Doug Polk has won one of the most popular World Series of Poker (WSOP) events at the 2017 WSOP. Polk won the High Roller for One Drop – $111,111 No-Limit Hold'em. For poker pro Polk this is his third WSOP gold bracelet, but the first in a high-roller event. The title will see him take home a whopping $3,686,865 in prize money, taking his lifetime poker winnings to over $8.8 million. His previous gold bracelets have been in a turbo event in 2014 and in the 2016 tag team event.
Reacting to the win, Polk said that the One Drop title was special and felt better than his earlier bracelet triumphs.
In a statement Polk said
I'll say it for you: a real one. It does feel much better. To win that much money against tough people in a world-class event, it's way different.
Doug Polk Poker
Polk who is a highly successful online poker player defeated a field of 130 players and used his formidable heads-up skills to defeat Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. The strong turnout for the high roller event created a prize pool of $13,722,150, which was given out to the top 20 winners. The event also raised nearly $500,000 for the One Drop charity that aims to improve access to safe water in developing countries worldwide.
The final table had a number of top poker pros including Rainer Kempe, Martin Jacobson and Andrew Robl. As play whittled down the players to the final five, an issue with the playing cards came to light. Polk and along with Haralabos Voulgaris showed tournament organizers that the cards contained white specks that weren’t part of the design. However Polk dismissed any possibilities of cheating saying that he did not suspect any of the poker players of resorting to unfair practices.
The cards were soon changed and the five players – Polk, Chris Moore, Grospellier, Voulgaris, and Dario Sammartino resumed play. In the heads-up play Polk was able to take down Grospellier in a few hands, landing his biggest ever tournament win. Grospellier ended up with winnings of $2,278,657 while Sammartino took home $1,608,295 for his third place win.
The win also settled a prop bet between Grospellier and Polk, which involved the loser having to adopt the other’s hairstyle. Polk’s victory in the One Drop tournament is expected to give his numerous side ventures a major boost along with putting an end to the doubts regarding his poker skills. Polk has put in a lot of effort during the last few years to develop a strong social media business.
