ClubWPT Gold Buys Upswing Poker

Why Doug Polk Sold His First Ever Poker Project

Let us remind you that Upswing Poker under the name of Upswing Lab was launched in 2016 by Doug Polk, Ryan Fee and Matt Colletta to share their knowledge of the game with players seeking to improve their skills.

According to Doug Polk, who announced the deal with ClubWPT Gold on his YouTube channel, they made UP to achieve three goals:

1. Creating a convenient training website by a small team of true professionals.
2. Making widely available poker training from players who not only play poker but actually beat the game.
3. Making poker training available in class/course format, not an infinite discord library of videos without a simple and convenient structure of studying them.

Together Polk, Fee and Colletts invested $15,000 into Upswing Poker (twice), never adding investments after that.

However, Polk personally invested much more in terms of time, becoming a content creator on YouTube to promote Upswing Poker. And when Mike Brady joined the team, he made sure their social media presence was up to date.

As a result, Upswing Poker became a huge success. Fast forward two or three years — Doug couldn’t remember precisely — the project was making several million dollars in yearly revenue, attracting tens of thousands of members.

But over the last few years Polk landed other projects — Lodge Card Club, Lucid Poker Cash Game Trainer and a partnership with ClubWPT Gold — and got to the point where selling his “first baby” became something that just made sense. After all, the purchase would bring Upswing Poker more resources, a better platform and reach to grow even further.

However, even with ownership changes, all the people involved in Upswing Poker prior to the sale will stay on to work on the project. Polk himself is still going to do marketing and coach recruitment.

What Does This Deal Mean for Upswing Poker Members?

For UP clients from the US, new partnership brings a sweet deal in terms of bonus Sweeps Coins (internal currency of ClubWPT Gold) for purchasing standalone courses or paying subscriptions:

• Most signature courses – 50 SC bonus upon purchase
• The Poker Blueprint with Uri Peleg – 25 SC bonus upon purchase
• Monthly subscription – 10 SC bonus
• Semi-Annual subscription – 40 SC bonus
• Annual subscription – 70 SC bonus

Be aware that Lab members will get listed bonuses every renewal as long as they stay subscribed.

Note: You must link your accounts on ClubWPT Gold and Upswing Poker to get bonuses on your room’s account. Without it they just can’t be earned.

As you can see, ClubWPT Gold has a special interest in US players, as their national market is growing and the room itself us spreading across the states.

For all other UP members and clients nothing much changes in the near future except three things:

1. First, on August 11th, 2025 a brand new version of UP Lab — Upswing Lab 2.0 — will be released and led by Uri Peleg.
2. Second, Doug Polk shared that UP and ClubWPT Gold are already working on UI improvements for the website.
3. Third, Doug teased a bunch of new courses but restrained from details.