Douglas Polk
| Doug Polk | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 16, 1988 |
| World Series of Poker | |
| Bracelet(s) | 2 |
| Final table(s) | 4 |
| Money finish(es) | 10 |
| Highest ITM Main Event finish |
592nd, 2011 |
| European Poker Tour | |
| Money finish(es) | 1 |
Douglas Polk (born December 16, 1988) is an American professional poker player. Polk plays under the alias WCGRider, specializing in heads-up No Limit hold'em.
Polk was born in Pasadena, California, and has loved strategy games ever since he was five, when his father taught him chess. At the age of 15, Polk was a competitive electronic sports player before transitioning to poker in college.
Polk attended the University of North Carolina Wilmington, but dropped out before graduating to pursue poker full-time. He started playing $0.01/$0.02 stakes at PokerStars and ran a $20 deposit into $10,000. During this time, Polk described himself as a "breakeven rakeback pro".
In 2011, he was nearly broke and decided to fully focus on the game. By 2013, he was considered one of the best online cash game players in heads-up no limit hold'em. He played fellow professional poker player Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky in a highly publicized match of 15,000 hands. Polk walked away a $740,000 winner and received an additional $100,000 bonus for winning.
Polk was vocal about Daniel Negreanu's challenge of beating the $25/$50 stakes with two weeks of practice, criticizing him for underestimating his opponents. In mid-2015, Doug started the poker training site Upswing Poker with longtime friend and fellow poker professional Ryan Fee.
In 2015, Polk was selected to play heads-up no limit hold'em against A.I. poker bot Claudico, along with professional poker players Dong Kim, Jason Les and Bjorn Li. Each player was set to play 20,000 hands against Claudico for a team total of 80,000 hands. The human players ended up defeating Claudico for 732,713 chips, with Polk beating the bot for 213,000. The team received a total of $100,000 for the victory.
Polk was involved in an argument with fellow poker player Ben Tollerene over a coaching deal.
As of October 2016, his total live tournament earnings exceed $5,000,000.
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