How Doug Polk Won a $300k Pot Vs. a Billionaire

(Photo: WSOP.com)

Knowing when to bluff in poker is a critical skill, and the old saying that you should never try to bluff a billionaire seems to have some sound reasoning behind it, the moneybags often having much more cash than poker knowledge and more than happy to call you down with middle pair!

However, when Doug Polk found himself up against Paul Phua, that wasn’t quite the case – the ‘world’s biggest bookmaker’ Phua having learned the game the hard way against some of the world’s best players out in Macau and becoming a very good player in the process.

(Photo: Paulphuapoker.com)

Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk, as is his style, rips into the commentators more than his fellow players or opponent, although it’s all in the name of comedy really. And to be honest, his skill level and poker analysis makes a lot of people look like complete amateurs – myself included!

Anyway, the hand between Polk and Phua during a high stakes cash game at the Aussie Millions a couple of years back is actually an incredibly insightful one – if you can ignore the fact that they have $800,000+ between them on the table.

Being able to bluff at these levels takes more nerve than I could ever possess at the tables, and to be honest it could only ever work against someone who also has a very good knowledge of poker - level 3 or 4 thinking isn’t likely to enter the mind of a level 1 player who thinks:

"I have a good hand and I’m going all the way with it!”

Polk’s life seems to be a never-ending story of poker success and social media, his non-stop posting and playing tiring for me to even contemplate never mind copy, but as always his podcast and training segments are long enough to be instructive without ever becoming boring.

His popularity, therefore, is well-deserved in my humble opinion and his tweet of the ‘billionaire bluff’ yesterday had already garnered over 40,000 views before I even got to it, helped no doubt by his 31.4kTwitter followers…

They say you aren't supposed to bluff billionaires, but I gave it a try anyway in the new Poker Hands. https://t.co/hdw2nT3nC8pic.twitter.com/EG94MDVQ5f

— gN Doug Polk (@DougPolkPoker) February 13, 2017

Anyway, if you’re desperate to find out just how to bluff an billionaire off a premium hand, watch Polk’s video and prepare to be impressed! And hats off to Phua too for not getting stacked in the process, although he could doubtless afford it, but perhaps he’s been getting lessons from Tom Dwan!