Doug Polk Reveals His Graph vs Negreanu (with Red/Blue/EV Lines)

Two weeks ago, Doug Polk secured victory in his Heads Up No Limit Grudge Match vs. Daniel Negreanu. He won $1,201,807 over the course of 25,000 hands.

The two battled on WSOP.com, which does not allow HUDs or tracking software. However, after the conclusion of the challenge, the site offered up the hand histories to Doug, which he chose to make public.

Take a look at Doug’s graph (from the online portion of the challenge): 

Key Takeaways:

1. Doug won about $1,300,000 during the online portion of the challenge
2. He won roughly $1,500,000 in non-showdown
3. Doug lost roughly $200,000 at showdown
4. He ran about five buy-ins over EV

What Does It Mean?

Making sense of this can be difficult if you don’t come from an online background or aren’t familiar using tracking software. 

So, we asked Doug what the biggest takeaway from the data is:

This was a decisive edge in winning pots, which is the single most important aspect to HUNL. It would have been very hard for Negreanu to win while losing this much in non-showdown.

This makes sense, as Doug was able to win more than 50% of pots both in-position and out-of-position. In addition to this, Doug won at an impressive clip of 22 bb/100 in position, while only losing 0.8 bb/100 out-of-position.

He had a massive edge in both single raised pots and 3-bet pots. However, he lost considerably in 4-bet pots, especially when out-of-position.

Note: The above insights were gained from the stats listed in the next sections.

Additional Stats:

Won Hand: 52.4%

BB Won Hand: 51.5%
SB Won Hand: 53.2%

BB EVBB Win-Rate: -0.8 bb/100
SB EVBB Win-Rate: 22.0 bb/100

BB WWSF (Won When Saw Flop): 47.3%
SB WWSF (Won When Saw Flop): 60.1%

BB WSD (Won at Showdown): 59.4%
SB WSD (Won at Showdown): 45.5%

Expected Value (EV):

IP Single Raised Pots Win-Rate: +62.9
OOP Single Raised Pots Win-Rate: -33.9

IP 3-Bet Pots Win-Rate: -15
OOP 3-Bet Pots Win-Rate: +228

IP 4-Bet Pots Win-Rate: 840
OOP 4-Bet Pots Win-Rate: -1620

Wrapping Up

For those that followed the challenge closely, most of this data shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

It was clear throughout that Doug was the more aggressive player, willing to put Daniel in tons of tough spots. This aggression often generated in folds, which makes it clear why Doug was able to win so much in non-showdown winnings.

Note: Doug also recorded a free video going over insights that he gained from the grudge match. Sign up for that exclusive $200/$400 review here.