Dave Ulliott

He was later sent to Leeds Prison, where he was kept in isolation for 23 hours a day for the first two months of his nine-month sentence, which included his 21st birthday.

Not long after his release, he was arrested again for an armed robbery at an off-license, but was released three days later without charge.

Upon his release, he got a job at a timber yard.

Later, he again became involved in the safe-cracking team, while also working as a bouncer and gambling.

Ulliott was arrested again when he was 28 for a fight outside a nightclub, and served 18 months in Leeds and Durham Prisons.

Again he spent much time in an isolation block for 23 hours a day.

During this time, he met a criminal named John, with whom he planned to carry out a bank robbery upon his release.

However, on the day it was planned to happen, John was arrested by the regional crime squad, and Ulliott was advised by John's wife to "go straight".

Not long after Ulliott met his second wife, he decided to abstain from criminal activities.

Ulliott began playing poker with his parents as a young child and later learned three card brag at the age of 16, after being introduced to Hull's Fifty-One Club casino.

By the time of his second marriage, Ulliott was organising poker games in the back of his shop and dominating the home games of others to the extent that people stopped telling him where they were being held.

David A. "Devilfish" Ulliott (1 April 1954 – 6 April 2015), was an English professional gambler and poker player.

Formerly, Ulliott was a minor figure in the Hull underworld,.

He went on to become a World Series of Poker bracelet-winner, and a mainstay of televised poker.

At the poker table, he wore orange-tinted prescription sunglasses, a sharp suit (or leather jacket) and gold knuckleduster rings reading "Devil" and "Fish", which he made himself.

Ulliott was born in 1954 in Kingston upon Hull, England.

He grew up in a small council house in a working-class area.

Ulliott was left school at the age of 15.

After visiting the bookies with his father and winning his first bet at 50:1, he picked winners at horse racing with his colleagues during hot lunch breaks.

He was eventually fired from his job for taking an afternoon off to go to the races.

At the age of 19, Ulliott was involved in a fight on the way home from the Golden Nugget Pool Hall in Kingston upon Hull.

Ulliott was fought by five men and their wives (one of whom slashed his face with a steel comb), after protecting his younger brother.

He fought back and eventually returned home.

Ulliott later claimed that he was proud of the experience and the incident made him realise that he could not be beaten in a fight "inside".

Ulliott became involved in a safe-cracking team soon afterwards, after being advised by the rest of the team that everyone was involved in the operation, including the shops, which carried out insurance fraud, and the police, who turned a blind eye.

Together, they targeted tobacconists, off-licence, and garages.

On one occasion, when Ulliott lost over £5,000 at the bookies, he robbed that safe too, and took it home in a pram.

One of the team was eventually caught, and informed the police that Ulliott was involved.

He went on the run for a week, but was eventually caught.

Ulliott was confined to a small cell in Kingston upon Hull Police Station for three weeks.

At the end of 1990, he met Gary Whitaker, a cafe manager from Wakefield, at Napoleon's Casino, Leeds.

They travelled together to poker games six nights a week, and Whitaker placed bets for Ulliott after he was banned from all of William Hill's betting shops for successfully gambling £4,000 up to £70,000.

Whitaker went on to become Ulliott's regular driver as he took part in a regular game with Dave Colclough, John Shipley and Lucy Rokach, and held a 10% stake in his action.

When they first travelled to London (where the regular game at the time was lowball), Ulliott was forced to change his style of play as he found the players harder to bluff; he credits the experience for improving his game.

On one occasion in London, Ulliott lost a £60,000 pot to Donnacha O'Dea when the latter hit a two-outer against him, but made all the money back within 24 hours.

On another occasion, Ulliott played in five cities in a day, winning in each to earn £35,000.

When playing in private games, Ulliott often took a gun to ensure he would be able to leave a poker game with the winnings.

He fired it in the air one night to scare off some opponents who were planning to rob him of the money he had won from them.

Ulliott first won money in a noted poker tournament in 1993.

In 2017 he was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame.