Day 5 of Doug Polk’s $10,000 Bankroll Challenge

Day 4 of Doug Polk’s Bankroll Challenge was one for the Twitch poker history books! The 19 hour stream started like every other, grinding the $0.01/$0.02 and $1 Tournaments.

The session went on normally until the featured Upswing Poker coach noticed the rakeback meter in the upper left corner of his screen. He was close to getting $10. So close, in fact, that he decided to keep on grinding until he got there.

After an ill advised venture through the merciless $0.02/$0.04 tables, his bankroll was cut in half, but that wouldn’t stop him from achieving his goal.

Some seven hours after moving down in stakes, he finally got his $10 in rakeback, bringing the bankroll back to a comfortable $85.

A Rollercoaster Start to Day 5

Day 5 started with Doug Polk deciding to four table $0.01/$0.02 cash games while waiting for tournaments to begin. Started the stream off on the right foot with a recipe that included one part aces and one part flopped set.

Strangely enough, when Doug asked the chat if they knew what his favorite hand is, while holding aces, many confused souls guessed King-Queen. Possibly because he has mentioned that his second and third favorite hands are pocket kings and pocket queens, respectively.

Despite this early success, Doug seemed a bit distracted during the first half an hour of the stream, as he kept missing the big blind and sitting out in some of his $0.01/$0.02 tables. This seemed to start to frustrate him, with the chat giving him a hard time as well.

In one table he got dealt pocket Kings, his second favorite hand, from the small blind. He faced an All In raise from the cut-off, which he promptly called.

His opponent had raised all-in with an Ace-six off suit. ”Ace-six no good!” Doug was about to say before being rudely interrupted by an ace on the flop.

Losing most of his profits for the day within the first twenty minutes of the stream, Doug decided to stick it out and keep his cool.

After playing for twenty more minutes and recuperating some of his lost bankroll, it was time for the Twitter Strategy Q&A segment.

Twitter Strategy Q&A

@DougPolkPoker lush draws etc at times that I wouldn’t expect it to be best play. Can you explain some of the factors that go into your de

— Gray Sanders (@MausoleumofHope) 15 de agosto de 2016

@DougPolkPoker cision making process for when it is ideal to check back strong draws on the flop on and turn instead of barreling

— Gray Sanders (@MausoleumofHope) 15 de agosto de 2016

Summary of Doug’s answer: ‘‘If you always bet your flush draws on the flop and you never check them, well what would it mean if you do decide to check and the flush completes? It would mean that you never have a flush, right? I try to split up my draws into having bets and checks. So when I do bet, I could have some draws in the turn and when I check, I could also have some draws in the turn. This also allows me to do some raises in the later street as a bluff.’’

@DougPolkPoker How does our 3 betting and calling range change vs a RFI when there is a caller in between? Multiple Callers?

— Fidel Cashflow (@luv2gamble21) 15 de agosto de 2016

Summary of Doug’s answer: It doesn’t actually change things. When there is a caller, yes, he has a hand in the pot that takes some equity. But your odds are now better. The net result of those two factors is about even. When there is a ton of callers you can go a lot looser.
Always remember to send in your questions as soon as the Q&A segment is announced. That is, if you want your question answered by the Upswing Poker coach.

Three Tabling Freerolls

The Q&A was followed by the first Upswing Poker $500 Invitational Freeroll.

Doug Polk thanked WSOP.com in the name of Upswing Poker for picking up the tab for the freeroll. As is standard for him, Doug Polk decided to four table, playing two $500 freerolls and two NL2 tables.

Pocket fives turned out to be Doug’s lucky hand this session, flopping his second set of the session. Doug hopped into a third freeroll as a viewer brought up a guy named Marcus.

Why did Doyle Brunson block Doug on Twitter?

The story starts with a guy named Marcus. Marcus plays high stakes live poker, and there is this rumor that he wants to play WGCRider heads up.

Last year Doug, Marcus and Tom Dwan (#SaveTom) were playing a cash game at the Aria and Tom lost a 700k pot to Marcus, busting his roll for the day and forcing Tom to leave.

Marcus and Doug were just about to play heads up but before the match could begin, Marcus takes a call and leaves, never to return.

Soon after, people in the poker world were telling Doug about this guy named Marcus who would play him. Doug asked for his contact information but Marcus never seemed interested in making it happen.

Doyle ‘‘Texas Dolly’’ Brunson tweets at Doug, telling him about this guy named Marcus who just took 300k off of his stack and that he should play him. Doug tries, again, to get his contact info to set up a match only to be blocked on Twitter by Brunson.

For some reason. Marcus, it seems, wont play our boy Doug. We still have no idea what exactly caused Doyle to drop the block hammer.

(Edit: Within a day of this articles publication Doyle unblocked Doug on Twitter. In fact, Doyle says he doesn’t even remember why he blocked Doug in the first place.)

Back to the Challenge

By the two hour mark, Doug was three tabling freerolls as promised early in the stream. The poker bankroll remained untouched for hours, except for a single $2 buy-in.

At the three hours and fifty minutes mark, the bubble burst in the Upswing Poker freeroll guaranteeing Doug $5. He busted his short stack soon after, shoving Ace-King into pocket tens. Doug took the lead on the flop, but the fourth diamond on the turn sent him to the rail.

Four and a half hours into the stream, and after adding two $2 PLO cash game along the way and busting out of two freerolls, he announced that the bankroll now stood at $111, nearing a peak for the bankroll challenge.

Five hours and fifty minutes into the stream, Doug Polk was eliminated out of the $500 freeroll in sixth place, winning $21 after jamming into Aces blind vs blind. Doug also checked out the Upswing Poker Freeroll, which was now heads up. After a relatively short heads up match, DakotaCohoon took it down for $135 and a free Upswing Lab! Congratulations!

It was a great day for the Bankroll Challenge, with the roll now at $129, a peak high right after a peak low.

Get daily updates from the challenge here!

(Serious about improving your poker game? Check out the Upswing Lab! Doug Polk and Ryan Fee collaborated on this A to Z poker training course and the great reviews keep rolling in!)