David "Devilfish" Ulliott who has died aged 61 from colon cancer lived life to the full.
He grew up in a small council house in a working class area of Hull where he had early introductions to gambling, a fledgling boxing career, was the wrong side of the tracks via crime as a Safecracker, two spells in jail, homelessness, setting up as a Pawnbroker and then, ultimately, discovering Poker.
In the poker world Devilfish started off in small games in hull, ventured out into cash games in Leeds and then onto the UK circuit. From there, having amassed a £100,000 bankroll (in 1997 money) reputedly over a two week period at the Vic, he went to Vegas and the World Series and experienced the extreme highs and lows of a relatively old school gambler meeting a Poker world moving out of the back rooms into respectability.
In 1997 Devilfish won the Four Queens Omaha Classic on his second trip across, and cleared a six figure profit on his trip. A year later, he entered a WSOP event $260,000 in the hole including $60,000 to a bondsman he happened to have befriended on the trip. Pressure on, he won the last event he can enter with case borrowed money, got out of it and won a bracelet.
From the first trips to Vegas, Devilfish came into many of our lives via the seminal "Late Night Poker" series which took poker in the UK into the mainstream. In 1999, Ulliott was one of 40 players to appear in the first series of the Late Night Poker television series, the first poker show to use hole cam technology. Ulliott dominated the first final from the first hand and won the £40,000 first prize.
Ulliott's win was watched by over 1.5m people (a huge figure for the channel) and his character at the table was part of the reason for the renewal of the series, which went on to run for five more series, with Ulliott appearing in them all. Ulliott also made the final table in the second series. Dave was one of the main reasons a generation of players took up poker.
In January 2003, Ulliott won the World Poker Tour first season's Jack Binion World Poker Open. Ulliott outlasted a field of 160 players, beat Phil Ivey heads up and won $589,175. Mike Sexton has referred to his win as "still the most dominating performance in WPT history."
In the UK, Ulliott became such a household name that he was name-dropped in EastEnders, and in the inaugural edition of PokerPlayer magazine, Ulliott was not only on the front cover, but also voted No. 9 on their (worldwide) Top 10 Poker Legends List.
After his successes a decade or more ago there followed in poker terms some years in the wilderness and he no longer frequented UK tournaments but in the last three years he was back with a deep run in the EPT London main event and an EPT High-Roller final table too amongst a series of strong performances. He was at DTD regularly too and I would regularly watch and listen as recreational players spoke of their awe at being on the same table as Dave.
Aside from being back on the felt, his personality was as huge as ever with the wise-cracks at the table and the guitar at the tournament parties.
It was perhaps easy to forget when in the midst of his persona what a terrific poker player he was, and what a huge role he had to play in the growth of not just UK but global poker.
He was, simply, one of a kind.
He leaves his wife, Anpaktita who he married in November 2011 and eight children.
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