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I could not answer you if you asked me why I love following professional poker players as they embark on bankroll challenges, yet I follow them closely. Maybe it’s because they temporarily come into my zone of trying to run up a small bankroll, perhaps that’s it, but I know that if I see a “bankroll challenge” announcement, I always read it. Maybe that’s why you’re here too!

I think the solver strategy that I'm learning at Upswing Poker does not really help me at these stakes. People have still way too tight ranges or they call you down untill the river. I will make some changes to my game going into the next month. The bankroll also reached a new small peek this month by ending in 4th place in the big $7.5. Official subreddit for all things poker. Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Upswing Bankroll Challenge.

I imagine you are, like me, currently following Doug Polk’s latest bankroll challenge, which he is playing exclusively in Nevada on WSOP.com and live streaming via his popular Twitch channel, Upswing Poker. His self-imposed task is to turn an initial $100 into a much larger $10,000 and the poker world has been speculating on how long this will take him, with estimates ranging from a few days to a few months. Polk could even fail the challenge if he busts the $100...

I think part of the reason I am so interested in the challenge is because, like so many others, I can copy the challenge right now and I would love to turn that amount into a life-changing bankroll. I’ve marked time for years, never quite breaking through. Also, we hear so much about the online games being so tough to beat and that the poker boom is long gone that we know we can win but maybe we struggle to really believe it sometimes. Perhaps it takes a pro like Doug Polk to demonstrate to us that opportunities do still exist and it is more about us than the games as to why we remain at the lower stakes.

Polk was asked why he was doing the challenge and said this:

Where I give Polk huge praise is his conservative approach to bankroll management as he embarks on this challenge. He will maintain 50 to 100 times his buy-in for tournaments and 30 to 40 buy-ins for cash games. You can copy the “Polk Challenge” and use this strategy with your own $100 and give yourself a good chance of success. This is not a reckless “run it up or die” challenge. Polk is doing it properly.

Polk will be playing micro-stakes games like $1 SNGs, $1 MTTs, small cash games, and even a bit of Pot Limit Omaha thrown in for good measure to begin with as he tries to reach $10,000. Only when he has won money will he be able to play in larger tournaments and cash games.

Progress has been slow so far and in the early sessions his bankroll fluctuated wildly, at one point falling under $50 before a comeback saw him end the fourth day of play at around $110. Without using a conservative bankroll management strategy he would have busted by now, which shows the power of being careful. It has kept him in the game and he has returned to his starting bankroll where he can now hopefully kick on towards his goal. There’s a lesson straight away for us all to note and emulate.

A bankroll challenge offers you a number of advantages from standard play. I struggle to find purpose when I play other than the obvious enjoyment of making tough decisions and (wherever possible) winning, so having a bankroll target helps me play with a goal in mind and gives my poker play structure.

In reality we are all constantly in a “bankroll challenge” because who does not start with a smaller amount of money seeking to run it up without busting? However, I think the “game” element to a challenge makes it fun and interesting and I think that is why I enjoy watching professional players embark on these challenges. I can also relate better to a player playing with a smaller bankroll. As fun as it is to watch a pro multi-table with a combined buy-in amount of $500 in play at a time, I cannot personally relate to this sort of risk. Seeing a player run up a small roll reminds me that I can or should be able to do that and there is no excuses if I fail to do it.

Follow Polk’s challenge on his Upswing Poker Twitch Channel and see what you can learn before you embark on a similar challenge yourself. Check out the various PokerTube offers on our deals page as depending on which offer you take up, you can increase your starting stack before you even start.

Professional poker player Doug “WCGRider” Polk embarked on a bankroll challenge this week. These types of challenges are nothing new – plenty of players have tried them – but they are still a lot of fun. Polk began his Sunday, attempting to grow an online poker bankroll from $100 to $10,000 in the appropriately named “$100 to $10,000 Challenge.”

The most famous bankroll challenge was done by Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, back in 2006 when he wasn’t a known asshole. Ferguson did his a bit different than will Polk, aiming to generate a $10,000 bankroll from nothing. He started by playing in freerolls on Full Tilt Poker, taking several weeks to make just two dollars. He lost that money, but kept plugging away, eventually making $22 in freerolls. His breakthrough came when he turned a second place finish in a one dollar tourney into $104.

From there, Ferguson went on to hit his $10,000 in a total of about a year and a half. He made it all the way up to $28,000 before falling back below the $10,000 mark.

In an interview with PokerUpdate.com, Polk said that one way his challenge differs from Ferguson’s, aside from starting with $100, is that Ferguson had a strict set of rules, including one that stipulated that he had to have 20 buy-ins to sit down in a cash game. Polk feels that this rule, specifically, was “very aggressive” and “inadvisable.”

Polk, instead, has not set any rules for his play. He is going to treat the money like it is his own bankroll, trying not to lose it all.

He also said that Ferguson’s challenge is “long outdated,” as he started it before the UIGEA was passed, when online poker was much softer than it is now.

Upswing Poker Bankroll Management

When asked why he is doing this, Polk said, “I took on this challenge because I want to prove that, even in today’s tough online poker ecosystem, a hopeful micro stakes grinder can still run up a bankroll. The days of the 2003 poker boom may be behind us, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up and blame our failure on the system.”

Upswing Poker Bankroll Challenge Games

Polk is playing the entire challenge on WSOP.com in Nevada, streaming his sessions on UpSwing Poker’s Twitch channel. From what I have seen so far, he constantly interacts with viewers, narrating his games and answering strategy questions.

Upswing Poker Bankroll Challenge Rules

He told PokerUpdate that he is mostly going to play No-Limit Hold’em, though he is currently playing Pot-Limit Omaha (and winning a big hand for the buy-in he was playing). Polk began the challenge poorly, losing $17 in the first day, but that’s poker. One could argue that it is almost better that way, as having a huge run-up on day one could potentially make Polk and his fans overconfident.

Upswing Poker Bankroll Challenge Game

As I write this, he is in the fourth day of the challenge and has worked his way back to around break even.