Doug Polk is one of the most known poker players in the world and previous owner of Upswing Poker training site, which he recently sold to WPT Gold. He has one of the biggest follwer base in the poker world, and has been more active as a business owner, and live player in recent years.
Recently he posted a tweet where he explains how he would make $1,000,000 in poker if he has to start over. He divided the process in 10 steps and said he is confidend that it would work.
Here are 10 steps Doug mentioned in his tweet:
1. Pick Your Game Type
Historically I have advised that people pick the game type that they are most passionate about. But today, I think it’s more realistic to focus on cash games due to the lifestyle advantages they offer compared to tournaments. Starting off with lower stakes online games to get experience and then transitioning into softer live games is probably optimal.
2. Watch Top Players In Your Game Type
It has never been easier to see what top players are doing. There is endless content for all game types between streams, shows, etc. Pay attention to the best players and make notes of the things they do in regards to hand selection, bet sizing, etc.
3. Practice and Study
You guys might think this is crazy, but I think it should be months before you actually start playing poker. Lessons you learn early you’ll take with you for your whole career. So fixing mistakes right away will pay dividends down the road.
4. Use Training Tools To Improve Over Time
It’s never been easier to use training tools to improve your game fast. There are plenty of great options. These tools allow you to practice playing real hands and they track your accuracy, so you can always see how well you are playing.
5. Play Very Short Sessions
Once the trainers confirm you are playing at a high level, you can start playing real hands against real opponents. Start with short sessions so you can take notes, jot hands down, etc. for review. Figure out what you did right, what you did wrong, and make improvements. The goal isn’t to win serious money yet. You just want to build a disciplined habit for learning and improving.
6. Log Every Session Result
It’s funny to me how often I talk to people who say that they are winning, but have no records of their results. You need to always track your results so you can know things like your win-rate, hourly, etc. and then make decisions based on that.
7. Find A Study Group Of Like-Minded Peers
Find a community where you can talk about hands back-and-forth with peers. When you ask a question, make sure it’s one that you’re really trying to solve for. And think critically about the responses you get to try and remove your own biases.
8. Play More Poker, Move Up In Stakes
As you start to improve, keep playing more real hands. And as you begin to win money, you can start taking some shots and move up in stakes. The goal isn’t to play micros and low stakes forever. You want to eventually be able to play higher stakes where you can win at a high hourly rate.
9. Maintain A High Ratio Of Study to Play
I think people tend to do this thing where when they’re losing, they study more. And when they’re winning, they study less. The reality is that every day you don’t study, you’re falling slightly behind your competition. So you need to always be improving if you want to keep winning in tougher games.
10. Understand That It’s Going To Take Time
It took Doug 5-7 years before He finally made his first million playing poker, and the game was much easier back then. You have to understand that winning lots of money will take some serious take, but it is possible. Process + Time = The Results You Want
Polk’s Poker Success
Polk has made $10,534,855 in total live earnings playing MTTs, and is currently ranked 164th in the all-time money list. But most of his money came from cash games that are not publicly tracked. Polk was considered the best heads-up player in the world at some point, and he used that reputation to create one of the most well-known poker training sites in the world.
He has also won 3 WSOP bracelets, and his most significant live MTT cash came in 2017 when he won $111,111 No Limit Hold’em – High Roller for One Drop for $ 3,686,865.
Now he is the owner of one of the biggest poker rooms in Texas, “The Lodge”, and is expanding the poker rooms business across the US. He is also promoting WPT Gold and has built a new poker training software called Lucid Poker.
We can confidently say that he has done it all in the poker world, and he might be a good person to give advice to upcoming poker players.
If you are interested in improving your poker skills, you can read one of our strategy articles where we explain why K6s is a special hand in poker.
