Doug Polk Identifies the “Three Eras of Poker,” Claims

Doug Polk has been a prominent figure in the online poker community for over a decade now. He has seen, and in most cases commented on, all the developments of the game in that period.

Hence, when Polk shared a lengthy message in an X post about what he called the “3 distinct eras” of poker, he is speaking from a great deal of experience. However, he may simply have forgotten to specify that he is speaking about online poker, as he strictly references fairly recent events.

His first distinct era is “Pre Black Friday. The boom the rise of the juggernauts (Stars, FTP, UB)”. Given that poker has been played since the early 19th century, it is evidently quite a leap to group all the events in the history of the game into one from its inception to 2011, when Black Friday took place.

Online poker, on the other hand, has been played since 1998, so having the first era span from 1998 to 2011 makes a lot more sense.

“American Wasteland. 10 years of fallout from the catastrophic impact BF and the loss of an entire generation of American players.” Polk goes on to write. 

Again, this makes more sense for online poker specifically. Black Friday, the day the US Justice Department shut down all major poker sites for being in violation of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, naturally decimated the American online poker player pool. It also had some impact on the live poker scene, mainly with the loss of sponsorships for tournament series in the US, but not as devastating as Doug Polk makes it sound in his tweet.

For instance, the number of entries at the World Series of Poker Main Event, a good benchmark for interest in live poker, has remained stable. In the period denoted by Polk, it ranged from 6,352 at its lowest point in 2013 to all the way up to 8,569 players in 2019. In that same period, more and more US states gradually legalized online poker on the state level.

We end that period in 2019, because in Doug Polk’s interpretation, the next era of poker came with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID Resurgence. Over the last 5 years, lining up with people having to stay home for COVID, we've seen a significant rise of volume across online and live. In part because people refound their interest in the game over a span with less to do but also because of the rise of sweepstakes and crypto based platforms,” he writes.

Doug Polk’s Message on the Current State of Poker

Polk is aware of the bittersweet nostalgia of the Moneymaker boom era, when games were unimaginably soft compared to today’s standards. Our understanding of the optimal poker strategy has improved a lot, in large part thanks to evolving technology. And that knowledge is also easily accessible to the average player with the widespread adoption of the internet.

Doug Polk, however, has a different view on comparing the era passed and today. As he put it:

“You could look at the game today in a negative light. Certainly the average player is stronger now than they were before. But players have more options to play, with more large field tournaments, than at any point in time since pre bf.

Its [sic!] easy to look at the past with rose colored glasses and long for those times. But we are currently living the best era of poker I can remember in 15 years. You just have to go out there and make it happen.”

Poker has had 3 distinct eras

1) Pre Black Friday. The boom the rise of the juggernauts (Stars, FTP, UB)

2) American Wasteland. 10 years of fallout from the catastrophic impact BF and the loss of an entire generation of American players.

3) COVID Resurgence. Over the last 5…

— Doug Polk (Code Doug) (@DougPolkVids) August 22, 2026