Powerful and emotional discussion between Daniel and Doug on yesterday's spaces conversation. Doug gets choked up a bit discussing his childhood.

Link: "It's Time For A Tough Conversation" (1:43:51)

Daniel [01:43:51]

I remember when we did a podcast, I sort of asked you this question at the end you know in terms of like why do you do what you do. And you gave an answer but you're I don't know, your answer was kind of canned and political.

But I think like underneath it what I was looking to hear was, "part of why I do this is because I want to be appreciated, I want to be loved, and I want to be important" and there's nothing wrong with saying that. But it sounds really nitty, like I'm gonna look at me I want to be you know but but at our core don't we all want to be special you know it's okay to say that, it's okay to be that because a lot of what you do, you know, underneath.

I've seen you, I think you're sensitive in a lot of ways, both good and bad, right, I think you know when people don't like you, it triggers something in where you're, like f*ck this guy I'm gonna burn him to the ground, and his children right.

Like internally [Doug: no no children no children anymore I'm a new father no children anymore].

When someone crosses you or when someone doesn't like you or someone comes at you with like. Because you know you say you can take it. You know Rob Yong was saying that. You take it, but you take it because you can give it back a thousand times worse right you know and you know that right. So it puts you in a in a kind of position where you know that sort of sensitivity of, I think, my personal opinion, wanting to be liked. When you're not.

When someone pushes back against you, it brings out like the worst parts of who you are, when you try to tear somebody down and that's not who you are, I don't think. That's not the entirety of you. I don't think. I've seen you know, we've had good discussions in the last year you know, my wife trying out your products and loving them and you know all these kind of positive things you know and some stories from lenash you know the people saying good things about you.

It's when that when that when your ego is pierced or whatever it is that's when you go into this attack mode and you know, looking deeper into that specific aspect of your persona and your personality, I think and again I'm not trying to be a psychologist here but like I really think you get a lot of value out of looking at like man why do I why do I do that, you know.

Doug [01:45:50]

Yeah I think I think that that's pretty accurate. I debated talking about this today in my video I made but I didn't really want to make it long-winded and kind of just psychoanalytical about myself and my upbringing and stuff. But I think this is probably a reasonable spot to talk about it so.

I mean when people ask me like where I'm from I, I never really lived anywhere specifically. I moved around constantly I always was at new schools I went to like 10, 12, 15 schools or something, I don't even know the number. It was just so many. I had years where I'd go school to school to school. And so I never really had any consistent friends growing up. I was constantly throwing into new areas and new places and I was always just kind of the fat kid that got picked on everywhere that I went just along the way. So I had to get used to, like, you're in a new environment, you're going to get made fun of, you're going to get picked on, you're going to get attacked. And like I was too weak to be able to defend myself because I had no friends and you know, I was, I was like the weak kid. You know I was like the new kid, I was an easy target. So my whole life I just got relentlessly picked on.

And you know I never I didn't date until much later. And I struggled to really have friends in any capacity. I mean I had a few friends along the way for sure. But you know I would, I remember vowing to myself like, as we like couldn't afford to live in in different places that we moved to, like, one day like we're paycheck to paycheck can't eat I'm getting picked down we're moving around, like, when I'm older like I will defend myself.

And you know I will make sure that I'm not going to be in this position and my family won't be in this position. And I'm weak now but I will beat everyone and do what I have to do to to not be weak when I'm an adult.

And that's really kind of like what drove me through poker. Was this like unnerving never ending feeling of like, the reason that I was weak when I was a kid, um I'm never gonna let that happen to me again. And, and just every night I would play as long as I took, and study as long as it took, and every opponent I played I would dig deep and I would figure out how to beat them and make sure that I won. And to a point where I built something for myself, you know, from nothing um, to protect myself, to show that I could do it and and to not be to not be in that position where I'm just an easy target because I'm the new fat kid.

So I think that there's definitely something there with that specifically and I feel like that's a story that I don't know people know about me or not but I feel like it's kind of relevant

Daniel [01:48:25]

In the seven or eight or I don't know ow many years it's been that is the most authentic and vulnerable and honest version of you i've ever heard and I appreciate that I'd like to see more of that from you...

I swear everybody in the poker community is a victim, getting kinda boring now.

Did this have to be a new thread?

You couldn't have put this in like one of the other 4 threads discussing Doug on NVG?

I searched the past month of thread titles about Doug before I posted. None seemed to fit. Which of these do you believe was a better place?

Charlie Carrel vs Doug Polk containment thread (stealing/pedophile/other accusations)

Doug Polk plays the Woman’s WSOP Event Every Year

JNandez - The Outcome of Lawsuit vs Upswingpoker

Doug Polk CoinFlex Discussion

Why Doesn't Someone Like Doug Polk or Phil ivey Try and Get Poker Legalized in America?

Neeme, Owen and Polk buy stakes in "The Lodge" poker room, Austin TX (Lodge containment thread)

Everybody is an as*hole in some aspect in their life, for reasons that usually have to do with something someone did to them. People talking about what happened to them helps explain their behaviors and how they tick. I dunno, I find it pretty interesting to hear how someone in particular became the person they did.

Remember that thread "what made poker so good in the early 2000s?"?

The exact opposite of this.

Big mistake on his part. The internet is full of hyenas

He clearly didn't learn any lessons along the way.

Wasn't it just last year that he was making fun of overweight people on twitter, to the point where some overweight players on Lodge stream were like wtf.

Tough life and now his toughest decision is what color tank top he's going to wear

Wounds run deep - Doug said the following during last night's Lodge livestream, when Jungleman was offering Doug workout ideas:

"Can I be honest with you. I'm really just trying to not be fat"

Source: Jungleman Plays HIGH STAKES ($50/100/200) With Doug Polk (01:07:14)

I’ve never been a Doug fan, but this makes a lot of sense.

I think now that he’s more conscious of this that he will be able to evolve for the better.

So Coinflex Doug cries on cue and some fools buy it.

YouTube personality playbook:

• Clickbait titles
  Offensive content
  Trigger people
  Issue crying canned sorry video
  Repeat

Doug is a bad person.

You are what you are, when you are.
Good people can do bad things. I see good in Doug, but over all, his ego makes him seem like a dick, often.
Balance is hard to achieve, especially when you have the freedom of success that he has. Doesn't excuse his behavior, but it makes sense.

Doug ran a Twitch stream back in -15/16 to promote his then newly started training site and told these stories about his upbringing, but in more detail. The story checks out.

I don’t think Doug is a bad person. You can tell from his face that he’s not.

This is a flawless formula to create a (x)path.

1) Take a high IQ child with unstable parents, constantly move them around so they never form long term, stable relationships, people/relationships become low value things in their mind. Little to no empathy.
2) Add being picked on or otherwise mistreated, now you have extreme anger and deep seated vindictiveness, which devolves into general misanthropy.
3) Eventually becomes highly manipulative both as a survival mechanism and because they can; they have no empathy nor value for the well being of others, so why not swindle that dude? He's probably just like all those bastards who mistreated you anyway...
4) Gets awfully good at living in the part of the brain where cunning and manipulativeness comes from. Entire brain wiring-pattern different from normal people. Most people at least consider the well being of others, they do not. The world looks extremely different from their vantage, than it does to you or I. They don't understand this about themselves and truly believe that they're caring, empathetic people. After all, one time they gave that homeless guy, etc, etc... but anyone who knows them, knows they're really not. Anyone who knows how to spot them can spot them from a mile off.
5) Career paths for these people tend to be precisely what you can expect and will probably track their overall intelligence level.

Less intelligent ones will go into things like law enforcement, smarter ones will go into things like law, sales, your more disciplined outliers may become things like high stakes poker players, deal closers for major companies, etc. Your less disciplined outliers will become major drug traffickers, etc.

The Schadenfreude part of the brain lives within us all, but it's their first-filter. They're inconsiderate, cruel people.

That's the bad news.
The good news is, these people ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time eventually run into that one person who just isn't afraid of going to jail and bottles them squarely in the mouth. They tend to act a lot better after this happens, but you can quickly spot the more arrogant ones who haven't been humbled in this way, yet.

Polk comes off like the sort of guy who hasn't been beaten up for his shitty behaviors.
Eventually, he probably will be... but then again, those dudes are also good at recognizing that particular potential in others and avoiding it; even if they've managed to avoid the real smoke from pissing off an hard, DGAF type, they've probably smelled it a few times. Their mouths are much bigger when they're going after someone they know isn't going to send a dude to cave in his wifes knee, or stalk them down in the work parking lot...

victim of what? He never said he was a victim.

Golden age of poker content. Keep it up, Doug. The YouTube analytics don't lie. This content is what people want to see.

You know what would be important here. Is poker players realising why poker attracted them in the first place. Its not because its difficult or a great challenge, like they all say lol. Its because you can run your mouth and physically not get touched. Its literally a safe space for fake hard people, especially the online guys. If they could come aware this reality, it would really help them out big time.


They all need to chill out and just have a bit more respect for each other. They should appreciate how respectful everyone is, because in the real world your getting punched up quick.

Just listened to that spaces thing linked and the Galfond bit really pissed me off. From what I can make out Galfond is saying Doug just likes hurting people and has a complex. Yet Doug has never said a bad word about Galfond or runitonce, a business that is a clear rival. A clear example Doug isnt that bad and a ridiculous statement by Galfond.

Galfond is one of them people who doesnt want anything said about anything. Galfond needs to understand the only reason he can permanently sit on the fence, is because everyone else is having the arguments.

No doubt Doug is in the wrong, but Galfond is talking rubbish

Well that's not true and Doug even went as far as registering runitoncepoker.com or whatever while mocking PG/RIO for being start up newbs. Don't disagree with rest of your post.

Wasn't that jmo not doug?

Fair I may have that wrong. I recall Doug laughing about it on a Joey pod and mocking how dumb it was for PG/RIO to have not already bought it. The good Ole days when we got 10 doug/jmo pods per year.

This is pretty typical bully behavior. The bully doesn't pick on the kid who can defend himself or the popular kid, he picks on those who he has a clear advantage over. Besides, what would Doug even say about Phil that's bad?