Doug Polk
Doug Polk (nickname – “WCGRider”) is a former professional poker player who is recognized for specializing in No-Limit Hold’em. In poker, he is considered to be one of the most powerful heads-up players in the world.
Doug Polk Net Worth, Salary, Cars & Houses Doug Polk is an American professional poker player who has an estimated net worth of $10 million. Polk played under the alias WCGRider, specializing in heads-up No Limit hold'em. The most lucrative move of Doug Polk’s career may be dropping five buyins to Daniel Negreanu on Wednesday in his 25,000-hand heads-up challenge.
Biography
He was born in Pasadena, Polk. During his childhood, his family moved from California to Raleigh, North Carolina.
When he was 5, his father took the opportunity to teach him the game of chess. Doug said:
“He started off playing without a queen and two rooks, then once I would beat him he would slowly add pieces back in.”
He later added:
”By the time I was 9 years old, I was getting lessons from a grandmaster and my dad simply couldn’t beat me anymore.”
When he was fifteen, Doug set his sites on Warcraft 3 (a high fantasy real-time strategy video game released in July 2002, published and developed by Blizzard Entertainment), and his knack for strategy games allowed him to find success straight away.
He was actually a competitive Warcraft 3 electronic sports player competing at multiple World Cyber Games tournaments under the name T-Rider.
In 2007, Polk graduated from Wakefield High School. He also transitioned to poker.
After high school, he attended the University of North Carolina Wilmington, however, he soon found out that college wasn’t for him. During an interview, he declared:
“I dropped out in my first year to pursue poker full time. The moment I dropped out was one of my favorite poker moments.”
After he dropped out of college, Doug moved to Las Vegas to pursue his passion (poker).
He started playing $0.01/$0.02 stakes at PokerStars and ran a $20 deposit into $10,000. During this time, Doug described himself as a “breakeven rakeback pro.”
In 2009, he switched to the heads-up game and climbed quickly from a 2$/4$ limit to 50$/100$.
By 2013, Polk was considered one of the best online cash game players in heads-up no-limit hold’em.
In the same year, he challenged Ben ‘Sauce123’ Sulsky (an American professional poker player from Durham, New Hampshire who is considered the king of heads-up) to a series of matches totaling more than 15,000 hands.
In the end, Doug was up about $740,000. In addition, this entitled him to the $100,000 side-stake for winning.
in 2014, he won his first-ever World Series of Poker Bracelet.
In 2015, Doug was selected to play heads-up No-Limit Hold ’em against Claudico (an artificial intelligence computer program designed to play no-limit Texas Hold ’em – it was designed by Carnegie Mellon professor Tuomas Sandholm and his graduate students) along with professional poker players Bjorn Li, Jason Les, and Dong Kim.
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Each player was set to play 20,000 hands against bot Claudico for a team total of 80,000 hands. In the end, the human players ended up defeating the bot for 732,713 chips with Doug beating bot Claudico for 213,000.
In mid-2015, he started the poker training site Upswing Poker with Ryan Fee – fellow poker professional and longtime friend.
In 2016, he started a YouTube channel, named – Doug Polk Poker. He said:
”I realized that there wasn’t much future for me there and decided to transition into doing something that I love to do (make videos).”
On Nov 5, 2016, he launched the Doug Polk Crypto YouTube channel where he discussed cryptocurrencies, a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses encryption (cryptography) to verify transactions and to generate money.
In 2017, he won the $111,111 buy-in One Drop at the WSOP for $3.6 million, outlasting 130 players.
On 16 March 2020, Doug announced that he is quitting the poker industry.
Wife / Girlfriend
Doug Polk is not married, but he has a girlfriend.
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Doug Polk Daniel Negreanu Match
Trivia
In 2016, he launched a marathon, which he started with 100$, and earned 10,000$ (“The 100$ to 10 000$ Challenge”).
In 2007, Doug almost quit. He said:
”I was on the brink of quitting poker because things were just not going well and that was very stressful (I’m sure many of you can relate).”
His total tournament earnings are in excess of over $9,454,000.
Doug Polk Daniel Negreanu
In 2016, Polk and Daniel Negreanu (a Canadian professional poker player who has won two World Poker Tour championship titles and six World Series of Poker bracelets) began feuding, after Negreanu, defending the company who has paid him for years, argued in favor of a PokerStars rake increase. Negreanu said that higher rake weeds out the sharks and brings more recreational players to the game.
Doug replied:
“He’s a massive hypocrite and, frankly, he’s an embarrassment to players and the game of poker.”
His beef with Daniel continued when Negreanu claimed he could beat the $25/50 NLHE stakes with only 14 days of practice, that Doug described as “naïve.”
In 2018, Doug mocked Daniel’s vegan lifestyle:
“My mom, who has worked in the medical field for 30 years, was discussing that hospitals are limiting carb, not meat, intake for cardiac patients to help w/ high cholesterol.”
During the World Series of Poker 2017, women accounted for only 5.4 percent of registrations. In 2018, Doug tweeted his thoughts on women in poker:
”Anything that awards women for their success in areas they’re not disadvantaged to men, hurts the cause of women becoming successful.”
Polk later added:
”The biggest problem in gender inequality is girls not being taught how important computers/technology are. As a parent, don’t make that mistake.”
In 2017, a $42,000 coin flip at SugarHouse Casino between commercial real estate manager Jeremy Kaufman and Doug was deemed illegal by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. As a result, the Philadelphia-area casino was fined $30,000.
Doug Polk Challenge
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Doug Polk – Net Worth
Polk earned most of his wealth by playing poker (total tournament earnings about $9,454,000). But, this doesn’t include the burn rate, traveling expenses, and taxes.
In addition to playing poker, Doug is engaged in coaching activities on his website (upswingpoker.com). Furthermore, Polk has two YouTube channels – Doug Polk Poker (about $200,000 in revenue before taxes) and Doug Polk Crypto (about $20,000 in revenue). Doug also streams on Twitch. Therefore, Doug Polk has an estimated net worth of $11 million.
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High Stakes Feud continued last week with Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu playing four sessions before taking this week off while the WSOP Main Event took center stage on WSOP.com. Following an estimated 10,767 hands in total, Polk increased his lead to $810,176.58 after three six-figure winning sessions.
After High Stakes Feud began in the PokerGO Studio, the match moved to WSOP.com where Polk has been dominant winning the majority of the online sessions. During Thanksgiving, Polk went on an upswing of nearly $800k before Negreanu followed that by stringing together three small winning sessions to hold a deficit of $518,394.13.
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Disclaimer: Statistics for High Stakes Feud are taken directly from either player’s social media posts, or from Upswing Poker.
The 16th session of High Stakes Feud kicked off last Monday as Polk immediately took the early advantage with an uncalled river shove before stacking Negreanu when he rivered a flush against Negreanu’s straight. Polk’s lead pushed out to roughly $65,000 before he picked off a Negreanu bluff with top pair to take his advantage into the six figures. Polk then flopped two pair against Negreanu’s top pair as all the chips went in on the river with Polk now holding a lead of close to $170,000 before Negreanu ran his top pair into Polk’s pocket aces. Polk managed to peak at around $260,000 before Negreanu eroded the deficit and ended the session after 824 hands with Polk winning $160,348.88.
On Wednesday, Polk and Negreanu began their 17th session with Polk surging ahead early as he stacked Negreanu with a turned flush versus a turned straight to move ahead by roughly $60,000. Negreanu immediately eroded the lead when he flopped top set and found a full double through Polk before Polk returned the favor by flopping his own top set. From there, Polk never relinquished the lead as he slowly increased his advantage before the session ended after 662 hands with Polk winning $101,713.33.
Negreanu kicked off the 18th session of High Stakes Feud by surging out to the early lead of roughly a buy-in. Polk grinded his way back to even and then found a double when he outdrew Negreanu on the turn with top pair against Negreanu’s second pair and flush draw. Polk then spiked a flush on the turn against Negreanu’s trips to move his advantage to nearly three buy-ins before a monster cooler saw Negreanu five-bet jam with pocket aces as Polk called with pocket kings and spike his set on the flop to prompt another rebuy from Negreanu as his deficit was now at roughly $160,000. The two went back-and-forth for the second half of the session as Polk locked up another win amounting to $173,362.61 after 980 hands.
The final session of the week took place on Friday and everything went Negreanu’s way as he moved out into a roughly $100,000 lead on-the-back of stacking Polk with a flopped straight against a turned set. Polk managed to bring it back to nearly even before running into trips as Negreanu steadily furthered his advantage throughout the session before it ended after 834 hands with Negreanu winning $143,642.37.
With 19 sessions now complete, 10,767 hands have been dealt of the 25,000-hand quota in High Stakes Feud. Polk holds a lead of $810,176.58 over Negreanu as Poker Central will continue to provide weekly updates of all the High Stakes Feud action until a winner is crowned.
Disclaimer: Statistics for High Stakes Feud are taken directly from either player’s social media posts, or from Upswing Poker.
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