Where did I say he played that hand well or justify him playing it poorly? He played it really badly, but his opponent played it even worse.
There is no way this hand was crooked, unless you think the loser of it was chip dumping.

I think it's maybe the most obvious slam dunk raise of a donk turn lead I have seen in my life. And the player who did, or rather didn't do it,
and is well respected at the table and a very solid player, knows this too. He knew it 3 seconds after the hand had finished and was mentally kicking himself quite hard. That you could see.

As for your 160K hands which you keep mentioning, Deputy Dawg. Well, I lean towards there having been some form of cheating going on in "that hand", but frankly, the main thread about it has evolved into something that resembles a lunatic asylum.

If you want my analysis on some of those hands, it's 50 bucks per hand. ;-) Payment details on request.

Love me longtime lurker finally posting -- comfortable reg at 5-10 to 25/50. Massive loser at 100/200.

I wouldn't play Nik. I think he's better than me, which has nothing to do with him being an arrogant, but intelligent and intellectually curious, douche.

The guy speaks mandarin and probably other languages, he can’t be that stupid.

That is not how it works. Also, lol@probably.

I do think he is fairly smart. His IQ is definitely >>>> his EQ.

His emotional intelligence is very low…

I hope people who continue to argue with PPD are aware how unlikely they are to change the mind of someone who has actually written over 8,100 words in this thread to present and defend his opinion on Airball's play. And I'm aware I'm throwing stones from a glass house since I spent 3-4 minutes amusing myself by figuring that out, so I'm not here to knock you if you enjoy arguing with him.

BTW, that amounted to 18 pages when pasted into Word. At this rate, PPD could have a novel written in a couple of months.

You are obviously either a lazy reader or have poor reading comprehension skills, as I clearly stated in my scouting report of his most recent session that he played very poorly for most of it and I scored him 2 out of 10 for it. And I said he needs to improve his technical skills to beat the better players. I have given an honest and balanced view throughout. I also called out his extremely bad behaviour towards two of the players at the table.

I often change or alter my view on things, most people don't.

I highly doubt you seriously expect anyone to really read those walls of text. The maximum you can hope for is people skimming through.

from what ive seen hes ran very good and rarely gets stacked I think he probably would have tilt like a money if he didn't sun run. hes also not up that much considering how many random straights hes hit with 35 off

This is possible, but it wasn't what happened in his last session when his mind was all over the place for the first 5 hours. He didn't tilt he just played some stupid poker, calling pre with trash and then trying to find a way to win with that trash. In other words he was throwing bits of money away here and there. True tilt, like we see from a lot of bad recs is where they are desperate to get all the money in pre or on the flop, or where they call down a massive bet, or bets, post flop with a terrible hand/terrible equity. I haven't see him do this at all, either yesterday or in any other sessions.

Perhaps this is his natural state when not coolering the heck out of world class players

You must be American if you think speaking other languages requires intelligence. It's not that hard, many not that smart Europeans speak 3+ languages.

Just look at his hairline, that's a dead giveaway. Have you ever met a guy with that hairline with IQ over 90. Dude's a caveman ffs.

I don't like to be mean but I know he's the type of guy who reads this thread and only remembers the one comment where the one troll wrote he's a great player.

agreed. i used to have to him blocked now i barely skim. let's take a vote.

most have him blocked.

Preki, you were banned yourself two days ago for lying about why this whole thread was taken down. (it was taken down accidentally).

Some of my posts yes are very long, many aren't. If you want to try to bully me just say it outright that you do, don't be a coward.

wrong.

incorrect

good day, sir

A+

i've only heard him ever say the most basic things - not saying he doesn't speak more, but nothing he's said is higher than the level of spanish someone who's only education was cheech and chong films and taco bell commercials could handle

also, lol at knowing a language making you smart, but if you believe that then by all means bow before me as your intellectual overlord as I'm a white boy who's fluent in not only Chinese but also taco bell 101 spanish

I guess this may be out of context as it's a short, but he comes across as such an insecure douchebag in this clip.

Also calling Jungleman poor.

Dude is dressed like a lime.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W3OPd4VCCBA

Jungle should wear his bracelets next time he's on the show. Sorry Nik, daddys money cant buy these.

I've gota question that is burning in my bosom: does Mr. Hairyballs know how to count outs as well as Phil Hellmuth?

tl; dr

Quit bullying him! Be a man and admit you are bullying him!!!

Omg jungle is the best!

If anyone doesn't like long posts, or my posts, please skip past to the next post.

This is my last Nik Airball scouting/session report for a while as I'm now on a different work schedule for at least the next 3 months.

Nik Airball HCL session, 3rd Feb.

Headline: Airball back in rhythm, regulates his table talk, runs hot and wins $285K.

I only caught the second half of the session. The main thing I missed was Airball winning a ~200K pot v Mariano, flopping a set of tens v Mariano's KK.

Airball was back in rhythm, still talking $**t but with a steady throughout happy, jokey demeanour. Yes he was regularly needling various players in a low to medium level way,
as well as fake befriending J.R., and Mike X (who he later went on to stack in a $250K pot, $100K of which was Mike's stack).

His standard of play IMO was 8.5 out of 10, not brilliant, but showed very good card sense overall. He was a bit stationy in some spots but not in any significantly big pots.

He definitely has a good understanding pre flop of which range of hands are viable 3 bets in position and he rarely folds to 3 or 4 bets HU if he is in position. This does make him
unpredictable and therefore balanced, to a point anyway, because he still IMO doesn't play very balanced post flop.

The $250K pot was some massive run good for Airball, with his seat position being perfect for what looked like a squeeze, with his AA, against the AKo of Mike X, JJ of Hank I think it was,
and J.R. who first squeezed himself with QJs, ultimately passing after Mike X jammed and Airball re-jammed.

Notable (for the haters) is that what certainly helped Airball, at least a little bit, was that he earlier 4 bet bluffed J.R.'s 3 bet bluff pre, when both had garbage, and Airball showed.
Action went something like, opener makes it $1100, J.R. $5600, Airball $15,400. So Airball definitely mixes things up pre, making it a bit harder to play against him post (even for GTO players), plus it is a good long game strategy for him IMO, which could help him win a gigantic pot some time down the line, against a non believing opponent.

One other notable pot that showed his good card sense, and live reads skills, was OOP against Henry, he check called Henry on the turn with KT on a 46JQ board (Henry was betting his Gutshot 58), neither player had a flush draw, the river bricked, and Nik check called Henry's $5K bet into an $8.4K pot. Airball you could see was watching Henry like a hawk while Henry pondered his river decision and after the bet said, "you looked like you were about to give up at first". He then said "I have King High and am thinking of calling/think I am good", and then said he thought Henry had 57 or 9T, or similar, and made the call. So this is a clear example of Airball's natural card sense and live reads ability.

Other notable things from the session:

Airball said he is lifetime buried in sports betting, but still bets sports because he likes it and does it for fun.
He continues to needle Henry way more than anyone else. It's definitely low level bullying IMO. Henry appears to be brushing it off and is a net winning player across all of his HCL appearances and had a good winning session last night, but I suspect that there is a build up underneath and he is not happy with what Airball is doing.

Funny moment:

The table discussion turns to, who is visiting Vegas soon. Mariano says he's visiting in March for the GPI awards, nominated as best vlogger, I believe.
Airball interjects with, "I should be nominated for the biggest a***hole on live streams award". The table laughs. Then Mariano expands and says that he is going
there with Rampage, who has been nominated in multiple categories, including Best Hand of the the year and that some of the hands are from HCL.

Nik Airball replies, "why aren't I nominated for that, I stacked that online nerd." (v ButtonClickr)
"Everyone keeps telling me he's better than me, but he left with no money."

My conclusion: my thoughts haven't changed too much on Airball. He is a rhythm player, a feel player, has good natural card sense and is very good at live reads.
When he is in rhythm he is a hand full for anybody. He may still struggle if he plays in line ups with a 70/30 or higher GTO to rec or feel player ratio.
Having said that, I think he is an information and playing experience learning sponge. He is not a GTO or technical play learning sponge, but there is nothing to stop him
from learning that side of poker too and adding it to his arsenal, or just keeping it in reserve for higher level opponents when he comes across them.

Good luck at the tables everybody, and stay open minded, there are all sorts of players in live cash games and it is not always straightforward to work out the playing strength of each player.

I usually don't mind playing live against the abrasive douchebag type, they let their ego get in the way and generally overestimate their own ability. As a viewer I find no joy in the airball streams, his behavior is so cringy it makes the stream unwatchable imo