Doug Polk

Californian Polk, born at the end of 1988 in Pasadena, has not only become one of the world’s best players, but also a leading light in the poker vlogging and training worlds.

Californian Polk, born at the end of 1988 in Pasadena, has not only become one of the world’s best players, but also a leading light in the poker vlogging and training worlds.

He started out as an eSports player before poker took over his life while at college, where he gave up his degree to concentrate on poker full-time after running up an initial $20 deposit into more than $10K.

Within a few years he had become a specialist in heads-up NLHE and challenged the king of heads-up, Ben ‘Sauce123’ Sulsky to a series of matches totalling more than 15,000 hands in the autumn of 2013, at the end of which Polk was up a staggering $740,000. This also entitled him to the $100,000 side-stake for winning.

His online game was honed as part of the self-styled ‘Evil Empire’ crew alongside fellow high-stakes players Ryan Fee and Jason Mo, with Donger Kim and Jason Les as close associates, the crew sharing ideas and strategies to conquer the world of poker.

Although primarily noted for his online mastery under the name ‘WCGRider’, Polk’s live tournament winnings also stand at over $5million, and in 2015 he started up the training site Upswing Poker along with close friend Ryan Fee.

He was also part of the 4-man team to face the AI poker program Claudico in the first of several challenge matches, emerging as the biggest winner – although more recently a superior version of Claudico gained its revenge, Polk not being part of the losing team on that occasion.

Around the same time, Polk decided to start streaming and vlogging – and his intro ‘What’s up guys, Doug Polk here’ has become synonymous with excellent hand analysis and rather controversial views on fellow pros and events in the poker world’.

Polk’s outspokenness on certain subjects has led to many calling him arrogant, but he has developed a huge following in spite of, or perhaps because of, very public disagreements with the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier and others.

His beef with Negreanu started when Daniel claimed he could beat the $25/50 NLHE stakes with only 2 weeks of practice, which Polk described as “naïve”, whereas in Mercier’s case the falling out centred around Polk having him tagged as a ‘bad reg’ in his online tournament notes.

More recently he came under fire from English pro Luke Schwartz, who claimed among other things that Polk is a losing player online and therefore his training courses on Upswing Poker are a ‘scam’.

Read More
7 years ago8,819BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Coach Doug vs. the Poker Supercomputer

Carnegie Mellon is on a mission to develop an AI that can defeat the best humans in the world at Heads Up No Limit Texas Hold'em. ...

7 years ago21,466BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Doug Polk Online High Stakes Heads Up With Ben Sulsky

While warming up in the WCOOP $10,000 Heads Up Tournament, Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky sits in at Doug Polk's $50/$100 heads up Zoom tab...

7 years ago26,272joeingram1,

Published 7 years ago

Doug Polk vs Ben Tollerene Dispute

Doug Polk and Ben Tollerene recently got into a dispute on the TwoPlusTwo Poker forums over a business/personal relationship gone ...

7 years ago76,347BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Phil Hellmuth Is LIVID!

In this high stakes cash game hand from Poker After Dark, Phil Hellmuth butts heads with Brandon Adams. Phil claims to have a dead...

7 years ago6,282BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Poker Earnings LEAKED! How Much Money They Really Made!

It's Doug Polk's birthday, and he gets the best gift ever: unlimited access to player earnings at tracking site HighStakesDB.com! ...

7 years ago16,196BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Poker Hands - Colman Can't Believe Negreanu's Hand

Doug Polk analyses a hand from the $1million buy-in "Big One For One Drop" from the 2015 WSOP. Daniel Negreanu takes a very intere...

7 years ago7,233BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Poker Hands - Could You Fold This Set Against Negreanu?

Poker Hands is a series in which Doug Polk analyzes televised hands and shares his thoughts.Daniel Negreanu, 6-time World Series o...

7 years ago33,216BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Poker Hands - Fedor Holz Makes Moves In The Main Event

Doug Polk analyses a big hand Fedor Holz plays against Upeshka De Silva deep in the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event, and sha...

7 years ago15,232BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Poker Hands - Gordon Vayo Gets PUNKED

Imagine that you're heads up in the 2016 World Series of Poker Main event. Your opponent is Qui Nguyen, an aggressive gambler in a...

7 years ago4,991BestPokerVids,

Published 7 years ago

Poker Hands - Would You Bluff Patrik Antonius Here?

Patrik Antonius is put to the test as Doug Polk runs a massive bluff in this nosebleed stakes cash game played alongside the Aussi...

Live Poker Events, 9 years ago

Big One for One Drop Welcomes its Latest Participants – Including Doug ‘WCGRider’ Polk

Scheduled for June 29th, with the buy-in of $1,000,000, Big One for One Drop is the most expensive poker tournament on the planet. It first made its appearance during the WSOP of 2012, and while it

Doug 'WCGRider' Polk Bank Accounts Frozen

Highstakes player Doug Polk, also known under his online alias 'WCGRider' found himself in an unfortunate situation last week. Bank of America mistakenly froze his accounts in connection to financial

Weekly Highstakes Report: Doug Polk and Denoking Settling the Score, ‘Isildur1’ Struggling

Last week started in a unusally quiet fashion as HighStakes DB did not record any significant activity at the tables on Monday. Although reasons for this are uncertain, this was, as expected, only a

Dong Kim Issues Heads Up Challenge to Nick Frame

Big:E;verybody loves a good challenge, there’s nothing to debate about that. This is particularly true for the poker world where people are often much closer to the main protagonists and are

Man vs Machine - 50k Hands Update

Brains seem to be absolutely crushing the Artificial Intelligence so far, as they are up nearly $600k combined

Brains vs AI - Humans Book Decisive Victory Over Claudico

Artificial Intelligence 'Claudico' was defeated badly in the match against top HU specialists led by Doug Polk

World’s Best Heads Up Players

What better way to prove your worth than to challenge the best of the best in a head-to-head match? But who are the best of the best?

Online Poker , 7 years ago

Doug Polk Won a Massive Prize Last Night, and He Did it While Streaming Live!

Doug Polk won a Spring Championship of Online Poker tournament last night, and he streamed the whole thing, live, on Twtich.tv.

Live Poker Events, 7 years ago

Super HighRoller Bowl Special

There’s $15million up for grabs and there are 49 of the poker world’s biggest and best high-stakes players vying for a share of the spoils – and day 1 of the Super HighRoller Bowl from Las Vegas didn’t disappoint!

The Most Insane Final Table We Can Imagine

When it comes to the Main Event it’s the characters rather than the actual cards which tend to live on in memory – so this fantasy final table reflects that, pitting heroes against anti-heroes, with much more on the line than the $10million and the bracelet.