Updated
4/23/2024

Doug Polk’s biography

Douglas Polk
Douglas Polk (35 years)
USA
Male
12/16/1988
over $9 450 000
Offline prizes
exact amount is unknown
Online prizes
The best result:
$3 686 865 (1st place at the WSOP High Roller for One Drop for $111 111 in 2017)
Main achievements:
3 WSOP bracelets, created his own poker school Upswing Poker
Can be found by nickname:
PokerStars: WCGRider

Douglas "WCGRider" Polk is a successful American professional, who is rightfully called one of the best heads-up players in the world. He has earned several million dollars playing poker, having started his way just with 20$. However, Polk has not immediately found the right place for himself in the game. Initially, he used to play 6-max and 10-max No-Limit Hold'em tables online and won relatively small amounts. In 2009 Douglas switched to the heads-up game and climbed quickly from a 2$/4$ limit to 50$/100$. PokerStars and Full Tilt regulars knew "WCGRider" well, as they lost a lot of cash playing with him. The player periodically could be seen playing in tournaments.

After Black Friday, when online poker was banned in the USA, Polk started thinking to change his profession or to finish the studies he had left before, but as a result, Doug decided to move from Las Vegas to Vancouver (Canada) and began to live “between two houses”. 

There were some advantages in such a decision – Douglas Polk started to play in live events more often. The guy’s first offline prize money is dated with 2011. Over time, he has become a frequent guest at Las Vegas casinos, WSOP, WPT and Aussie Millions series. Currently, it is often possible to find Polk’s name in a participant list of high roller and super high roller tournaments. The poker player’s total amount of prize money in live events exceeds 9 million dollars.

In addition to playing poker, he is engaged in coaching activities at his own training site. Douglas Polk actively streams his game on Twitch and makes videos on YouTube (often these videos include hand analysis from popular poker tournaments and shows).

Douglas Polk's photos

Interesting facts about Douglas Polk:

  • Early in his career, he turned $20 into $10,000 by playing at various poker rooms in just a few months.. In 2016, Doug launched a marathon, which he started with 100$, and earned 10 000$ ("The 100$ to 10 000$ Challenge"). Polk rarely played for the marathon and finished it only in August 2018, while having played just 58 game sessions in 2 years.
  • In poker Polk is considered to be one of the most powerful heads-up players in the world.
  • Douglas hasn’t got higher education, since he has opted for poker and left the university.
  • Before he started poker, WCGRider had played online games professionally and several times took part in the prestigious WCG international e-sports tournament, in honor of which he picked his nickname later.
  • In one of the interviews, Douglas Polk has admitted that at the beginning of his career (around 2010) he managed to beat "wobbly" and Randy "nanonoko" Lew most of all. According to his words, they might have been good players, but their heads-ups game was terrible (and this fact only played into the American’s hands).
  • In 2015, Douglas "WCGRider" Polk played for the team of humans in a poker heads-up battle versus a No-Limit Hold'em bot  Claudico. The team also included Dong "DongerKim" Kim, Bjorn Lee, Jason Les. Each of them played 20 000 hands against the poker bot and as a result the team of humans won. A year later, in 2016, the team of people was beaten by the Libratus bot, but Polk did no longer participate in that confrontation.
  • Douglas Polk has created his own poker school. The poker player’s training resource is called Upswing Poker. Ryan Fee, Doug’s friend and colleague, has become a partner of the poker player.
  • The poker player has got three bracelets of the World Poker Series. The first WSOP bracelet Douglas Polk earned in 2014, having won the Turbo NLH for 1 000$; the second bracelet he got in 2016, having become (together with Ryan Fee) the Tag Team No Limit Hold'em champions for 1 000$, and the third trophy was won in 2017 in the popular High Roller for One Drop tournament for 111 111$, which brought Doug the biggest prize in his career (over 3 860 000$).

Doug Polk on the social networks:

Biography materials
Cardmates editor since 2015.