Watch! Doug Polk analyzes key hands vs. Terrance Reid

Adam Hampton playing at the 2024 WSOP
Adam Hampton
Posted on: February 3, 2025 10:11 PST

When you agree to take on Doug Polk, heads-up at his Texas card room The Lodge, you can be sure of a good game and fair deal, but you also know you’re at risk of a few things. The opportunity to lose money is a given, the chance to make money is of course also on the table, but when the cameras are rolling you know you’re also in the firing line to have your play broken down and analyzed by the man himself on his hugely popular YouTube channel.

Hopefully, you get a few decisions right and a good grade from the heads-up headmaster.

Last week, PokerOrg’s own Terrance ‘TJ’ Reid spent a day over in Texas, under the lights, taking Polk on in a rocking $25/50 heads-up cash game with a buy-in of $10,000.

And now the dust has settled, Polk has shared his take on some of the key hands played.

Watch the video above now to see Polk’s analysis, or read on for a taste. Note that we’ve abridged Polk’s analysis a little for reasons of brevity.

A clash of pairs

One hand early on in the session saw both players pick up pocket pairs and come out raising, with Polk raising to $125 from the button with , TJ 3-betting to $450 with , before Doug makes it $1,300. TJ makes the call to see the flop.

In the video above, Polk explains why he steps on the gas with pocket aces in position, and his take on TJ’s call.

I don't really like to trap aces all that often. I don't mind mixing it in against some players that are particularly aggressive but in my time looking at a lot of poker situations, aces tends to just like to raise.

As you get more shallow [pocket] aces does like to trap a bit more, because it's more likely your opponent improves to something that can continue, and it's also less bad to just pot control. For example, if you're hundreds of blinds deep you're really not going to want to trap aces, you want to get as much money in as you possibly can.

I think TJ should mainly call. You really don't ever fold pairs when you 3-bet them in heads-up. If you 3-bet and your opponent 4-bets, you either jam or call, and I think you mainly call.

Polk breaks out the charts in the full video. Polk breaks out the charts in the full video.

With $2,600 in the middle, the flop brought a check from TJ’s pocket 7s, and a bet of $525 from Polk’s aces, which TJ called.

This is a board that both players actually connect with a decent amount. Because of that you probably do want to be building in some checks into your checkback range here, and you want to be a little bit more polarized when you do bet.

I don't think you're making a particularly gigantic error if you go ahead and just bet your range here. It does kind of come down to the way that both players are constructing their ranges preflop, and if you just want to simplify your life that seems fine.

The downside is you are actually going to get check-raised here more than you probably would imagine. The reason being that there are lots of draws, lots of top pairs, lots of hands like to raise for the big blind, so I think that checking some hands here, particularly hands that are vulnerable against a check-raise… can really make some sense to check back and pot control.

But when you have black aces like this, unblocking both the flush straws, this is the kind of hand you're certainly going to want to just bet and build the pot.

High Stakes Poker awards: The best of Season 8, by Antonio Abrego Polk has three WSOP bracelets to date.
Antonio Abrego

With the dropping on the turn, TJ check-called once more when Polk bet $1,600.

The question is, what size do we want to go? We have pot left behind but we want to use a geometric size, which means bet a percent of pot here that sets up a roughly equivalent river jam. I think in that spot anything from around 1,400 to 2K are all pretty reasonable sizes.

We go for $1,600 which seems totally fine. It does make the river bet a little bit bigger than the turn bet but I don't think it's a very big deal. Now for TJ’s pocket 7s it's getting pretty difficult. I really don't like the fact that he has the or the , the suits on his sevens are not particularly good to call the turn, however given the size of the bet you're probably going to have to just call.

I think that in this situation when you have pairs, there are simply too many other hands that might want to consider bluffing here, so it becomes a very difficult situation to let go of hands like pocket sevens and still be able to defend enough of your range where your opponent can't profitably bluff you.

With one card to come, TJ needed to hit one of the two remaining sevens, or to somehow get Polk to lay down his pocket rockets.

What came on the river? You’ll have to watch the video to find out.

Free lessons from the master

Reid may have ended the session down some, but he assures us he made it all back and more in a ring game at The Lodge the following day. What we do know for sure is that he enjoyed his chance to take on a renowned heads-up supremo like Doug Polk.

And when you’re able to get a detailed hand analysis from a master of the art, can you afford not to take the chance?

For the rest of us, the lesson is free - you can watch the whole thing above or over at Doug Polk’s YouTube channel, as well as part two of his analysis vs. TJ Reid.

Additional image courtesy of Antonio Abrego/PokerGO