What a night Friday was for Doug Polk in his first appearance on Bally’s Big Bet Poker LIVE at Tropicana as he won just north of $600,000, some of which came against his despised rival Matt Berkey.
The feuding poker pros tangled in a few sizable pots and also argued about their respective poker training sites. Polk runs Upswing Poker while Berkey heads Solve for Why.
Doug Polk and Matt Berkey Go at It
Kiero (@KieroLovesYou), a presenter for the live-streamed and televised poker show, shared a clip of the spat on Twitter.
“Upswing has a coach that sells a course, they’re on our site with their face, their course, and you’re calling that not our coach? Are you f*****g dumb?” Polk told Berkey, who refused to acknowledge that the pros who create courses for Upswing are actually coaches.
“Literally, yes,” Berkey responded.
“Literally, yes? You’re literally that dumb?” Polk said with a laugh.
“Dude, your point is almost so stupid, it’s almost hard to believe you’re making it, but then I have to remember that it’s you, so I can understand,” Polk later said.
https://twitter.com/KieroLovesYou/status/1674983913293504512
Tensions boiled over multiple times during the show, and not just between Berkey and Polk. Rob Yong got into it with the dealer when he apparently misheard the size of an all-in bet. He made the call and then claimed he heard “$26,000,” not “$46,000,” and then said he wouldn’t have called his top pair on the turn with a jack-high flush draw against a set if he’d known the correct size of the bet.
Yong had a rough night and was the biggest loser in the high-stakes cash game down over $400,000. Patrik Antonius, who lost $250,000 in Thursday’s game, came back to Tropicana in Las Vegas on Friday and dumped another $55,000. The Finnish poker legend also questioned if there were some marked cards at the table, although he dropped it when everyone denied doing so and then realizing marking cards on a live-stream wouldn’t be easy to get away with.
Polk Gets Even
In May, Polk infamously bluffed off a $1.1 million pot to Tom Dwan during Hustler Casino Live’s $1 million buy-in game, and finished the session down nearly $1 million.
He’d go on to win some of that back at the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP) a few days later, taking second place in Event #8: $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship for $313,362, a $288,000 profit. On Friday during the seven-hour Big Bet Poker stream, he would get back even more of those losses when he booked a $601,000 win.
Polk even snagged a bunch of money from Berkey with Q♠Q♥ when the Upswing Poker founder bet $67,000 into a pot of $95,000 on a board of 2♦3♣2♥5♣Q♦ when his opponent couldn’t find a fold with 4♥3♥. Berkey was bluff-catching, but he was up against a full house, not a bluff. Despite the huge pot loss, Berkey would go on to win $20,000 for the session.
The biggest hand of the night, which accounted for half of Polk’s profits, was quite a wild one. Polk four-bet preflop with Q♥Q♣ and was called by the 10♦10♣ of Antonius and A♣4♣ of Andrew Robl. With $84,000 already in the pot, the juicy flop came out 8♣Q♦9♣, hitting all three players in separate ways.
Antonius, with a pair and gut-shot straight draw, bet out $30,000 and was called by Polk, who had top set. Robl, chasing the nut flush draw, then moved all-in for $256,000. Antonius moved out of the way, but Polk snap-called. They agreed to run it twice, and the best hand held up both times, and Polk captured the full $613,400 pot. Robl would bounce back a bit and finish the session down $66,000, which wasn’t much in that game.