Doug Polk grinded out his All Hands Challenge on Wednesday, winning a pot with every starting hand in just over 10 hours.
The challenge was issued by Taras Bobrovytsky, a Canadian investor who lives in Polk's neck of the woods near Austin, Texas.
"The way it works is simple," Polk said at the beginning of the stream. "Every hour I play I lose $5,000, but I start +$60,000. So at the 12-hour mark I would end up down money."
The maximum loss was $40,000 if Polk couldn't complete the challenge in 20 hours.
12 hours not needed
A multi-tabling Polk crossed out a lot of hands early, clearing more than half of the board in the first three hours. After five hours, Polk was down to just 11 hands.
The challenge undoubtedly changed the dynamic for other players, whether they knew about Polk's challenge or not. Polk would need to get lucky with the weaker hands, and he did just that with deuce-four offsuit.
With seven hands left to go, Polk picked up 
and jammed — a key part of the strategy. His opponent turned over 
.
"I'll just get there," Polk said as the board hit with 
to cross one of the more difficult hands off the board.
A short time later, about 6.5 hours in, Polk was down to just four suited hands: 
, 
, 
, and 
. It took another three hours to knock out three more and Polk was down to just one hand: jack-three offsuit.
A moment of confusion followed, and it turned out Polk's content manager crossed off both the suited and unsuited versions of 
on the same hand. The 'gate' was resolved and the five-four scored again, setting up a sprint to the final hand.
Just after the 10-hour mark, Polk picked up 
and sounded the alert before he shoved his full stack.
"Fold!" was the request, and it was granted. Polk completed the challenge at an estimated ten hours and four minutes with a final tally was a little more than $10,900 in his favor, though he did lose money at the tables in the attempt.
