Doug Polk Breaks Twitch Cash Record

(Photo: Sciencenode.org)

Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk isn’t exactly shy about proclaiming his poker genius to the world, but yesterday’s tweet was a boast which nobody could complain about – his $455,000 2nd place in the WCOOP high-roller being the biggest sum ever won during a live stream!

Broke the twitch cash record yest and managed to negotiate an additional 2,400 buyins for $1 sngs in my bankroll challenge #WCOOP2016

— gN Doug Polk (DougPolkPoker) September 20, 2016

Polk had held that honor until April this year, when he was overtaken by the amusingly title ‘SolidPenis’ whose $279,000 Spin&Go win doesn’t really fall into the same category anyway – although live-streaming a massive poker lottery win probably deserves its own place in history!

Polk, however, has two WSOP bracelets, can boast millions in live and online wins and currently fronts one of the most-watched poker podcasts with his new ‘Polker News’ being essential watching for poker fans everywhere.

His record-breaking Twitch win, however, was something else – Twitch itself congratulating him:

"Congrats to @DougPolkPoker for the largest cash in @TwitchPoker history!”

His own friends at Polk’s training website Upswing Poker were quick to join in the celebrations, tweeting:

Upswing founder DougPolkPoker Sets New Twitch Poker MTT Record With $455k Score https://t.co/ieVp78qmbypic.twitter.com/2kMjzQVx3I

— UpswingPoker (@UpswingPoker) September 20, 2016

The $10k buy-in event, number 53 in the annual online shindig known as the World Championship of Onljne Poker (WCOOP) also had a boast to share – the $3,560,000 prize-pool almost doubling the $2million guarantee and fielding 356 players.

Polk, sharing his trials and tribulations against the world’s biggest online names throughout, topped 23,000 viewers on his Twitch streaming of the final table – although as he tweeted, nodding such a number isn’t easy!

Taken from my Snapchat story (wcgrider). Twitch chat was absolutely out of hand yesterday. pic.twitter.com/wrDwq7x4XW

— gN Doug Polk (@DougPolkPoker) September 20, 2016

The final table eventually saw Polk chopping three ways with Britain’s Phil ‘Grindation’ McAllister and ’€urop€an’, a Finnish pro who is no stranger to big wins at the WCOOP.

McAllister eventually took down the top spot –and $584,415 - while ‘€urop€an’ scooped -$459,529 for 3rd spot – a bit more than Polk’s payday, although Polk was credited with 2nd place.

Polk’s new cash record on Twitch has also seen him vault into 2nd place on the Twitch poker rankings, behind the maestro of the Twitch arena Jason Somerville, and the great news for poker fans is that ‘poker’ itself is now in at number 5 in the overall Twitch stream rankings.

For Polk it’s not the money which gets his juices flowing – as evidenced by this Upswing Poker tweet earlier today…

The absolute MOST excited you will ever see a high stakes poker pro get about 9 dollars↓↓ https://t.co/gWmpE3snvB

— UpswingPoker (@UpswingPoker) September 20, 2016

As my colleague Malcolm Clarke shared last month, Polk embarked upon a unique bankroll challenge, “which he is playing exclusively in Nevada on WSOP.com and live streaming via his popular Twitch channel, Upswing Poker. His self-imposed task is to turn an initial $100 into a much larger $10,000 and the poker world has been speculating on how long this will take him, with estimates ranging from a few days to a few months.”

Polk explained the reasons for this challenge himself, stating:

"I took on this challenge because I want to prove that, even in today’s tough online poker ecosystem, a hopeful micro stakes grinder can still run up a bankroll. The days of the 2003 poker boom may be behind us, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up and blame our failure on the system.”

Although Polk isn’t everybody’s cup of tea – his sometimes brash nature causing a few problems with fellow pros including Jason Mercier and Daniel Negreanu – the general poker public seem to love him and he is certainly one of the most interesting, successful and marketable players on the planet right now.

Quite how anyone plans to break his new Twitch record remains to be seen – but it would seem that only Polk himself has any real chance to do so - perhaps starting at the WCOOP Main Event which has a guaranteed $10million prize-fund, $1.5million guaranteed for the winner.