Doug Polk had a little over $5.1 million in career prize money before he entered the 2017 World Series of Poker (WSOP) which is currently taking place at the Rio in Las Vegas, Nevada. Based on data by the Hendon Mob his biggest cashout during the last 26 months was his 3^rd place finish at the 2015 Aussie Millions Poker Championship in Melbourne, Australia.
Social Media Presence
Even though he hasn’t won big piles of cash during the last 26 months, Doug Polk has been very busy in the global online poker community. Doug Polk has built a strong brand for himself by being very active on social media, Twitch and YouTube. Polk has a YouTube following of over 100 thousand subscribers, more than 47 followers on Twitter and a very popular Podcast that he uses as a platform to spread the game of poker, discuss his life, address issues in the poker industry and call-out poker players who he thinks are shady characters.
Third WSOP Bracelet
Polk took part in the 2017 WSOP and played the High Roller for One Drop – $111,111 No-Limit Hold’em event which got him a massive cash prize of $3.7 million. The win also gave Polk his third WSOP bracelet and put his career prize money at over $5.8 million. Polk faced stiff competition in Event: 6 and had to battle 130 top poker players, many of whom Polk was familiar with.
However in the end Polk managed to hold his nerve, stick to his strategy and outlast the competition to win $3,686,865. The poker pro said that although he had won 2 WSOP bracelets in the past, the third won felt a lot more special simply because the competition was a lot tougher and he had to play an incredible game in order to secure his third bracelet.
Controversy
There was a little bit of controversy during the event as players suspected that some of the cards being used were not clean. Polk along with Haralabos Voulgaris wanted a fresh deck of cards and they pointed out to tournament officials many cards that had small white marks on them, which were not part of the normal pattern. The officials changed the deck of cards and the game went on as usual.
Polk would later go on to say that he did not suspect any of the 130 players had resorted to unfair practices and he knew most of them and did not think any of them would resort to cheating. Polk’s biggest competition at the table was from Bertrand Grospellier and Dario Sammartino. However they weren’t good enough on the day to beat Polk. Grospellier finished in second place taking home $2,278,657 while Sammartino came in third with $1,608,295.
Polk Looking To Build Brand
Doug Polk will most likely end up taking part in a few more high-roller events at the 2017 WSOP and see if you can take down few more events and add more value to his growing popularity and brand image. Polk wants to continue to concentrate on his social media, YouTube and Podcast offerings as they help set a strong platform for him to bring in revenue through different business models.
In a statement, Polk said “I think most of my goals in poker are trying to build my name in the game. The balance is tough. Every day, I wake up, I love what I do. I love getting to work, trying to achieve something. I work really hard to one day achieve big goals.”
YouTube Videos
There are thousands of amateur poker players and fans all over the world who would like behind the scenes footage into the mindset and preparation of top poker players in the world. Doug Polk’s YouTube channel gives these fans exactly that as publishes Vlogs documenting his journey. He even published a Vlog of how he made the One Drop final at the 2017 WSOP.
The video has so far had more than 75,000 views in 48 hours and now that he has ended up winning the event, that video along with his other social media channels are bound to get a lot more attention. Polk is also a poker coach at Upswing Poker thereby giving players the opportunity to sign up for his coaching sessions.