Doug Polk is trying to turn $50,000 into $100,000 playing online poker. He's playing medium-stakes games, and he's already lost about half of his money. It makes you wonder about online poker today. If a famous pro can't beat medium-stakes games, what does that mean for everyone else?
I can still win at low-stakes PLO. There aren't as many full-time pros, and you find a lot of loose or very tight players who are easy to beat. But after seeing Doug's results, I don't think I'll ever move up to medium stakes. It seems like making money at those levels is nearly impossible now.
If you've just started playing online, I'm almost 99% sure you've misclassified yourself as "average".Perhaps the main difference between a good poker player and a bad one is the ability to let go of a strong hand when it's suspected it will lose at showdown.
Polk crushing HU NLHE years ago doesn’t automatically translate to crushing 4-card PLO games in 2025.
Also, people assume that skill is equal to immunity to downswings. Mid-stakes online is brutal today: smaller edges, tougher regs, solvers everywhere, and Polk isn’t grinding full-time anymore. Doesn’t mean the games are unbeatable, just that one needs volume, study, and specialization, maybe not only a YouTube bankroll challenge
