Doug Polk and Ryan Fee WSOP Tag Team Hype
Upswing Poker featured pros Doug Polk and Ryan Fee were together on-stream this weekend, discussing their potential entry into the 2016 WSOP Tag Team Event. Saturday’s Upswing Poker Twitch live stream featured a back-and-forth between the two superstars on whether they will team up at this year’s Series.
WSOP Tag Team Event Details
Image Credit: WSOP.com
The unique $1,000 buy-in bracelet event (in which each winning team member receives a piece of hardware) begins Wednesday, July 6th. Teams can consist of 2 to 4 players. The total team buy-in remains the same, so a four-player team will only require $250 per person to register. In The Money finishes will be paid out in equal parts to every individual on the team.
How Does the WSOP Tag Team Tournament Work?
2014 WSOP bracelet winner Polk posed this very question to his partner, and Fee was happy to oblige and spread the word among Twitch live viewers.
Ryan Fee: “It’s not like one person plays and then the other. You (Doug) can play whenever you want to play, and then if you don’t want to play, I can play for you. So really one person could just play it.”
The restriction-free substitution rules in Event #61 cause Polk to visibly do a double-take on-air as he mucks 6-3 offsuit.
Doug Polk: (looking incredulous) “So…?”
Ryan Fee: “Yeah, exactly. That’s the correct reaction.”
The duo joke that the format should simply be implemented in every tournament, but WCGRider just has to verify one final time that team members can sit down and stand up from a table at will.
Doug Polk: “Are you sure there’s no…?”
Fee again confirms there isn’t, and suggests that he had originally planned to run a promotion where an Upswing Poker subscriber would get a spot on the team. However, the idea was discarded since not all team players are guaranteed time at the table.
GTO Tag Team Poker Strategy?
It appears as if the two are seriously considering playing in the event. “We would swap-out… occasionally,” Polk tells Fee as they laugh at their visualization of how that would work.
In a throwback to the Tom Landry era of the Dallas Cowboys and alternating plays for superstars Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett, team players could literally substitute in-and-out every single hand during the tournament.
The conversation then switched over to how Team Upswing’s bench-warmer can get the most out of the experience — and Polk wasted no time in taking a page from Joey Ingram.
Image: Cardplayer Lifestyle – Robbie Strazynski
Doug Polk: “We should just like post up, and get a massage chair and a massage girl there. And then whoever’s not playing is getting their massage next to the table.”
That way, the next team member is fresh and ready to go when a hot tag is needed.
Will the two Team Upswing headline pros make a go of it in next month’s WSOP Tag Team event? Follow Upswing Poker on Twitch for the latest updates as well as real-time online poker action!
(If you’re serious about improving your poker game, check out the Upswing Lab! Top poker pros Doug Polk and Ryan Fee collaborated to create this A to Z training course aimed at improving anyone’s game. Check out our testimonials page here!)
