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Ah, who doesn’t love a good heads-up poker challenge? They provide publicity and possible financial rewards to the participants, entertainment for railbirds, and promotion of the poker industry as a whole. High-stakes player, content creator, and cardroom owner Doug “WCGRider” Polk has announced a new heads-up challenge on X, and he’s taking aim at some of the biggest names in the game.
Details of the Challenge
Doug Polk posted the details of his challenge on X on Friday, Feb. 20:
Polk is looking to book up to four separate rounds against different opponents. The blinds will be at least 100/200 for 5,000 hands over the course of three days.
Whoever beats Polk will win a $25,000 bounty. However, should Doug win any match, the subsequent match will have the bounty increased by $25,000. So if Doug wins the first three, the final challenge will have a $100,000 bounty available to Doug’s opponent.
Challenges will be played on Club WPT Gold, and they’re open to anyone in the United States and Canada who can play at the site. Doug says he’ll choose his opponents “based on who will make the most compelling match.”
About Doug Polk
Doug Polk was born in Pasadena, California, in 1988, but he and his family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina when he was just a child. During high school, Doug got involved in the competitive eSports scene, and his later poker pseudonym, “WCGRider” in fact derives from the World Cyber Games competitions in which he participated multiple times during this era.
After graduating from high school in 2007, Polk went to the University of North Carolina where he picked up online poker. Until 2011, he had lackluster results, but he then decided to recommit himself to the game and soon became one of the best heads-up NLHE players around.
Doug PolkIn 2015, Doug opened a poker training site called Upswing Poker, and in 2016, he started a YouTube channel, Doug Polk Poker. Over the years, Doug has devoted more time to his content creation efforts and has slowly stepped away from the poker felt. Indeed, he has retired from the game a couple of times – although one way or another, he always seems to find himself drawn back to the tables.
In January 2022, Doug Polk became part owner of The Lodge card club. He has since appeared many times on the Lodge Live streamed games.
On April 1, 2025, Doug became an ambassador for ClubWPT Gold. As part of the deal, the poker site took over Polk’s Upswing Poker training site.
Doug’s Previous Challenge Results
As may be expected of someone who made his name in the poker world as a heads-up specialist, Doug already has plenty of experience with these kinds of challenges.
For instance, he faced off against Daniel Negreanu for 25,000 hands of poker on WSOP.com, and Polk wound up winning $1.2 million from “KidPoker.” During a live poker rematch in August 2023 at the PokerGo Studio in Las Vegas, Daniel won $200,000 back from Doug.
More recently, in November 2025, Doug won a series of matches on ClubWPT Gold against Ossi “Monarch” Ketola, taking home $1.2 million.
Doug has also embarked on several online poker challenges that were unrelated to heads-up poker. For example, in August 2016, he started a bankroll challenge of running $100 up to $10,000 playing online poker. He did achieve his goal though it took him 58 days of play over a full two years to accomplish it.
Possible Opponents
After his post on X announcing the challenge, Doug revealed on the same platform a list of “Matches that would be good:”
- Senior Tilt
- Eric Persson
- Phil Hellmuth
- Phil Galfond
- Matt Berkey
- Luke Schwartz
- Bryn Kenney
- Big Huni
- Phil Ivey
- Club WPT Gold Development team
- Whoever runs Club WPTGold Twitter
- People who call me Doug “Poke”
- People who call it “Head up”
Most of these names are what you would expect: prominent high-stakes poker players along with a few categories of people who annoy Doug. “Senior Tilt” appears to be a misspelling of “Señor Tilt,” which refers to Sam Kiki, founder of betting company Monkey Tilt and well-known for his aggressive, bluffy style of poker. “Big Huni” is Chris Hunichen who has booked more than $17 million in live tournament earnings.
Reactions
None of the players named by Doug Polk have yet accepted the challenge. Nevertheless, several observers have chimed in with their thoughts.
Some people are excited to see any challenge go down. However, a surprising number of people had criticisms of the challenge as explained by Polk:
However, entrepreneur, avid prop bettor, and high-stakes poker enthusiast Bill Perkins had a shorter reply:
Though Bill wasn’t named specifically by Polk, a match between the two could prove interesting. Bill is no stranger to high-stakes betting, especially prop betting, and he’s quite a skilled poker player too although he claims to consider himself just an amateur at the game.
Practice Your HU Game Today
Doug Polk intends to host his challenges on ClubWPT Gold, but this is a weird hybrid training/playing site with an unusual business model. If you’d prefer something a bit more traditional, then you can try Ignition Poker, which allows heads-up cash game play. You’ll get a 150% up to $1,500 poker bonus with your initial deposit. Click below to get started at Ignition now:
To learn more about the site first, check out this accurate Ignition Poker review. For information on other US-friendly internet poker operators, consult this USA online poker guide.
Feb. 27, 2026 – by Max Golden, Editor-in-Chief
