why gambool it up? because it's HU?

he's been aggro with BR since the very beginning people still whinging smh

It's totally fine to be aggro with BRM as long as you move down when you should, risk of ruin stays very low, you just happen to move down stakes or move up stakes way more often than with conservative BRM

It does seem like it's going to be very hard to build a bankroll by playing against regulars HU at NL50, sure doug has an edge but rake is insane at micro HU so even though he beats those regs it's also likely both the regs and doug gets eaten up by rake

Yes. This. If you move freely up and down stakes you can manage the risk of ruin.

Honestly, low stakes are a rake trap and should be moved up from as quickly as possible. If you stay there comfortably, you will be there way to long.

dunno about other sites, but these days rake @ nl50 hu on stars is almost the same as @ nl200 (they increased rake higher, not decreased lower, in case you are wondering)

Because the current bankroll challenge is unrealistic in the real world of sensible BRM & high rake and restricted to which sites he can play on from the USA, it would be way more interesting and relevant if he did a bankroll challenge from say $50K to $1M on US permitted sites and jumped into it on other sites during times he streams SCOOP/WCOOP from Canada.

I believe his current challenge started when he had a much smaller following, so was perhaps good back then, but now it looks outdated and out of tune with his current status and profile.

Exactly. The whole point of any BR challenge is proving anybody can move up in stakes with hard work and minimum risk of ruin. Putting 10-15% of your roll on the table is anything but.

Yes exactly.

If he did a $50K to $1M bankroll, proper BRM, challenge he could play $2.50/$5 HU NL or $5/$10 HU NL, $5/$10 NL ring games, and MTTs and SNGs right up to the $250 to $500 range BI.

Even some of the above with $50K available is pushing the boundaries of accepted, conventional BRM a bit.
(I'm building in his playing edge somewhat to temper the variance)

So this shows how crazy $0.50/$1 HU NL 100 BBs deep is with only $1.5K

A $50K to $1M bankroll challenge could also incorporate a giveaway and/or a charity based donation.

Who are you to say what Doug's reasons are for doing things?
He never said that afaik. Strawmaning hard.

@Sage just lol at 50k to 1M challenge. You're so out of touch bro. Glad I unignored though.

I almost threw up reading some these whiny posts about Doug's challenge...

"Use proper BRM Doug!"
"Cater to me and my feelings Doug!"
"I can't take this challenge seriously now Doug!"

Geezus, grow some pubes and get a job people.

Thanks for the unignore.

But why am I out of touch? All Doug is proving is that rake at micro/low stakes is atrocious, that it's hard to play legalised poker in the USA and that you can make a much higher hourly flipping burgers than replicating his current challenge.

JNandez87 is doing his challenge properly, very skillfully and professionally but he has the huge advantage of access to many more sites from Europe, so not only has much more varied game selection choices but can also hoover up lots of great sign up and rake back bonuses.

Elite top NL players aren't making nearly 1M this entire year grinding solid volume (at least on Stars). It's ridiculous to expect Doug to do it, especially while streaming.
Dunno about PLO but highly doubt JNandez will make 1M with rakeback bonuses.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but this highlights the potential problem with giving people what they claim they want. The bankroll challenge only happened because fans clamored for it. And then when we ran a poll asking what stakes they'd like to see, micros was the overwhelming favorite.

In theory, it may seem very cool to watch a high stakes winner drop down to stakes you and I are used to playing. But in practice, it's not a huge attraction, and deep down everyone actually wants to see $25k+ buyin tournaments and big final tables.

There are actually numerous examples of poker audiences saying one thing and behaving completely differently, but I'll spare you the dissertation.

No, what we are saying is that we won't be watching it or have any interest whatsoever in it as a challenge if it is meaningless, which it pretty much is IMO.

I like ~90% of what Doug does but this current bankroll challenge is not very good IMO and erodes his brand a little due to it being poor from an instructional point of view, and dare I say a little lazy too.

I do have a job by the way.

JNandez87's bankroll challenge is $1000 to $10,000 so a multiple of 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8BV...TSvM6YEzplJqry, $50K to $1M is a multiple of 20 so maybe $1M is ambitious, however isn't Doug supposed to be (recently) one of the best in the world at HU NLHE and has crushed a lot of NLHE MTTs.

Maybe he could also include some mid stakes live games in the challenge and vlog them.

How many subscribers on YouTube did he have when the challenge started? My wild guess is less than 50K.

Also, he has struggled for exponential bankroll growth for large chunks of the attempt, or if achieved it was through BRM "cheating", so it may well have been what people wanted (in a previous era) but as an exercise it simply doesn't work from a poker playing viability POV, so what exactly is the point of it. It feels like padding to me (to use a TV production term).

Why are you talking about $50K to $1M ?
Doug Polk is no longer among the top 6-max players and since HU is dead there is no way he would achieve anything like this.

Also, Jnandez's bankroll challenge has been on hold for quite a while now after a couple of breakeven-ish sessions.

As I said in a thread I created, these challenges are not really convincing to show that online poker is a place to make decent money if even top players are struggling to build a roll.

I don't know how many, but the challenge was borne from Twitch, not YouTube.

1500% increase in 35 sessions seems decent to me, but what do I know.

Repeating that it's not optimal content is just stating the obvious. With the luxury of hindsight it probably never would have started in the first place, but it's in progress now, so I guess we're seeing it through.

Okay, you may well be right that any/all of these challenges are a tough ask.
But it still wouldn't hurt to try something that at least is more possible and makes more sense.

My central point is that the current challenge is meaningless so needs a rethink or to be replaced with something better.

This current bankroll challenge was first what brought Doug to my attention, I had never heard of him before that. But things have moved on a lot since then because the spectrum and depth of his output has grown enormously.

What are you talking about ?
The aim of his challenge was always to appeal to his mass audience (fish/casuals trying to win at poker) showing them that you can grind your way up from the lowest stakes and promote his coaching platform by the occasion.

Grinding is not playing 100 NL/PLO with a $1500 BR, it is playing 10to25 NL with some occasional short buyin shots at the next level up and some occasional outside of BRM MTT shots.

It was as much about building a bigger mass audience, which he has now achieved. He said himself that he may have plateaued at 150K subscribers because that's virtually the whole available market.

Playing really badly in certain live streamed cash games or punting around in a bankroll challenge, are not great examples to set, to a mass market rec or to the more serious players.

Who are you to say who am I to say what Doug’s reasons are? Ha! Got you there.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks that. And it makes most sense, ever since Ferguson did a similar challenge like 10 years ago. To prove anybody can come from nothing and rise to the top.


By the way, not a Doug hater at all. I actually like what he does. This just makes no sense.

he is not playing really badly nor is he punting around in the bankroll challenge, just wanted to clear that out, you said you have a job so it's possible you are not qualified enough to judge the skill level of a winning professional poker player

his strategy of agressive BRM is very viable and should be encouraged at the lower limits, only thing is you should probably aim to play against weaker players while doing that, not decent regs in a format where rake makes it very very hard to expect a profit

You guys questioning his methods and being ****ing nits could just go read the pgc thread he started about the challenge in there where he addresses your concerns.

Okay, I will....... and I have!

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...8-7-a-1622519/

$100 to $10,000 Bankroll Challenge - Begins 8/7/16

"For those of you that don't know me, my name is Doug Polk. I am widely known for being the best HUNL player in the world,........... a lot of people are very much discouraged about the state of the games. Frankly, in many scenarios they have good reason to believe so. However I still think that with good bankroll management, game selection, and solid play, you can take $100 and turn into a reasonable sized bankroll."

GTFO!