What is Doug Polk’s net worth? Also, who is Doug Polk’s wife?
Introduction
Doug Polk (nickname – “WCGRider”) is a professional poker player who is recognized for specializing in No-Limit Hold’em. In poker, he is considered to be one of the most powerful heads-up players in the world.
Biography
He was born in Pasadena, California.
During his childhood, his family moved from California to Raleigh, North Carolina.
When he was 5, his father took the opportunity to teach him the game of chess. Doug said:
“He started off playing without a queen and two rooks, then once I would beat him he would slowly add pieces back in.”
He later added:
”By the time I was 9 years old, I was getting lessons from a grandmaster and my dad simply couldn’t beat me anymore.”
When he was fifteen, Doug set his sites on Warcraft 3, and his knack for strategy games allowed him to find success straight away.
He was actually a competitive Warcraft 3 electronic sports player competing at multiple World Cyber Games tournaments under the name T-Rider.
In 2007, Polk graduated from Wakefield High School. He also transitioned to poker.
After high school, he attended the University of North Carolina Wilmington, however, he soon found out that college wasn’t for him. During an interview, he declared:
“I dropped out in my first year to pursue poker full time. The moment I dropped out was one of my favorite poker moments.”
After he dropped out of college, Doug moved to Las Vegas to pursue his passion (poker).
He started playing $0.01/$0.02 stakes at PokerStars and ran a $20 deposit into $10,000. During this time, Doug described himself as a “breakeven rakeback pro.”
In 2009, he switched to the heads-up game and climbed quickly from a 2$/4$ limit to 50$/100$.
By 2013, Polk was considered one of the best online cash game players in heads-up no-limit hold ’em.
In the same year, he challenged Ben ‘Sauce123’ Sulsky (an American professional poker player from Durham, New Hampshire, who is considered the king of heads-up) to a series of matches totaling more than 15,000 hands.
In the end, Doug was up about $740,000. In addition, this entitled him to the $100,000 side-stake for winning.
In 2014, he won his first-ever World Series of Poker Bracelet.
In 2015, Doug was selected to play heads-up No-Limit Hold ’em against Claudico (an artificial intelligence computer program designed to play no-limit Texas Hold ’em – it was designed by Carnegie Mellon professor Tuomas Sandholm and his graduate students) along with professional poker players Bjorn Li, Jason Les, and Dong Kim.
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Each player was set to play 20,000 hands against bot Claudico for a team total of 80,000 hands. In the end, the human players ended up defeating the bot for 732,713 chips, with Doug beating bot Claudico for 213,000.
In mid-2015, he started the poker training site Upswing Poker with Ryan Fee – a fellow poker professional and longtime friend.
In 2016, he started a YouTube channel, named – Doug Polk Poker. He said:
”I realized that there wasn’t much future for me there and decided to transition into doing something that I love to do (make videos).”
On Nov 5, 2016, he launched the Doug Polk Crypto YouTube channel where he discussed cryptocurrencies, a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses encryption (cryptography) to verify transactions and to generate money.
Also in 2016, Polk launched a marathon, which he started with 100$ and earned 10,000$ (“The 100$ to 10 000$ Challenge”).
In 2017, he won the $111,111 buy-in One Drop at the WSOP for $3.6 million, outlasting 130 players.
He’s been a co-owner of The Lodge Card Club since early 2022.
Wife
Doug Polk married his longtime girlfriend, Kaitlin, in November 2021.
Children
Their child, Otis Douglas Polk, was born in January 2023.
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Daniel Negreanu
In 2016, Polk and Daniel Negreanu began feuding after Negreanu, defending the company that has paid him for years, argued in favor of a PokerStars rake increase.
Daniel Negreanu – @Getty Images
Negreanu said that higher rake weeds out the sharks and brings more recreational players to the game.
Doug replied:
“He’s a massive hypocrite and, frankly, he’s an embarrassment to players and the game of poker.”
His beef with Daniel continued when Negreanu claimed he could beat the $25/50 NLHE stakes with only 14 days of practice that Doug described as “naïve.”
In 2018, Doug mocked Daniel’s vegan lifestyle:
“My mom, who has worked in the medical field for 30 years, was discussing that hospitals are limiting carb, not meat, intake for cardiac patients to help w/ high cholesterol.”
In July of 2020, Doug challenged Negreanu to a high-stakes heads-up no-limit hold’em match.
In February 2021, Doug won $255,722 and netted a win of over $1.2 million for the entire challenge.
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Doug Polk – Net Worth
So, how much is Doug Polk worth?
Polk earned most of his wealth by playing poker (total tournament earnings of about $9,454,000). But, this doesn’t include the burn rate, traveling expenses, and taxes.
In addition to playing poker, Doug is engaged in coaching activities on his website (upswingpoker.com).
Polk has two YouTube channels – Doug Polk Poker and Doug Polk Crypto.
Doug also streams on Twitch.
Therefore, American professional poker player Doug Polk has an estimated net worth of $11 million.
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