True Champ  
It truly is an honour to introduce Dave Ulliott to tonight’s audience, and I run through some amazing statistics from his career before the Q&A kicks off. Dave is 35th on the all-time worldwide poker money list and on an annual basis has been in the top 100 consistently — 12 out of the last 13 years. He won a WSOP bracelet in 1997 (and has cashed a further 25 times in WSOP events), was the first Late Night Poker champion in 1999, and won the World Poker Tour Open in 2003 for $590k. Another World Poker Tour third place finish in 2007 earned him his biggest payout of over $670k, and recent wins include the Euro Finals of Poker and the Irish Poker Championship side event, both in January of this year.
 
As he takes to the stage, this is the moment that Oxford poker players have been waiting for all these years. Prompted by a vast array of questions on poker, and life in general, Dave begins by explaining how he earned his nickname. During a game with some Chinese players, “where they were using a pig’s head as an air-freshener,” one opponent described Dave as a Devilfish — a poisonous dish that can kill you if not prepared properly. Four months later during Dave’s first trip to Las Vegas, he ended up heads-up in a tournament against the famous Vietnamese player Men Nguyen. Local supporters were shouting Nguyen’s nickname ‘The Master’ from the rail, and so Dave’s friend Gary Whitaker countered this with “Go on the Devilfish!” Newspaper headlines the following morning — after Dave had taken down the title — read ‘Devilfish devours the Master,’ and the name has stuck ever since.
 
Dave didn’t praise too many other poker players on the circuit but, when pressed, said that Chip Reese would be among his most rated players. If he had to choose someone to play for his life, “It would probably be a cross between Donnacha O’Dea and Sammy Farha.”  

Technical advice included never playing with more than five percent of your bankroll in a session, adopting a “selectively aggressive” playing style, continuation betting the pot (“it’s got to be the full amount”) and keeping bets consistent (three times the big blind being a good standard measure).
 
Keep Your Friends Close  
Dave rarely feels sorry for opponents and has no qualms about taking money off people he doesn’t particularly like. On the other side however, he never wants to make a guy broke and clearly is softer on his friends. “I was playing James Woods in the WSOP, and James is a really nice guy, a good friend of mine. I flop top set of sevens against his overpair, two kings. I just said, ‘fold your hand, fold your hand.’”  

His hardest laydown has been a four-of-a-kind against Jon Shoreman, who had a winning straight flush. Early poker inspirations include The Cincinnati Kid and playing variations of poker with his parents. He says, “I used to work in a trophy shop. I spent half my breaks hitting a boxing bag I had put up, and half my breaks losing at cards.” Dave is also very open about his criminal past and didn’t advocate it to anyone. “Sewing mailbags on my 21st birthday wasn’t much fun,” he said.
 
The session has us all engrossed, and Dave is also clearly a master at playing a crowd. His manner is unique, enigmatic, and his dry humour puts a smile on everyone’s face. Afterwards, Dave kindly offers to sign copies of Swimming with The Devilfish and receives a rapturous round of applause.
 
Dave and Jade then head a mass pilgrimage to the The Bridge nightclub, where we party into the early hours.

Meet the Parents  
Since they have decided to stay in Oxford for the whole weekend, they join me and my family for lunch at The Trout country pub in Godstow the next day. Devilfish, being the extremely generous man that I’ve come to know, even insists on picking up the tab. But this is not all. With a characteristic wink and a beaming smile, Dave has another surprise in store — in return for a lift to London and back in the evening, he asks me and my sister Suzanne to join them in seeing Eric Clapton live at the Royal Albert Hall.

Lunch then affords us all the chance to hear some more priceless anecdotes. “Poker used to be all about the money for me,” Dave says. “I was in a big game in Vegas once and there was an earthquake. I wouldn’t let anyone at my table leave. I just wanted to carry on playing. Then there was one time I was playing a guy, Charlie, at six-card Omaha…”  Charlie hadn’t won all night and in this one hand Dave bluffs all-in at the end. Charlie falls back on his chair and his cards become exposed — he’s holding the nuts.  Dave, trying to spot an out in this situation, asks “What happens now?” Charlie shouts to his brother, “Call that bet!” before collapsing, dead.  Later on, recalling the hand with friends, Dave asks “How unlucky was I in that hand?” His friends point out “What about him? He wins one hand all night and he dies!” We were shocked that in that spot his brother actually called the bet. Dave laughs, “Yeah, I didn’t even think about that.”  

And so for me the weekend ends with a flavour of the VIP lifestyle, care of Devilfish. The Royal Albert Hall is packed to capacity for Eric Clapton, and afterwards, I drop Dave and Jade back to their hotel, only to hear that they are soon off out again clubbing in Oxford.

I spent a quality weekend with a couple of really lovely, funny, generous, and most energetic people. On behalf of everyone in Oxford I would like to thank Dave Ulliott for coming to play and speak with us. We’ll be rooting for him in the World Series.