Doug Polk slammed for Fedor Holz vs. Limitless match-fixing claims

Doug Polk has come in for fierce criticism after making the ridiculous claim that the Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy’ Holz vs. Wiktor ‘Limitless’ Malinowski heads-up match is “staged”.

In the end, @UpswingPoker cut their coverage of Fedor 🆚 Limitless early (though not as early as this edit suggests) as @DougPolkVids felt like the match was staged.

(Part 2/2) pic.twitter.com/eXP8KlEZwo

— 🃏 David Lappin 🃏 (@dklappin) March 5, 2021

Fedor ‘CrownUpGuy’ Holz vs Wiktor ‘Limitless’ Malinowski – Just a Staged Match?

The German pro and GGPoker ambassador accepted the challenge from his Polish highstakes specialist opponent, a $100/$200 HUNL fight.

Described as ‘The Prince of Poker vs The Notorious End Boss’, the Face-Off Challenge began on GGPoker last Friday and is live streamed here on VIP Grinders.

Doug Polk, however, has for some reason has been very critical of the match, having a serious go at both players even before the heads-up battle kicked off.

Last week he described Fedor as “extremely weak at hunl”, and a player who is “spewtastic and punts hard.” Wiktor ‘Limitless’ Malinowski didn’t fare much better in Polk’s book, described as “one of the most overrated regs on the planet.”

The Upswing Poker boss, of course, is known for his trolling and bitchiness, his recent Grudge Match against Daniel Negreanu coming about because of his relentless social media attacks on the GGPoker ambassador.

With the Holz vs Malinowski battle being on GGPoker, perhaps he just felt like having a go at two hugely successful players grabbing the limelight on the fastest-growing online poker room?

As for the man who tweeted out Polk’s attacks, Irish pro David K Lappin loves a good conspiracy theory. But although he aired the outside possibility of it being staged on his blog, he also made a very salient point.

“If Doug is correct, then it was a con conducted in plain sight, a rather implausible scenario.”

Naturally, it may just be that Polk is so good at HUNL that everybody else’s play pales in comparison. That was Patrick Leonard’s view at least…

It can’t be staged, they had a betting market on it and over 100k wagered. Doug is just really good, it’s like messi watching Rashford or whatever

— Patrick Leonard (@padspoker) March 6, 2021

Others, however, were less enamored with Polk’s ridiculous claims. The well-liked Belgian pro Bert ‘girafganger7’ Stevens tweeted out a rebuke…

Calling him a terrible player is fine but questioning both guys integrity in a match where people can bet is way out of line. Can question Wiktors personal motives to maybe punt, but saying its staged is a serious allegation.

— giraf ganger (@Girafganger7) March 7, 2021

…while ordinary poker fans were less tactful in their condemnation of Polk…

Doug is purposely lying or he’s dumb.

— Araz (@ArazYZ1) March 6, 2021

Malinowski actually playing drunk

There were, of course, some terrible plays during the opening session, one in which Fedor Holz walked off with $37,000.

Those can largely be put down to the fact that Malinowski had clearly taking his ‘I can beat you while drunk, Fedor!’ boasts too literally.

Downing more than two bottles of wine during the live-streamed is likely the real culprit, with ‘Limitless’ looking rather closer to ‘legless’ by the end of the evening.

Holz is certainly looking forward to session two tonight (Monday) and it’ll be a two-table affair according to the German poker legend…

We thought that it would be easier to follow with one table, but turned out to be slow. We will switch to two tables on Monday.

— Fedor Holz 🐧 (@CrownUpGuy) March 7, 2021

The Face Off Challenge is scheduled for 1600 hands of $100/$200 HUNL, and the players should be playing at least one further session this week. You can watch all action live here on VIP Grinders!