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Doug Polk will enter Monday’s $1 million guaranteed Mayhem Main Event final table at The Lodge Card Club with a sizable chip lead in pursuit of his first live poker tournament win since 2017.

The three-time World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner is playing for a shot at a $195,700 top prize with nine players remaining at the Austin, Texas area card room. He turned his appearance at the final table, which begins on livestream at 2:30 p.m., into a small debate over if he should even be allowed to play.

Should Doug Polk Be Allowed to Play in His Own Poker Room?

Polk is not a regular player in the tournament. He is a co-owner of The Lodge Card Club, the largest poker room in Texas. Many poker rooms around the world don’t permit employees or owners to play at the casino, while it’s perfectly acceptable in some rooms.

The Upswing Poker founder and YouTuber will enter the final table with 9,050,000 chips and the blinds resuming at 100,000/200,000. Jay “JWIN” Nguyen, a regular on The Lodge’s cash game streams, sits in second place at 6,425,000 chips. Austin Apicella has the third largest stack with 6,175,000, and Han Nguyen will start play at the bottom with 1,900,000 chips.

Lodge Mayhem Main Event Final Table Chip Counts

All players at the final table in the $1,200 buy-in tournament will go home with at least $17,000, but the top two finishers will earn a six-figure payday. If Polk holds on to his lead throughout Monday’s session, it will be his first tournament win since he took down the $111,111 WSOP High Roller for One Drop in 2017 for a career-best $3.7 million.

But he could receive a bit of flack from some poker fans simply for winning a tournament in the card room he owns. Nearly 30% of those who voted in Polk’s poll, which had over 3,400 responses at the time of publishing, say that it’s a bad look for the owner of a poker room to final table and/or win a big tournament in the room they own. That isn’t nearly a majority, but it is a significant amount.

“I think your honorable reputation has earned you the right to do so. Yes there are some spots that this would look bad, but if you won, people wouldn’t call foul….they would just compare it to a lightning strike of luck,” six-time WSOP bracelet winner Josh Arieh wrote in response to Polk’s tweet.

“Does he have a fauxhawk?” Matt Glantz joked, mocking Polk’s hairstyle.

“for regulars/pros it’s fine/don’t care, but for newbie players who don’t understand, it would be a bad look,” @TripleWChampion argues.

“Once In a blue is fine. If it’s frequent, instant red flags go up,” @Learnyousome responded.

“Also, it has zero to do with trust. I would trust full. Problem comes if anything comes up that can be questioned: floorcall, improper deck, dealer making a wrong announcement. The additional level of concern would also come with a live stream. Just my 2 cents,” @Pokernoah writes.

Polk, along with his co-owners Brad Owen and Andrew Neeme, have played on livestream at The Lodge Card Club numerous times. No issues have arisen involving them playing at the popular Texas poker room. In fact, Polk was down at one point around $400,000 across two years of play on stream. Winning the final table on Monday could help the heads-up cash game specialist get unstuck at the poker club he owns, if he hasn’t done so already.

The Mayhem Main Event final table will be available on livestream starting at around 2:30 p.m. PT.

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