Doug "WCGRider" Polk Calls Out Ben "Ben86" Tollerene Over a Coaching Deal

Ben "Ben86" Tollerene.

Doug "WCGRider" Polk and Ben "Ben86" Tollerene are arguing over a coaching deal the two online high-stakes legends reportedly made four years ago.

The details of the coaching deal were made public on 2+2 poker forum yesterday by "WCGRider" himself, who has uploaded also a 30-minute Youtube-video to his channel, where he explains the story from his point of view.

In short, Polk claims to have coached Ben "Ben86" Tollerene in No-Limit Hold'em in exchange for some Pot-Limit Omaha coaching. After Polk did his part, Tollerene allegedly backed out of the deal in last minute:

I tried to have this conversation with you 2 years ago. But you ignored a very well thought out message I sent you detailing the events that happened and instead responded a day later with "I can't deal with this". Didn't hear back from you a single time since then.

Oh wait, I did hear back from you! A year later when you sat me at 500/1k cap. What kind of psychopath behaves like that, I teach you the baseline for my view into No Limit, talk to you about a bunch of concepts, and then you try to go after me at the highest stakes on the internet 9 months later.

Ben you are a scumbag and many people know it. You have a lot of friends that are truly great people (Don, Jakoon, Galfond, etc) but it is absolutely disgusting to me that you let on that you are a nice guy with how horrible of a person you truly are. 

 

With such harsh words and accusations aimed at him, Tollerene felt the urge to tell his side of the story in a lenghty post yesterday. Basically, Tollerene acknowledges a coaching deal was made, but he couldn't give coaching because he had to respect his "partner in PLO", who was not comfortable to share information with Polk:

Alright I guess we're doing it. Here's what happened, this was about 4 years ago. Doug moves to my building in Van and we hangout a couple times and talk about swapping NL and PLO coaching. I am interested, I think it's a good idea. Doug coaches me first, I think about 4 sessions and half of that focused on a hu match. I sell him a piece and we do really well. I tell him I have to talk to my partner in PLO (who is on his way out of poker) before we can talk PLO. The guy I did all of my work with. I am confident that since my partner is leaving poker and we have done extremely well together that there is no way sharing with Doug will be a problem, and I'm thinking he will get pieces of the action so this is just positive for everyone. My partner surprises me and says no. I have to respect it, so I apologize to Doug and say I can't do it. I still did let him sweat me a few times and we talked a little about PLO, but nothing great. I admit he got shorted, and it was not my intention. I sincerely thought it would be fine and once my partner said no I had no options.

We are fine after this. Doug doesn't bring up having an issue with it, I think he made like 70k and understood my intentions and what happened. Then we go out drinking one night, it's late and we're wasted. Doug starts giving his #1 in the world speech and I tell him I don't agree, his sample is too small, etc. We argue for a while and he eventually breaks down and get's really upset. We talk it out until about 5AM in his room, hug each other, and we're cool. I wake up the next morning to an essay on Skype about why we cannot be friends anymore. Given that I already didn't like being around Doug very much, I thought ok fine we aren't friends anymore and left it at that. We had another deal at this time which he unilaterally closed with absolutely no right to do so, but I didn't say anything because being done with Doug was agreeable.

A year later I sit him at CAPNL because I'm a pro poker player and I think I can beat him. He sits out. Then in Vegas we are both playing the 100k at Bellagio and he walks up to me and goes "so sitting me at the ole 500/1k eh?" I said yeah, and then he said something that I can't remember along the lines of "that's kind of ****ty". (Doug and I never talked CAPNL strat). I suggest we talk and he says "no I'm good". So again I'm just content to have no Doug relationship. Apparently he held a grudge.

I don't think anyone in the entire HS community other than you thinks those things about me and you're way out of line talking like that. Please tell me who these people are. Tell me what horrible things I've done. I've never cheated or scammed anyone. I've had business relationships and done 6-7 figure transactions and balances with most of the nosebleed community and never had a problem with anyone (other than you).