WSOP 2017: Doug Polk Takes Down the High Roller for One Drop for over US$3.6 Million

The biggest event of the World Series 2017 kicked off on Friday June 2^nd with the world’s elite players taking to the front lines of Event #6: US$111,111 No Limit Hold’em High Roller for One Drop. The event attracted 130 entries, taking the prize pool up to US$13,722,150. After several hours of a massive action, Doug Polk, a high-stakes poker pro and poker coach, emerged the ultimate winner. Polk defeated several big names to win his third WSOP title and take down the top prize of $3,686,865.When asked about his grand victory, he said, “It does feel much better. To win that much money against tough people in a world-class event, it’s way different.”

Polk, a Las Vegas resident, defeated a tough opponent Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier of France in a brief heads-up match for the biggest cash of his live tournament career.

Polk entered the final day sixth in chips with nine players remaining. The entire final table was  stacked with top tournament talent. The final nine players had combined live tournament earnings of more than $51.4 million and included the likes of 2016 Super High Roller Bowl champion Rainer Kempe, 2014 WSOP main event champion Martin Jacobson and poker triple crown winner Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, who held nearly twice as many chips as his next opponent coming into the final day.

The big moment for Polk on the final table came when he doubled through Dario Sammartino to shoot near the top spot in chips. Very soon, he eliminated Voulgaris (4th – $1,158,883) and took the chip lead. A few hands later, Polk eliminated Sammartino (3rd – $1,608,295) to enter the heads-up.

The heads-up began between Polk and Grospellier from France. Polk began the play with roughly 4-to-3 lead. Polk raised to 1,900,000 with blinds of 400,000-800,000 with an ante of 100,000 and Grospellier called. The flop came Jc- 10s-4d. Grospellier put in a check-raise to 6,225,000 and Polk called to see the turn 8d. On the turn, Grospellier bet 8,800,000 and Polk called. The river brought the Qd and Grospellier checked. Polk checked as well and showed Q-J for a rivered two pair. Grospellier had a lead on the flop with J-10, but Polk had caught up on the river to make a better two pair.

Final Table Results:

Few Asian Players to Watch Out

Although no gold bracelet has been awarded to any Asian players, there have been a few players who have made it pretty deep for a sizable amount of earnings. One Asian who got very close was Filipino Martin Corpuz. A few days ago, he entered the final table of Event #4: US$1,500 Omaha Hi/Lo and finished 8th out of 905 entries. He earned US$21,839. Another player who impressed was Aditya Agarwal. He has many cashes at WSOP and is surely one of the players to watch out for. He cashed at Event #3: US$3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shooutout. He earned US$6,407. A few other notable Indian players to be watched out may include Aditya Sushant, Jaideep Sajwan and Vikram Kumar.

At WSOP 2017, we should also watch out for the two well-known Japanese players Naoya Kihara and Yosuke Sekiya, who cashed for under US$5K at Event 7: US$2,500 Limit Mixed Triple Draw Lowball.