Doug Polk won the High Roller for One Drop event at the 2017 World Series of Poker and collected $3,686,865 in winnings. The High Roller for One Drop (Event #6) is one of the most prestigious events at the 8-week WSOP.
Doug Polk, who is known in online ring games as “WCGRider” and the poker coach at Upswing Poker, collected his third WSOP bracelet with the win. Polk said the other two bracelets do not compare to winning the High Roller for One Drop, though.
Third World Series of Poker Bracelet
Previously, Doug Polk had won WSOP bracelets for a $1,000 turbo event and a $1,000 tag-team no-limit hold’em events. Winning those events had their charm, but neither had the huge payout of this year’s success. One was a 2014 turbo event and the other a 2016 tag team competition, so there is no comparison.
Polk, who is a livestreaming and YouTube personality, said “It does feel much better. To win that much money against tough people in a world-class event, it’s way different.”
$111,111 No-Limit Hold’em Event
The buy-in for Event #6 is $111,111, so only elite players and high rollers enter the competition. The 2017 High Roller for One Drop had 130 players, who competed at No-Limit Hold’em.
The 2017 High Roller for One Drop had a particularly big turnout, so the prize pool ballooned to $13,722,150. The final 20 players each received a share of the winnings. Meanwhile, Guy Laliberte’s One Drop Foundation, which brings drinking water to drought-stricken parts of the world, received $500,000.
High Roller for One Drop Final Table
Entering the final table of the event, few people would have picked Doug Polk as the eventual winner. He had the 6th-biggest chip stack out of 9 players, which usually means a player hangs around until the player with the big stack pushes them out of the event. Still, Doug Polk and the other players were guaranteed a $312,006 payday, so he was going to retrieve at least three times what he spent on entry fees.
The final table was a strong one, with top pros like Martin Jacobson, Rainer Kempe, and Bertrand Grospellier. When Polk lost a big hand early in play, he was facing the significant prospect of an early elimination. Then he doubled through Martin Jacobson when he paired his 10 on the flop against Ace-King, and the cards began to go his way through the rest of the day.
Polk said, “You realize, most of the time, I’m going home. But I had a chance, and the cards fell the right way.”
Markings on the Cards
When the final table was five-handed, the players noticed small white dots which were coloring some of the cards. Polk and fellow competitor Haralobos Voulgaris were the most vocal in pointing out the markings to the event organizers, who called for a short break as the cards were replaced.
About the card-marking situation, Doug Polk chalked it up to innocent circumstances.
Because it was an elite event, he knows and trusts the players involved. The event winner said, “I know all these guys. Some I know pretty well. Some I kind of know. They’re all very respectable people in the community. I don’t think anyone was cheating.”
Final Stages of the High Roller for One Drop
After play resumed, three players busted out in fairly quick succession. Chris Moore of the United States finished in 5th place and won $852,885. Haralobos Voulgaris of Canada finished in 4th place with $1,158,883 in winnings. Dario Sammartino of Italy finished in 3rd place for $1,608,295 in winnings.
That left Doug Polk heads-up with Bertrand Grospellier of France. The stakes were high with over $1 million in winnings and the prestige of winning the High Roller event on the line. Despite that, Polk and Grospellier decided to make a side bet involving hairstyles: the loser of the heads-up would have to style their hair in the distinctive fashion of the other competitor: Polk’s is a faux-hawk and Grospellier’s is a platinum blonde dye job.
“I guess we’re going to see ElkY with a faux-hawk,” quipped Polk afterward.
A Step Up for Doug Polk
All jokes aside, the win is huge for Doug Polk’s standing in the professional poker world. It is a distinction to have 3 WSOP bracelets now, but for a man who is building a brand as an online poker coach and a YouTube personality, winning the High Roller for One Drop is a huge distinction. The field included many of the best and most famous poker players in the world, so Doug Polk’s ability to market himself to the card players of the world.
