Poker Life Podcast: Doug “WCGRider” Polk
Today on the Poker Life Podcast, Joe Ingram sits down and talks with Upswing co-founder/hero Doug “WCGRider” Polk.
Doug found poker at 18 and immediately started playing obsessively, starting with a $20 bankroll and micro stakes. Doug met his Upswing co-founder Ryan Fee in 2007 and soon after decided that poker was something to pursue full time. He dropped out of college and moved to Las Vegas.
Doug initially started playing full ring games, but as he moved up to $5/$10 and $10/$20 he gravitated more towards the six handed games, eventually fully “graduating” to heads up. He focused on that for a couple years, taking on all comers until he ran out of opponents willing to play him. Well, except one: Ben Sulsky. At the time Ben, aka Sauce123, was considered the best player in the world. After a bunch of studying and analysis of Ben’s game, Doug decided he had an edge worth pushing. The two heads up juggernauts set up a challenge, 15,000 hands at $100/$200 blinds ($20,000 buyin) NLHU match with a $100,000 side bet. WCGRider went on to win that challenge by over $600,000, over $700,000 after the side bet.
Since then Doug has added a WSOP bracelet and millions more dollars in cash games winnings to his poker resume. He co-founded UpswingPoker.com with Ryan Fee in late 2015.
On Today’s Poker Life Podcast:
- UpswingPoker
- Pokerstars Rake Changes
- The state of online HUNL
- Doug’s recent poker endeavors
- The Brad Booth scandal
- Luke Schwartz and pink vests
- Superusers and unenforceable rules
- PLO
- High stakes games with Matt Kirk
- Streaming on twitch
- The UpswingPoker Lab
- Doug’s fauxhawk haircut
