Day 29 of Doug Polk’s Bankroll Challenge was another great day playing the great game of Pot Limit Omaha (see: day 29 recap).
PLO has been the biggest money maker for this challenge, with two big bankroll boosts in as many days.
The No Limit Hold’em expert isn’t as experienced in PLO, but that’s not really an issue when other players are this bad. At one point, Doug wondered aloud whether the other players even knew how the game works.
By the end, Doug was positively amazed by his own run and mumbled “PLO is the game of the future.”
We begin day 30 with $2,428.
Doug Polk started the stream by saluting the Twitch chat and reminding us that he has been crushing it.
He had that one bad day (appropriately the 13th day of the challenge) but has bounced back BIG since. After his massive boosts in the past two sessions, he now considers this the home stretch.
“We only need to 4x our roll to finish this.”
Doug started the session by opening two NL100 and two PLO100 tables. He considered a shot at 200NL, but passed on it for now.
‘’Come get some!’’
The WSOP.com regs didn’t wait long before giving action, with Rangerrr being the first customer on the two NL100 Tables. After a quick double up, it started to feel like this was the beginning of another big session.
The PLO action was yet to commence, but the No Limit action was going great. He was up about $200 less than 30 minutes into the session
A Twitch chatter asked Doug about his WSOP schedule. He doesn’t plan on playing many events, but definitely these four:
Other than those, he can’t really say anything concrete.
Despite being up on the original two tables, Doug was down big on a third table. He announced that he was even for the day, just 40 minutes into the session.
About 10 minutes later, Doug dumped another buy-in to an opponent that took a super nitty line with a strong hand. It worked out for his opponent that time, but it also earned him a player note:
Poker Tip: Taking good, detailed notes about your opponents is an important part of playing online.
The session had taken a turn for the worse.
After announcing he was now down $400, Doug started openly contemplating the possibility of this being a losing session. Some change was needed, so he decided to a game with less variance…
…just kidding! He fired up some PLO.
An hour and a half of PLO later, the bankroll was close to being back to even. Doug played short handed PLO tables, including a heads-up table and a NL table, which only added to the variance.
Doug’s recent PLO success has prompted a lot of excitement for Fernando “JNandez87” Harberger’s PLO training course. The course is still a work in progress, but you can get a taste of what’s to come here:
After some more PLO success on soft tables, Doug closed out the NL table. NL purists requested more of their favorite game, but Doug explained that at that point, he couldn’t afford not to play PLO. The games are just too good.
Viewership dwindled, as it always does during PLO-heavy sessions, but the bankroll challenge was back on track. At the 3-hour mark, the bankroll was back in the black- up $250.
‘’I’m not even sure if the people I’m playing with right now even know how to play Pot Limit Omaha’’, Doug mused. ‘‘If this keeps up, it’s going to be a short challenge.’’
The PLO upswing continued, even after moving up to PLO200. The jump on stakes was another shot, but it payed off once again.
Double the stakes meant double the profits, which allowed Doug to quickly cross the $3,000 mark.
Doug was playing well, but there’s no denying that the other players didn’t know what the hell they were doing. These were not micro stakes, but the players were playing as if they were.
Doug was up $900 on a single table as he started to close out the session.
One of the final hands left him confused as to what he just had witnessed:
$1/$2 PLO, $378 Effective Stacks
Doug is in the SB with
9♦ 8♣ 7♣ 6♦
BTN opens to $7, Doug 3-bets to $23, BTN calls
Flop ($46.50) Q♣ T♠ 6♥
Doug checks, BTN bets $24, Doug calls
Turn ($94.50) 6♠
Doug checks, BTN checks
River ($94.50) T♣
Doug checks, BTN bets $48, Doug calls
BTN shows K♦ K♥ 4♠ 4♣
Doug wins $190.50 with trip sixes
‘‘Was that a bluff or a value bet? I don’t even know!’’
Doug was up around $1,100 for the session, which prompted him to call it a night.
Remembering his struggle to reach the top early on his poker career, he screamed ‘‘How is it so easy these days!?’’
Day 30 ends with the bankroll at $3,537. Next session: Wednesday at 2pm PST.
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