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. Devilfish Ulliott first won money in a noted poker tournament in 1993. Over the following years, Ulliott worked on his tournament game to the extent that, during 1996, he won £100,000 in a two-week period at The Vic. His success at that time led to him and Whitaker going to Las Vegas, Nevada for the first time. Ulliott took £10,000 with him on the trip, and was around even, until he entered the $500 pot limit Omaha event of the 1997 Four Queens Poker Classic. When the event reached the heads-up stage, numerous Vietnamese-American followers of Men Nguyen supported the latter by cheering "Go on the Master" at him. In response, Whitaker cheered Ulliott on by cheering "Go on the Devilfish." The nickname was thought up by Stephen Au-Yeung early 1997, who ran a poker game that Ulliott had frequented in Birmingham UK, who later sold him the website DevilFishPoker.com in 2005; a devilfish (or fugu) is a poisonous fish that can kill when ingested, if not properly prepared. Ulliott reduced Nguyen's stack to one chip, and the tournament director insisted upon still taking a one-hour scheduled break, over Nguyen's protests. Ulliott turned to Nguyen and said, "We’re taking the break, and in all fairness to you, I think you should go upstairs and think about your tactics." Ulliott went on to win, and the headlines the next day read, Devilfish devours the Master. Since the event, Ulliott claimed that the event was only of significance for defining his nickname. Prior to earning the nickname, Ulliott had been referred to as Dave the Clock because he used a grandfather clock as a buy-in to a local game where he knew a furniture dealer was playing. 1997 World Series of Poker Ulliott arrived at the 1997 World Series of Poker (WSOP) with $200,000, but lost it all on cash games and tournament buy-ins. He borrowed over $70,000 more, but lost this too, burning some bridges in the process. He scraped together a buy-in for the $2,000 pot limit Texas hold 'em event, where he reached heads-up against fellow Englishman Chris Truby. In the final hand, Ulliott got all of his money