Doug Polk built his poker reputation on heads-up play. It’s where he’s most comfortable, staring at a single opponent directly across the table. And tomorrow, when the Final Four of Event #8: $25,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship begins at 4 p.m. local time, he can capture the one thing missing from his resume, the WSOP Heads Up bracelet.
Polk headlines the four remaining players who will gather on the main feature stage inside the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. He’ll be joined by Sean Winter, Chris Brewer, and Chanracy Khun, three opponents who have navigated through the grind of four heads-up matches to reach this stage.
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Full Bracket
Day 2 Action
Polk began the day by defeating Reiji Kono in the Round of 16, complimenting the young Japanese star after the match. The highlight of his day, though, was still to come. Facing Roberto Perez, who had a passionate rail chanting “Davy” for his online handle “DavyJones,” Polk called a preflop shove with ace-queen. Perez had seven-five and took the lead with a five on the turn, but Polk hit a three on the river to complete a wheel as he took a victory lap around the rail.
Kono and Perez provided Polk with differing challenges before making the Final Four. “Normally, I think when you think of a good player, you think of an aggressive player. But the thing about heads-up is if you become too aggressive, it becomes bad. So it’s all about balancing that aggression into your overall play style,” Polk said after booking his ticket for the event’s final day.
“[Kono] I think he had his foot fully on the gas, and I was able to make a couple of reasonable call downs versus him to do well. I’m usually not the guy you can run over in heads-up no-limit…[Perez] legitimately never had a hand. He made some nice calls. He tried a couple of bluffs, and got a couple through here and there. I don’t think what we saw from him today indicates how he plays as a whole.”
Polk, who makes only occasional appearances at the WSOP while running the Lodge cardroom in Austin, Texas, already has three WSOP bracelets. His three opponents on Sunday are all still chasing their first. Winter and Brewer would be near the top on a list of the game’s best players without a bracelet. Winter gave an indication of his incredible poker talent when he called a river bet of 350,000 with just ace-high to take a commanding lead over Eric Wasserson on his way to finishing off the match a short time later. Brewer hit a queen on the river to beat Anthony Zinno and set up a match against Polk in the semifinals. It’s one Polk is looking forward to.
“It should be a fun one. I’ve played Chris a bunch online. When I was prepping for my match against Daniel Negreanu, we played a good chunk of hands, and I smashed him pretty good. But he played pretty well. His frequencies and stuff were quite good, quite balanced. I thought he was a good player,” Polk said.
The Montreal, Canada native Khun isn’t the household name that Polk, Winter, and Brewer are in the poker community, but he still has WSOP cashes going back more than a decade and more than $400,000 in total earnings. After a gruelling match against Gabor Szabo in the Round of 16, Khun made quick work of poker prodigy Landon Tice in the quarterfinals when he flopped two pair to beat Tice’s pair of aces.
Polk vs. Brewer. Winter vs. Khun. The Final Four is set, and it all gets underway on Sunday. They are matchups that ChatGPT nearly correctly predicted at the beginning of the day. Action will be streamed on PokerGO from 5 p.m. until a winner is crowned. Polk is the star and headliner and does not doubt who should be considered the favorite.
“I feel really good about my chances. I’m probably the favorite tomorrow,” he said. “I guess the only thing I would say is my short-stack game isn’t particularly great, but as long as the stacks are deep, I feel extremely good about my chances. I would imagine I’ll be the best deep-stacked No-Limit Hold’em player tomorrow. This is my favorite event. I think it’s no surprise that I tend to do best in this event. There’s only one other guy. That’s what I usually do. That’s what I’ve done my whole life. So I feel great.”