Doug Polk seemed to be on cruise control to win well over a Million by the end of the 12,500 which is hopefully just the halfway mark of this 25,000 hand challenge.
However, Daniel has hit back in the last two sessions with a little run good going his way, although Daniel is yet to win an All-in pot from behind.
Daniel gives Doug the Rope
DNegs held a pretty huge hand on the Turn with top pair and a flush draw the River completed some straights and brought an overcard to Daniels top pair in the shape of a King.
It was arguably a scare card, however considering Daniels whole range it’s hard to imagine him having a better hand to show down that he gets to the River with, other than him having two pair or a straight himself.
Daniel went deep into the tank, eventually making the call and Doug tabled a pair of 4’s which he barrelled off with.
DNegs Shutting down with Ace high
In this pot Daniel blasted off with just Ace high, firing big on both the Flop and Turn cards. Which didn’t do him too many favours with Doug holding a pair on the Flop that he’s never folding, then picking up a draw on the Turn.
I’m not the one in the lab myself, but it seems like a perfectly good spot to employ some of that small ball poker that made Daniel all his money and look to showdown his Ace high in this pot. Betting we could make the mistake of getting raised off our equity by worse draws and we just bloat the pot when we are not getting folds against better.
I think if we are going to fire bluffs at this pot they are better suited to when cards like the River Queen hits, or simply for firing all three barrels. I would imagine this is a large part of the gap in win rates between the pair, Doug is more likely to pull the trigger in this spot, whilst Daniel backs out and leaves $32k out there.
Flush against the Wheel
Doug hit the world on the Turn in this 4-Bet pot and ended up scooping a huge $112k+ for his efforts. Daniel however despite the board getting a little frosty for him come the River card, played a massive pot with 53s out of position against a very capable opponent.
If I’m losing huge in a heads up match, I’m not going to start calling 4-Bets out of position with 5 high, I think we need to wait for more lucrative spots, or get aggressive and re-pick up the betting lead with a 5-bet.
2.5x Over Met with an All-in
This pot got ridiculous on the River, with Doug betting a cool $8,100 into a single raised pot of just $3,300 that was then met with a huge shove all-in from Daniel.
I can’t imagine any other hand in Daniels range here than the nuts, he just doesn’t play this kind of style and if he had a weaker hand like two pair, he would surely have bet the board earlier or just called this already large over-bet.
Doug made a speedy fold and was likely speeding himself and just looking to capitalise on Daniels passive post-flop play here.
Doug Value Owning Himself
Daniel bet small after 3-Betting with this 54s, flopped the joint and continued with a small sizing. Personally, I think this is a board we can size up on a little, we can apply huge pressure to hands like Ax that haven’t 4-Bet pre-flop for the times we are bluffing.
Even though Daniel has the nuts on this particular flop he will often have other hands that might be able to bet large due to having a range advantage on Ace-high boards. These are always good spots to apply pressure to opponents.
DNegs pumped the breaks when the flush card hit the Turn and I don’t hate check-calling this card, which is what he does. When the River pairs the board he checks again and Doug goes for some value with his Ace Jack only to be snap-called by the straight from Daniel.
Boat Blockers
This was a cooler board from the word go, with both players flopping huge here. DNegs with two pair and Doug with the flopped nine high flush. Daniel hit the worst card in the deck on the River but instead of waving the white flag he pulled out a 4x raise, making it $21,000 to see what he’s playing.
Doug actually tanked for quite some time to make this call but not many players are folding flushes heads up these days and he ended up scooping just over $50k.
I like this bluff from Daniel whilst looking at this hand in a vacuum, however, he has to ask himself if he’s often using this line for value, because if he’s leading pretty often with his River hands for value but then always bluff check-raising he will be a little too heavily bluffing in this kind of spot.
Doug Talks Takes a Reddit Ask Me Anything
Doug recently answered some questions for the fans, read the full AMA answers on the thread here.
What are the chances of DNegs beating you?
“So far my win-rate has been 21 bb/100… but let’s calculate using my all-in EV of 14 bb/100 because that is probably fairer.
Let’s say he improves and has been running bad situationally…
… and let’s say he only loses at 8 theoretical bb/100 for the rest of the challenge. Then his chance to win goes up to 10-15% or so.”
Do you plan to play more Poker after this match?
“Might take a couple of soft spots if they come up, but no big battles vs top guys. To be honest, I’m already looking forward to not playing anymore poker.”
Do you think the challenge will go the full 25,000 hands?
“No clue. I think he will play it out. It’s been competitive enough so far for him to play the second half. I don’t think he is the kind of guy to say he will play it out and then quit.
Then again, if he goes on a really bad run at this point it could be gg. Hard to say.”
Check out the latest hands reviewed in depth by DNegs
Daniel usually blasts through these hand reviews in-depth, with mind-altering commentary like, “well sometimes we bet” and “were gonna get fucked here”