Doug Polk is co-owner of the Lodge, where he can often be found laughing and joking while playing nosebleed stakes games for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He is well recognized as one of the best heads-up Texas Hold’em players of all time, as well as one of the best all around poker players in any game format. He regularly posts vlogs and updates to his YouTube channel, where over 350,000 subscribers tune in to watch his informative (and comedic) videos.
Beyond his business, poker and YouTube success, Doug is also the head coach at upswingpoker.com, where he has brought his poker knowledge to thousands of up and coming poker players, helping them transform their lives and win big at the tables.
Q&A With Doug
Do you have any pregame routines before your sessions?
“My pregame routine before playing at the Lodge starts with a long drive to get my thoughts together and also deal with the Austin traffic.”
If you could go back 10 years to talk to a younger version of yourself, what advice would you give?
“Probably don’t play Pot Limit Omaha, but I don’t know it was a good time, so what advice can I really give myself.”
When you’re not playing poker, what do you enjoy doing?
“When I’m not playing poker I like to take some time to meditate and center my energy.. I’m just fucking around, I bet on sports.”
What’s your favorite movie of all time?
“It’s an interesting question, because I don’t really watch movies. What came out recently, I don’t know movies, wasn’t Spiderman a thing? I saw Gladiator when I was a kid, that was a good movie, but nothing really strikes me off the top of my head.”
What was the first job you had?
I worked at my buddy’s dad’s company, logging data into this website to sell things online. This was before Amazon, and it turned out that company didn’t win out.
What’s the best advice you can give to a new poker player?
“Pick one game, because if you want to get better at poker and have a chance to win in the long run, you’ve got to be pretty sharp to beat the people who are already playing it. If you hop around playing this and that, that’s cool and you can do that, but if you want to hone your skills you’ve gotta pick one game and go all in.”