Day 1 of Doug Polk’s $10k Challenge
Doug Polk sets out to prove that the Poker dream is still alive and well with a bankroll challenge!
Featured Upswing Poker pro Doug Polk finally started his bankroll challenge with a seven hour Twitch stream.
The Poker dream. It’s what got most of us into the game. The idea that not only can we play this fun and exciting game of wits but we can also make a comfortable living doing so. Sounds like childish fantasy, but before Black Friday we saw it happen every day of the week.
Most Online poker pros started out with less than $100 in their bankrolls before grinding it up all the way to the nosebleeds, but that was before Black Friday. Since then the games have gone tougher, the rake has gone higher and rakeback has lowered.
Someone has to prove to the Poker dream is still alive! Can this person present himself (preferably through fake workout montages set to 80’s music)!?
Doug Polk just finished day one of his bankroll challenge with a seven hour session streamed live on UpswingPoker’s Twitch Channel. The long session was played completely in the WSOP client, to promote regulated online poker.
Recap of Day 1
It started with Doug Polk in full screen, talking directly to the camera. ‘‘I’m a little bit nervous’’, he said, ‘‘I know I’m going to be judged here by lots of people. If we lose $15 today people are going tell me I suck. But you know what? I believe in the way I play Poker and I believe we are going to put our best foot forward.’’
Doug continued by reaffirming us that the is doing proper bankroll management all the way through, playing $1 tournaments. He also took the time to announce his Bankroll challenge giveaway.
Apparently, some people are already punting it away guessing Doug will make over 12k by the end of the week, $2,000 more than the challenge’s stopping point. So if you’re smart about it, your chances of winning are pretty solid. Click here to Doug Polk’s Facebook fan page to take a shot.
And we’re off with the first hand of the challenge, pocket 3s in a $1 Heads Up Sit and Go against ‘‘GottheNutz’’. The pocket 3s became a full house in the turn. It was a great start!
It didn’t take long before Doug moved on to multi-tabling, joining many $1 tournaments while also playing a series Heads up sit and goes. By the first hour of the stream he was playing three tables, including a $100 Daily freeroll.
Early during the stream, he took the time to impart some Poker wisdom. Answering to some twitch chat questions, he asks his audience to stop complaining about running bad and instead work on their game, especially during a downswing. Look at what worked and didn’t worked after each session and always improve your game. If you are not constantly improving, you will be phased out of the poker world.
Two hours into the stream, both the $1 Tournament and the freeroll were on a break, so, naturally, It was time to throw those Dongers up.
After the Twitch Chat Dong-mageddon was over, the few survivors enjoyed the Twitter Strategy Segment.
Pictured: Doug Polk, marveling at his own creation.
Though a bit short, the twitter strategy segment was the real jewel of the stream. Here are some of the questions asked:
@dougpolkpoker How does strategy vary based on table size. Sitting with 4 or 5 ppl verse 9 or 10. Are premium hands scarce w/ full table?
— Greg Gossett (@GregGossett) 8 de agosto de 2016
Summary of Doug’s Answer: Premium hands come in Heads Up as often as they do in a full ring game, but their strength is different. You need to be more aggressive with less people, play more pots. When playing Heads Up, make sure not to undervalue hands you might consider weak, and not to overvalue 10s when playing against ten people.
@DougPolkPoker If you go into a short HU cash session with an exploitable strat. When your opponent starts adjusting should you change to a
— Mitchell Reid (@mitchr15981) 8 de agosto de 2016
@DougPolkPoker GTOish strat or re adjust to a different exploitable strat? Eg if you have 3 times as many bluffs as you should in a
— Mitchell Reid (@mitchr15981) 8 de agosto de 2016
@DougPolkPoker particular spot, should you balance your range or be only value
— Mitchell Reid (@mitchr15981) 8 de agosto de 2016
Summary of Doug’s Answer: No one plays GTO, but Doug prefers to play in theoretically sound way at first and then mix it up with exploitative plays based on reads. Starting out exploitative without any reads leads to trouble.
That’s just half of the question he addressed on Stream. As you can see, you need to be fast if you want to get in on it. So start tweeting @DougPolkPoker immediately after he announces the Twitter Strategy Segment.
Two and a half hours into the stream, Doug busted out of the freeroll and was down $0.30. Doug decided to poll the Twitch Chat to figure out if he should continue playing multi-table tournaments or Heads Up sit and goes. The HUSNGs won by a significant margin.
By the fourth hour however, it was clear that Doug needed to adjust his heads up strategy to his new opponents and their inconsistent plays. ‘‘I think there are people in those Heads Up sit and goes who are trying to play with me on the stream,’’ Doug theorized at the fifth hour, ‘‘so while I think we had an edge we were playing with tougher opponents than what we would see in $1 Sit and goes.’’
After the Heads Up sit and goes, Doug decided to get a bit nostalgic and play some 0.01/0.02 cash games, or as he referred to it, ‘‘The big $2 buy-in’’.
After Multitabling 0.01/0.02 for about an hour and fourty four minutes, the stream just stopped after an unfortunate internet outage. Doug was disconnected, leaving some to believe that the stream was over.
After Doug came back, he noticed that he lost some Twitch viewers in the five minutes he was offline and wasn’t happy about it. Noting that this was the first time his internet connection drops mid-Twitch stream.
By the last twenty minutes of the session Doug started to look a bit frustrated with his first day of challenge. After folding a Queen-three of clubs, he decided to call it a session.
The first day ended with Doug being down $16,96. He followed his own advice from earlier on the twitch stream, however, and instead of blaming luck, he took the time to figure out what to do in future streams.
‘‘Part of the trouble is I’m not getting an authentic NL 2 experience.’’ Doug Polk said at the end of the seven hour twitch stream, ‘‘Not that I’m playing against world class people, but game selection is going to be important here.’’
Get daily updates from the challenge here!
(Serious about improving your poker game? Check out the Upswing Lab! Doug Polk and Ryan Fee collaborated on this A to Z poker training course and the great reviews keep rolling in!)
