Variance exists, man, you probably ran pretty hot in that sample. Imo,your mdf defenses in the micros are burning insane amounts of bbs. Sure, if they dont bluff enough, youre gaining some bbs somewhere else, but by not hero folding youre giving them back those too. So its a terrible approach with a 8bb/100 rake.

At least Ive seen you make some folds vs minraises, showing you probably understand by now how nutted those are in the micros.

Doug can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding from the lab and the small amount of coaching I've had is that Doug advocates understanding MDF and knowing how to apply it. Not all opponents or board textures will require calling down at MDF. A lot of spots will be more profitable to call down tighter, others its more profitable to call wider than MDF

You might be right about the above, I am no NLHE MTT expert, but he does play a different and very effective style to most other very good players. For example he is one of the deadliest players on the river I've ever seen, totally fearless and with a great feel for which bluffs will get through.

Theory is ever evolving and changing too, so maybe some of the things he does that are now considered wrong or unorthodox, in a year or two's time might be conventional and correct.

Definitely need to make soul crushing folds to do well in micro cash games but I don’t know about tournaments. All sorts of zany characters play tournaments.

Thread from OP from 2010 titled "KB24 quits poker and 2p2." I guess you can't take his word for anything.
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...er-2p2-750928/

Thread from OP in 2013 titled "WCG|Rider"

I almost beat Doug to 10,000. Lemme know if you want HU doug

I understand you wanted to "take it serious" and use nitroll management but a player of your caliber should be able to go to any casino in los angeles and turn $100 into $1000 in one session 8 times out of 10 like why not just use really aggressive BRM or go for the bink in a series of low stakes MTTs once you're at like $500. even typing that you should feel like 40 sessions to grind $900 is absurd.

Are people just open shoving every other hand like they did at the $2nl games 10 years ago? Cuz $100-1000 8/10 times in one sessions seems to me like you never played a hand of poker and know nothing about variance. How about you make a vlog about it and show us hows it's done.


Question, do you think poker has anything to do with putting all your money on red or black?

yes.

if you get felted at a smaller than $5/$5 game in an LA live casino the story should basically be "i got it in as a 70/30 favorite and it didn't hold up".

i understand this was an online challenge but to bust some sick brag about turning $100 into $1000 over 40 sessions is just lol really. the point is ostensibly to motivate people to play online poker and buy a membership to get better at that but “play 40 sessions to make $900” isn’t going to convince anyone to do that.

if you played 40 sessions at the hustler $100NL or a 50 cent/$1 in Vegas and couldn't manage $5000+ profit over that stretch i wouldn't believe you're a crusher.

Do you have a point or why are you constantly talking about live? Did it cross your mind that people might not be able to play live let alone in vegas. And 40 sessions let's say 4 hours arvg thats 160 hours for 1200$ atm. Think that's pretty reasonable result for playing four tables of micros at once. And I'm not 100% sure are those numbers accurate but close enough.

LOL I'm jealous I can't play at at place like that.

Yeah my point is that Doug with the bankroll challenge is basically selling "buy a membership to my site so you can win online and live the dream of building up a roll from $50" but you'd actually be better off just printing his pre-flop chart and taking it to a casino and playing the lowest stakes there and literally looking at it every hand in front of everyone before deciding what to do. I'm confident this is the case in virtually any casino. I'm sure Doug himself knows that with 40 live sessions at $1/2 or lower live his expected profit is going to be way way above $1000 or $1200 or $1300 or whatever.

This is without a doubt a more +EV move even if you only have $500 or whatever than spending 160 hours on 4 tables to grind $1200, particularly when Doug is obviously going to win at higher rates than his students anyways. 160 hours is four straight weeks of work so this isn't really going to appeal to anyone especially when you consider its going to take years of study to approach Doug's level.

From a marketing standpoint the $10k grind it up online challenge was objectively a bad move. Abandoning it is also objectively bad marketing. Doug should have just went to Commerce a few times and played the $40 til he had a session where he ran $40 up to $1500 and could take a picture and do some vlogs sitting there with 15 racks of $1 chips when everyone else has two stacks and talk about his system if he wanted to appeal to the low stakes thinking player. This is something a world-class player should find easy to do with just a little bit of game selection.

Fair enough I get it now and understand your point.

DP got a bee in his bonnet now about completing it so he's firing a $320 tourney off $1300 roll - well done , really good example of BRM.

CF might be a scammer and everyone hates him but at least he completes a bankroll challenge , and ran off with everyone else's bankroll aswell lol! DP is no Chris Ferguson is he? jus noticed he started at $100 and chris $0 , how long did it take Chris does anyone know? sure it was less than a year, with strict BRM , good example ur setting DP.

if you can play in a place where poker is legal, there is probably a casino with a low stakes game that plays nearly as bad or worse. if you live in a place where poker is legal but there is no casino, honestly maybe think about opening a casino.

honestly at doug polk's skill level i don't even think this is bad bankroll management. first of all, everyone knows it's a pretend "bankroll", so only purity nits are going to care about this sort of thing. i'd rather see him buy in for $320 into a $2/$5 than do this but it's about the same level of "eh". when you're massively lowrolled but also very high skilled you should play as close to the level of your skill rather than the level of your bankroll as you reasonably can. the "ruin" you will feel from running a really high risk of ruin isn't really going to hurt that much compared to if you were playing with a 7 figure plus bankroll.

chris ferguson is like a supremely robotic computer science person (no offense to CF) so his heart rate is probably exactly the same playing microstakes as it is high stakes or the final table of a WSOP event it's just math problems to him. doug polk is clearly motivated in large part from a love for the game and a love for gaming and the enjoyment of play so he's just really never going to have the same level of mental commitment to something like this as CF would.

He is using a ticket he received from wsop for that mtt. Let me guess you just opened the stream - saw him playing the $320 - starting to shake a little bit - calmed enough down to post that. Am I right?

WSOP have a habit of giving out $320 tickers to everyone for nothing?

He promised to contact the support about that. And I think he mentioned about that ticket in yesterdays stream allso.

E don't know how to use tweets here but :

Doug Polk
‏Verified account @DougPolkPoker

Live! Playing some poker
➡️ http://twitch.tv/dougpolkpoker

We're firing a $320 MTT with just $1334 in the bankroll today (free ticket), so we have a legit shot to finish the challenge!

I think it took 18 months

9 months to get 0-100
9 months to get 100-10000

I have no idea what kind of volume he put in though

I asked him on Twitter, when the roll was on ~$300 how much rake he had paid and he answered about the same amount as profit, so $200. Or he may have answered $300, I don't remember exactly.

Obviously rake was much higher relative to stakes earlier on in the challenge but given that he took the roll over $4K and then back down to $1K he may well have paid $2K or more in rake, so getting a $320 ticket wouldn't seem that out of line if it represents one of the main rewards that they give for volume.

How the **** are people ITT comparing Doug quitting on his bankroll challenge to Dwan quitting against Jungleman or Chris Ferguson?

Good lord you people are dumb.

Oh well he bluffed the 320$ away and managed to rebuy it by accident.

Yeah was watching, it was sidesplittingly funny.

People were complaining the $320 free ticket was "cheating" but now he's in an even worse spot, could do some big % damage to the roll, or if he cashes for a few $K some people will cry foul even more.

Maybe the most just result for the BRC is if he cashes in the $320 to $640 range with the bought ticket.

He's up to $25K from $10K in about 4 hands with the bought ticket!

Doug seems to have the Midas touch for poker and for entertainment.

Chris Ferguson would have never made that mistake. Doug has less integrity than CF confirmed imo.