Cardplayer.com have released an excerpt from Phil Hellmuth’s book ‘Deal me in’, which documents the trials and tribulations of 20 poker players. This week focused on Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot, who pulled no punches in documenting his tumultuous rise to poker stardom.
It seems Ulliot’s youth epitomised the sordid underbelly of the gambling world. Before poker, Ulliot amassed a fortune through sports betting and pool. These underhand activities confined him to prison, where he earned a reputation as a tough cookie.
The Devilfish describes how when a fellow inmate irked him he ‘jumped on him and popped him on the head with a 10-kilo weight’. It seems Ulliot had murder in mind, noting how, ‘had the guard not stopped me, I would have had hit that guy again with the bigger weight, and who knows, I’d probably still be in prison today.’ In a candid assessment of his youth, Ulliot states, ‘I was a bit of a bastard’.
It seems inappropriate behaviour has plagued the Devilfish all his life. Only recently, a fellow player blog by BOND18 documented some crude shenanigans at a party, at the WPT in Tunica back in 2004.