Tuesday’s final tables may have been highlighted by Dominik Nitsche winning his second tournament of the 2014 WSOP and Chris Wallace winning the prestigious $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, but there was one more bracelet up for grabs yesterday in 2014 WSOP Event #23: $1,000 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em. A familiar name to many in the online poker world, Doug Polk, won the event capturing his first career World Series of Poker bracelet.
Now, Doug Polk might not be the name so many people know, but his online screen name, “WCGRider,” is. For a number of years now, Polk has been one of the best online cash players around, currently ranking as the 80th most profitable online player, according to HighStakesDB.com, with $746,351 in profits.
He is not as known for his live tournament prowess, but his resume, though short, is quite impressive already. In addition to this quarter-million dollar win, he earned A$860,000 (USD $770,237) for a fourth place finish in this year’s $100,000 Challenge at the Aussie Millions. He followed that up with two six-figure cashes – one in February for a second place finish in the 2014 Bellagio High Roller III and another in April for a third place finish in the Bellagio High Roller V. Polk now has $1.3 million in live tournament earnings.
Turbo tournaments, while ubiquitous online (and at most casinos in their smaller, daily tourneys) they are new to the World Series of Poker, having just been introduced last year. In the turbo events, blind levels are reduced from sixty minutes to thirty on Day 1 and are raised slightly to forty minutes on Day 2. Needless to say, these are not the same marathon events that many others turn out to be.
After the victory, Polk told WSOP.com Managing Editor Jessica Welman that it is time for him to emerge from the internet shadows. “I’m tired of being WCGrider. I want to be Doug Polk,” he said. “I want to get out there and I want to try to establish myself in poker. My goals long term are to get a sponsor and to work with other people in the industry and I need to not be, ‘hiding behind a computer screen,’ to do that.”
It also sounds like Polk was in on some of the bracelet prop bets that players engage in each summer. “[The bracelet] means a lot,” he told Welman. “It means whatever first place is plus all their money. I don’t think it is a direct, ‘Now I have a bracelet–things are different.’ I just think it gives me a more solid foundation to build on my position within the industry.”
Polk clearly has a plan to be more than “just” a poker player.
2014 World Series of Poker Event #23: $1,000 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em – Final Table Results
1. Doug Polk – $251,969
2. Andy Philachack – $155,756
3. Jonathan Hanner – $102,503
4. Chad Cox – $73,894
5. Liam Alcock – $54,088
6. Tony Gregg – $40,168
7. Gianluca Cedolia – $30,252
8. Dash Dudley – $23,093
9. Andrew Mackenzie – $17,857
* Tournament information and photo courtesy WSOP.com.