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          Make quick, high-quality, profitable poker decisions based on hand categories.

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          Learn to feel comfortable and confident playing the great game of PLO.

      • Most Popular Course
      • Upswing Lab for No Limit Hold’em Players
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          This is what we would teach our younger selves, if we could send it back in time.

      • Advanced Courses
      • Smash Live Cash by Nick Petrangelo
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          Win the MAX in live poker games.

      • Elite Cash Games Exploits by Uri Peleg
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          Become An Exploitative Machine.

      • Winning Poker Tournaments by Nick Petranglo
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          Discover an overarching strategy that will help you win more tournaments.

      • Advanced Cash Game Strategy by Kanu7
        • Cash Game Course By Kanu7

          An elite training course for serious cash game players.

      • Advanced PLO Mastery By Dylan Weisman & Chris Wehner
        • Advanced PLO Mastery

          Become an end boss with this comprehensive Pot Limit Omaha Training Course.

      • Heads-Up Course by Doug Polk
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          Learn how to take your poker skills to the highest level.

      • Mixed Games Course by Jake Abdalla
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          Immediately improve your Mixed Game strategy and win more money.

      • Red Line Rocketship by Uri Peleg
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          Increase your bottom line by winning more pots without having to show your cards.

      • PLO Matrix Preflop Tool
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          A precise and easy to use visual representation of GTO preflop ranges.

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          Find the course that fits your poker-playing needs.

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      • Preflop Charts Most Popular
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          The quickest & most efficient way to improve your poker game

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          Free Doug vs Daniel Video.

      • 10 Laws of Live Poker
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          Learn how your personality can alter your game and how aggressive to play.

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          Convert & replay your hands to study what went wrong... or very right

      • The Level-Up Podcast
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          Improve your poker skills fast with short, hyper-focused podcast episodes covering crucial poker topics.

      • 20 Rules for Crushing 3-Bet Pots
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          20 Rules for 3-Bets that will make your win-rate skyrocket!

      • Advanced PLO Preflop Guide
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          This guide will help you understand which hands to raise first in in Pot Limit Omaha.

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          Learn the fundamentals of profitable Short Deck hold'em

Meet The Upswing Poker Pros
Doug Polk -"WCGRider"

Doug Polk Poker Pro

What's up guys, my name is Doug Polk. Here at Upswing Poker, Ryan Fee and myself are in charge of managing the strategy content that goes into our training courses.

In our flagship courses (The $7 Postflop Game Plan and The Lab), I teach you the strategies I've spent years developing -- the same strategies that got me to the top of poker. Rather than forcing you to browse the web and sift through the abyss of poker strategy content out there, we have created the most efficient way for you to learn about poker and improve your game. 

For those who don't know anything about me, here is a bit of my background:

I've excelled at strategy games my whole life. My online screen name, "WCGRider", comes from the game WarCraft 3 where I participated in the national qualifier for the World Cyber Games.

My parents raised me to be a free thinker and decide for myself. I happen to be the kind of guy that is dedicated to success, so I pick something and focus my energy to achieve excellence. Here at Upswing, that means you benefit from me pouring my soul into all of our poker training content and courses.

Initially, I started out mostly playing 9-handed No Limit Hold'em Cash games and eventually started making enough money to support myself. At 19 I decided that poker was something to pursue full time. I dropped out of college and moved to Las Vegas to pursue my passion.

Even though people today have seen me win at the highest stakes, things weren't always so easy. In fact, back in 2007, I was on the brink of quitting poker because things were just not going well, and it was stressful (I'm sure many of you can relate). My poker career really turned around when I met one of my fellow Upswing partners, Ryan Fee. Through our friendship and his great poker mind, we were able to bounce ideas off of one another and push each other to dramatically improve at poker.

As I improved, I moved up to $5/$10 and $10/$20 I gravitated more towards the six-handed games. It was an amazing feeling to have gone from the verge of quitting to having a six-figure bankroll. After playing 6-max for a while I fully graduated to heads-up. I focused on that for a couple years, taking on all comers. Eventually, I was out of opponents to play because no one wanted to go heads up when they considered themselves outmatched.

The only person who was willing to take me on was Ben Sulsky. (By the way, much respect to Ben who is still one of the very best players in the world at multiple forms of poker.) At the time Ben, AKA Sauce123, was thought the best player in the world. After looking at his game I concluded that he was a tough opponent but also someone against whom I would have an edge.

We set up a challenge, 15,000 hands at $100/$200 blinds $20,000 buy-in No Limit Heads Up match with a $100,000 side bet.

Things went well.

Doug Polk vs Sauce Challenge

I won in a convincing fashion.

After my victory over Ben in 2013, I had reached the pinnacle of the game and thus almost 100% of players were unwilling to play me. 

I decided to seek action elsewhere and started playing the highest stakes tournaments. (Our approach to poker is unique in that that we can easily apply the skills from one game type to another.)

Beginning in 2014 I started playing live tournaments. After hard work and a long year and a half of grinding I have to date had over $5,000,000 in tournament cashes. Additionally in 2014, In just my first year of playing a large slate of tournaments, I won my first ever World Series of Poker Bracelet.

Doug Polk Winnings
In 2015, I set my eyes once again on a new challenge. Carnegie Mellon, a Leading University in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, offered me a challenge: to play their heads up poker bot for 20,000 hands.

I took on the top computer program in the world in the game that was my stomping ground, heads up No Limit Texas Hold'em. This challenge was going to be a giant experiment in artificial intelligence and I was going to be on the forefront of helping its development.

It was a grueling two weeks, playing eight hours a day, all streamed live on twitch. At the end of it, all the humans had prevailed. The computer was no match for us and I led the way to a large victory for humanity.  They might have taken over chess, but we still had a fighting chance in poker!

Doug Polk vs AI poker bot

"Man, this guy just never seems to go on tilt..."

In 2017, I won the $111,111 buy-in One Drop at the WSOP for $3.6 million. I also have a poker YouTube channel you might have heard of.

I would say I am one of, if not the, most distinguished poker players in the world. My resume proves it and I'll be sharing everything I've ever known about poker with you right here at Upswing. If you are a low to midstakes no-limit holdem player I have made The Lab exactly for you. Check it out here.

If you want to learn the tactics and strategies behind my success at heads-up No Limit Hold'em, then check out my Advanced Heads-Up Mastery training course here. It's the most advanced Heads-Up training course ever made on the face of the Earth.

I don't plan to play much poker in 2020 and beyond, and I've also shifted away from making poker content. But I think the work that the other Upswing coaches continue to put out speaks for itself -- it is top notch stuff from hard working guys who are still studying and playing every day.

I am an owner of this business and will continue to make decisions and manage in that capacity. I am also going to continue to be online and watch from the sidelines. Even though I have stepped down from poker playing and making poker content, there is still a bright and value-packed future for our community and members.

Meet The Upswing Poker Pros

Doug Polk

Doug Polk
"WCGRider"

<strong>Upswing Poker featured pro Ryan Fee</strong>

Ryan Fee
"ryanfeepoker"

Matt Colletta

Matt Colletta
"Checkmate"

Advanced Course Pros

nick petrangelo tournament course

Nick Petrangelo
"caecilius"

alex kanu7 millar

Alex Millar
"Kanu7"

uri-coach-page-image

Uri Peleg
"Miscusee"

andres educa-poker artinano

Andres Artinano
"Educa-p0ker"

Jake Abdalla

Jake Abdalla
"Jllama"

preview-image-chris

Chris Wehner
"bluffmast"

dylan weisman plo challenge

Dylan Weisman
"iheartco0kie"

Upswing Lab Pros

Fried Meulders 2

Fried Meulders
"mynameiskarl"

moritz dietrich hiking

Moritz Dietrich
"MuckCallOK"

James McConnon

Jason McConnon
"JASON.MAC100"

danmer

Daniel Merrilees
"DANMERRRR"

Daniel McCaulay aka dougiedan678

Daniel McAulay
"dougiedan678"

david yan missoracle

David Yan
"MissOracle"

finstein2

Mike Finstein
"Piano Mike"

gary blackwood gazzyb

Gary Blackwood
"GazzyB123"

ryan riske

Ryan Riske
"PokerWithRiske"

Hristivoje allinpav Pavlovic

Hristivoje Pavlovic
"ALLinPav"

tim jenkins poker

Tim Jenkins
"nossyj"

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Heads-Up Course by Doug Polk
Mixed Games Course by Jake Abdalla
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