When it comes to award nominations, there are ways to take victory and defeat, nomination and the passing of a year without official recognition. Some look on their year not being part of the Global Poker Awards merely as an opportunity to praise their contemporaries, enjoy their work and embrace the positivity of their peers being applauded for their work. Others… well, Doug Polk anyway, have a different outlook on their perceived unfair omission.
The GPI poker awards finalists came out yesterday, and this time, im not even nominated for any category
Last year I made 74 poker videos for 35m views. I covered hands, news, and all kinds of poker topics. I didnt play poker but it was my most successful year ever for content.
— Doug Polk (@DougPolkVids) January 21, 2020
Polk’s complaint about his omission doesn’t come across as the best intended, with lots of statistical background on how successful he is and why he should have been nominated.
While Polk’s numbers are doubtless impressive, and he has a huge audience in the poker industry, his reaction could easily be interpreted as salty, and as GPI President Eric Danis explained when he spoke to PokerNews, the structure of the nominees being from ‘video diary’ backgrounds played a part in dictating Polk not being so present this year.
Polk’s videos are highly entertaining and despite his retirement from playing poker, his comment on the industry is a valuable one, and Danis’ words reiterate the YouTuber’s merit in making his poker videos. They have, after all, garnered spectacular viewing figures. Despite this, Polk’s absence from the Global Poker Awards, which take place on March 6th via the PokerGO studio in Las Vegas, Nevada, does give others in his categories the chance to shine.
That’s not a bad thing, and while Joey Ingram made headlines with the Global Poker Awards, announced as he was as receiving multiple nominations – the investigator of the Mike Postle saga has four gong nominations after his best ever year of poker content – he’s not the only one who is up for an award.
Streamers nominated include Hristivoje Pavlovic, Benjamin Spragg, Matthew Staples and Lex Veldhuis, while Jaman Burton, Andrew Neeme, Daniel Negreanu and Brad Owen are all up for the Vlogger of the Year.
While Polk makes the point that his numbers dwarf the viewing figures of Brad Owen, Andrew Neeme and Daniel Negreanu – though not combined – the reach for those Vloggers is very special to the industry too.
While Doug Polk will undoubtedly be disappointed to miss out this year, he’ll be back. With so much to look forward to in early March, the recognition of other names in the industry to those who have previously been held up as examples of the good work being broadcast every day in poker is a really healthy thing for the industry.
If Super High Rollers advocate not ‘tapping the tank’ in terms of putting off recreational players from taking up the game and being allowed to make mistakes without fear of them being highlighted, then surely it’s great for poker to allow new voices the freedom to become popular too.
Heck, not as popular as Doug Polk because he’s got the best figures in the poker world, but, you know, very popular.
New voices in the poker industry are always a good thing for the overall audience growth and so many of those fans will stumble upon Polk’s work and love it like the rest of us. While it won’t be Polk winning a Global Poker Award, the fact that the GPI expansion of the awards has grown the overall prestige of the event is something everyone in poker benefits from, including Doug Polk.
