This will never stop being funny. A literal whale who genuinely believes that he is the shark hunting the other players. And the entire community just plays along to the point where he is invited to podcasts as a "pro" and he thinks they are all genuine.

Like a massive whale in the sea following a school of fish, not realizing that the fish are actually piranhas constantly biting chunks off him while he never eats any of them.

If he werent such a douchebag I would find the whole thing predatory, but Nik deserves it because he is such a low tier human.

Whats your point? He was fairly new to the scene and had some ok results (sunrunning) on HCL back then. Now he has already lost that one HU match vs Berkey which would have humbled him, as well as running as expected (and obviously losing) in the normal games. Even Nik at this point wouldnt honestly believe he has the skill to win against anyone who is willing to play him HU for 5MM.

6 months is relative of course but in terms of how long he had been active in the scene then and now I think its a long time.

asked this in the limon thread because he has experience running a stream

his response

I remember people were saying he was a GTO god and I couldn't tell if they were serious or not lol, I'm sure a good portion of people were just throwing gas on the fire

If Airball is still around in 2 years time I'll be shocked. The man is going broke even as a trust fund kid.

His behavior on recent streams makes me think he is about to crack. Even as a trust fund kid he is unable to keep blowing millions pretending to be a poker pro.

He is belligerent at the table yelling about being the only who gives action / accusing real pros like Andy and jungle of being nits.

He may be embarrassed to just stop playing because he cannot afford to lose so is trying to create an excuse to save face.

Gone from somewhat entertaining splash-whale to absolute miserable reg. All in about 5 months. Berkey broke him

Hard to constantly do the bit of “let’s play bigger! Let’s play bigger! You wanna play HU 2k/4k!?” When people start saying yes

How many current members are there in the Nik Airball Fan Club?

His recent behavior creates an interesting situation for good players. What do you do when a whale is becoming very belligerent and vocal about you being a "nit" when in fact you are just playing a non-**** range of hands? Its not like either Andy or Jungle are mega nits - they both mix it up and play a looser range than they would online, for the viewers and for the good of the stream. Nik is basically saying "why arent you guys stacking off with trash and making suicidal garbage bluffs like I am?? **** you nits!".

This happens in all games at all stakes at times with whales behaving like this, and it creates a bit of a conundrum where you want to appease them a bit by playing and showing down some non-nit variants from time to time, but not go too far to the point where you start playing so loose that you lose.

A player like Nik who is losing as much as he is probably isnt happy unless everyone plays as poorly or worse than himself, so I probably wouldnt bother loosening up at all. If he was a "fun whale" I wouldnt mind splashing a bit with him to make him enjoy himself more.

His recent tilt also seems to be him positioning his losses as a good player who is willing to splash around to benefit the stream and attract other splashy whales vs him just being a splashy whale because he has poor fundamentals / likes to gamble.

The vpip stats for players like Andy or jungle already show they play relatively loose vs optimal. Watching Nik and Santosh skip early feels like the beginning of the end for both Nik and HCL. I would actually like to see lots of tough pros play against each other, but seems like most viewers prefer the outlandish behavior, crazy bluffs, demeaning banter, etc.

Where's Nik Airball #1 fan? That guy was all over the older Nik threads

to be fair decent chance that guy was trolling