I agree with you that most of the time it is correct, but my point is that there are some exceptions, and perhaps Nik Airball is one such exception.

Just because he is a big mouth, needles players and is independently wealthy from outside of poker does not preclude him from being a very good player.
I have observed many things that suggest to me that he is likely to be a very good player. Even many of the HCL players who we are all in agreement are bad recs, bad regs,
nits, ABC dead average, or outright whales, have from what I have heard been getting coaching.

So what is to say that Airball hasn't also been getting coaching and/or has been independently studying solvers, training videos and generally giving the game a lot of thought.
He is an investment banker so comes from a math based background and comes across as a person of high intelligence, even if some posters ITT don't like the way in which
he is applying his intelligence, so he actually fits the profile better than most, of a person who if he wants to apply himself, can/could be very good at poker.

Based on me seeing him being a lot splashier ~6 to 9 months ago than he is now, he IMO has improved his game a lot, and that may well be down to him studying the game a lot.

The other stuff, his live skills, well that is just a thing that he naturally has, "the gift of the gab", and it can have a negative effect on other players because many do not like
it and would rather play in near silence. He is for sure using gamesmanship with his table talk and general verbal antics, and in fact calling the clock on Jungleman may have
been a strategy to illicit a tell in that hand as he was forcing Jungle to act within a specific time frame.

Many players will frown upon using gamesmanship, and I get that. I think it's okay though, because I think it is a tier below angling, with angling being a tier below cheating.
Angling IMO is crossing the line, gamesmanship is not.

You act like his "gamesmanship" only has 2 options- it tilts people and makes them play worse or it doesn't matter.

You totally ignore that it could make bad players not want to play with him and it could motivate players better than him to focus on him at the table. It's not a free roll when he's an ass to button clicker in that huge pot.

It's not surprising that someone who mentions their low level "psychological warfare" would make such a mistake.

Who cares about ButtonClickr, he is at top of the food chain and on top of that he has zero personality so is bringing nothing to the game.

Everyone should be targeting him as hard as possible, within the rules.

Bad players will still want to play on HCL because of the excitement of it being live streamed and because there are other bad players in the line up.

Airball deliberately subtly needles the bad players so that they think, "oh that's just Airball being Airball", but he viciously needles pros because they are fair game.

Also note that not only did Nik make a great fold but he also got Jungle to show a deuce, so that's a double win for Mr Airball.

I would imagine that whatever game he is in, in whatever setting that he adjusts his needle-ometer accordingly.

As far as my own gamesmanship goes, which you are certain is low level, well I have put plenty of players on tilt but not through needling them, I have other methods.

Seeing as you don't seem to believe me, I destroyed a German player in an EPT PLO who tried to triple barrel rep trips and for my tournament life. I did this by describing to him his exact thought processes on all streets, I did this all on the river and it took me 30 seconds. By the time I had finished he could barely breathe.

He covered me and was so disgusted after I announced to him that the conclusuon of my analysis was that he is bluffing, and made the call, that he stormed off leaving about 5BBs on the table.

In another EPT PLO comp a very pale skinned Norwegian player thought it would be a good idea to complain about something very trivial, the position on the cloth that I was placing my blind. He also came across as very cocky as if the buy in was pennies to him.

So after this, I called the floor on him twice for minor infringements that he made, he folded out of turn once and spoke during a multi way pot once.

When the tournament director spoke to me I spoke back in a calm, sincere way saying that I thought the gentleman to my right had broken the rules and that it was only fair to both me and the other 128 players in the tournament and to protect the integrity of the game that he should receive a one round penalty. This was of course an act by me.

He wasn't penalised but he got a verbal warning each time.

I then slow played a big hand and trapped him. Shortly afterwards his whole face went completely bright red and a few hands later he tilted off the rest of his chips to me.

Now the one above was in retaliation by me, I would never do that stuff without any provocation, but the thing with the German player I have done a few times in tournaments, because if someone wants to bluff me for my tournament life then they need to be man/woman enough to beat me psychologically as well as mathematically.

In cash games, the stuff I do is way, way more subtle. It has to be because you are playing against some of the players session after session, plus you are more likely to get genuinely dangerous people in cash games who may want to physically fight you if you psychologically outsmart them.

Bro what?

This is not a great fold, especially vs an aggressive and experienced world-class player like jungleman. Neither is calculating fold equity with QQ on 762, which is not a thing we think about. I think it's great that you enjoy these streams but building these faulty narratives isn't accomplishing anything.

And Airball might be "good" relative to the softest player pool the poker public has ever seen, but pumping him up as some savant is lunacy.

Re Berkey, S4Y is a massive joke but there's no way he's not winning tons in the games he gets to play. He's also gotten quite a bit better from the looks of it over the past few years and his techniques have modernized as he reluctantly embraces "GTO" and solvers.

The stuff he said about fold equity indeed really doesn't make any sense in this context. But I don't see how you can say it isn't a great fold if it's largely based off a live read. The fact the jungleman might perfectly balance his range in this context is meaningless if his opponent can figure out when he's bluffing and when he's nutted based on live tells.

My analysis (which may of course be wrong) is that he worked out that Jungle was not using that sizing and with what was left in his stack to c/r/fold the flop, and narrowed Jungle's range down to probably 4 hands, 22, 33, 77 and AJc.

Remember that Airball is holding the Qc himself, obv ruling out AcQc and KcQc. Jungle would likely have 4 bet pre with AcKc. He then got a tell on Jungle, reinforcing his analysis, so folded. Jungle was playing tight, yes TAG, but is he really making that move with 88, 99, TT, JJ? Perhaps he is with AcJc but that is just one hand. Ac4c seems unlikely that he would call the 3 bet with pre, he would more likely 4 bet pre with it.

If Jungle had been playing wide ranges pre, 3 and 4 betting with suited connectors etc , which he clearly wasn't, then yes flatting his c/r bet OTF and his turn shove on a brick turn makes sense, or 3 bet shoving on him on the flop.

Would love to see airball go on HSP or somewhere and make the same big laydowns and always be right. Folded a nut flush vs button clicker qq vs jungleman some pretty highly exploitable folds and makes some very exploitable hero calls/bluffs in questionable spots. Obviously small sample size but should always be suspicious of a shady situation controlled by a shady person (nick vertucci).

You say you have no knowledge of GTO , now you’re giving a GTO analysis with blocker and removal effects.

Now I know your trolling lol WP

I have never so much as looked at a solver in my life, let alone used one, or a push/fold chart, but I understand how they work as they are fairly simple concepts.

It is not a blocker/removal "effect", it is reality that Airball is holding the Qc in his hand, making AcQc or KcQc impossible as Jungle's holding.
If Airball doesn't have the Qc then I think this is a bad fold, unless the live read is super, super strong.

And as I said, Jungle was playing tight pre, so this either removes from his range or reduces the chances of his range including hands like 4c5c, 4c6c, 5c6c.

AcTc I should have included as a possibility,

Maybe someone can run the spot through a solver with an unrestricted range and a restricted range to see the results.

I take on board what a previous poster said about if Airball plays in a tougher line up and makes exploitative big folds and big calls that he may himself get exploited
because stronger opponents will play balanced against him and he will inevitably then start making some bad decisions, perhaps a lot of bad decisions.

But this is only if they play balanced pre, I don't think Jungle was very balanced pre. My impression was that because it was a loose table he decided to play tight pre.

Even in the tougher line up scenario, with Airball's opponents playing more balanced pre and therefore able to play balanced on the flop etc, Airball, I would hope (as one of his few fans!) would adjust to this and widen his perception of their ranges out accordingly. So coming back to Jungle, if Jungle had, had a much higher VPIP in that game and had showed
down a bigger variety of hands, then Airball would have much more likely continued on the flop or shoved on it, because as well as the 4c6c type hands being included in Jungle's range, there can be a lot of other hands that just have BD equity.

Jungle was playing really tight in that session, and that is key.

The stuff about the game being bent and Airball benefiting from it. I have no view on that part so can't pass comment on it.

Gonna get more obvious what's going on when guys like Airball are suddenly the best players in the world but only at this specific game. At least the last guy knew how to act like a pro.

Sorry ill rephrase. Blocker and removal "realities".

Cmon airball give it up.

Blah blah blah, you went from downplaying the viability of solvers/online experience to now trying to use it as a a point in your man-crushes favor and wrote a love letter/novel in doing so. Happened to forget though that if that is making such a large impact on his game, ,its proof positive he is not as good as you said.... and he is about 10 years behind the people who actually have studied it. How can't you realize this? Oh yeah too busy telling anecdotal stories about your exploits at 1/2 at some random casino vs some (insert nationality here) cocky online kid where you totally owned him without ever looking at a solver.

His incessant "I'm so rich" shtick gets very old so quickly.
"I'm too rich to fold"
"It's a small pot... only $80K, just run it once, let's go"
"I was playing 50,000/100,000 off stream..."
"Bro I lost 1.3M last Tuesday in a 5/10 game!"

I mean he 100% gets his money from his parents, right? Just some 25(?) year old "Investor" with $800,000 liquid each and every Friday?


Because he's a tool, who's trying to replicate early 2000s poker by going after people like Jungle/Berkey/Garrett. But when called on it, I'm sure he's "Just having fun bro, calm down"

I understand how solvers work in NLHE, Nik Airball may or may not do, but whether you understand solvers or not, if you have good card sense you can put your opponent on one of a relatively small number of hands given the pre flop and OTF action and the villain's VPIP, and obviously discount, or partly discount, some hands from using your own cards' removal.

Solvers are nothing more than doing the job more efficiently and more quickly (well not always more quickly) than a smart human can do the same job. Players who have good card sense are themselves solvers, slightly imperfect solvers, but solvers nonetheless, and they often make up for their human solver imperfections with other skills, such as player profiling, pattern recognition, and tells in live games. Good human solvers will also improve with experience. Airball is probably a human solver, because that player type (talkative, creative, extrovert, social), usually is. Players who are (quiet, introverted, clinical) are usually pure software based solver players.

Also, one of his likely leaks, which I mentioned earlier in the thread, is that he lacks variation in his game, so this in itself means that he is not playing GTO poker, because his play is somewhat predictable, i.e. not balanced.

I'm perfectly happy to agree that the jury is out regarding whether Airball is an average, good or very good player, as he does have to prove how good he is over a much bigger sample size and against a bigger number of proven good or great players. Also given the stakes he plays and how deep he sits, his +~600K over ~54 sessions doesn't mean a great deal.

I've never looked at a solver for PLO either and the psychological ownages I mentioned were in £500 and £1K EPT PLO tournaments, so not big buy ins, but not meaningless either.
The ownage against the German player was a combination of PLO skill because I worked out how he had played the hand, we both had over pairs to a 66xxx board, him QQ, me AA, and psychological warfare, because I made him squirm so hard listening to me describe how he had played the hand, that as I said before, he forgot to breathe towards the end of it, which was the final piece of confirmation that I needed.

Although you and I are "fighting" in this thread, I think it's a really good and healthy discussion, i.e. can a feel/live reads/part math, part exploitative player, match the skills of a pure math/solver player in a live game. In an online game, I'd say no chance, but live.... well it is different in many ways, IMO.

sure, he's likely winning in some lineups, but my point was that it was not required if he was indeed following the model I described. Also, when he first became known to the public, I recall him playing in some tougher lineups on tv, so it might have taken him a while to get to those super soft private games

or maybe he just came up as a genuine winner who had access to those games from the beginning. But then why bother with all the fake "coaching"? Is it just for ego?

sometimes i wonder how many of the new accounts that blast off in nvg every day are controlled by the same person

He gives off one of the strongest "I've never worked a day in my life" vibes I've ever seen.

I wish solver strategies were "fairly simple" to me. I'm jealous Mr Dunces

You know it took me 16 years to finally block someone’s posts on 2+2, blocking dunces was well worth the wait.

Lol noob! Feel free to copy my list, it will make your 2+2 experience much better. Notice how I ignored "PPD" twice.

Nik Airball is a known fish - most poker players are laughing about him

I cackled at durrrr lol

Some real legends on Sammy2bullets block list. I don't remember ever blocking anyone on twoplustwo, to do so is usually a symptom of losing an argument, so picking the ball up and walking away, like a seven year old does in the park. Weak. Granted, there are a few names on there that can be difficult to get on with, but you know what, I have crossed swords with quite a few of those names, it resulting in a mutual plan to do some type of HU challenge with them to settle our differences, but ultimately have made friends, or are on cordial terms with them now.

I'm working super late UK time today finishing some work projects, so while doing so I'll be watching the whole of tonight's stream and will be posting a scouting report on the great man. That's Nik Airball, not Sammy2bullets. I'll be telling it how it is, the good, the bad and the ugly, so no pressure Airball, if you're reading this thread.

damn sammy don't suffer no fools does he, my list is nothing compared to yours