This week, CardRunners instructor and cash game specialist John “Nicolak” Kim joins “The Showdown with Jon Friedberg.” The web-based television show can be seen exclusively here on Poker News Daily, so check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this week’s installment. If you don’t already have an account at UB.com, the show’s sponsor, now is the time to sign up. Use bonus code UBPND.
Friedberg kicked off the show by discussing former “2 Months, $2 Million” star Jay “Krantz” Rosenkrantz admitting to playing online while logged into a roommate’s account. Rosenkrantz came clean in a post on TwoPlusTwo and Friedberg assessed, “Krantz is getting flamed away in the forums for what he did even though he’s been very public in admitting that once he found out what he was doing was wrong and strongly against the ethics codes of the sites and poker players, he stopped doing it…. I do think what Krantz did was probably the least harmful way to be unethical.”
What do you think about Rosenkrantz’s actions? Send Friedberg a Tweet at @JonFriedberg or fire off an e-mail to jonfriedberg@gmail.com.
Prior to Prahlad Friedman officially signing with UB.com, PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu lambasted the CEREUS Network site and its newest pro on Twitter. Friedberg did not look kindly upon Negreanu’s comments, telling “The Showdown” viewers, “Daniel is the #1 ambassador for not only PokerStars, but also for online poker worldwide. When the #1 ambassador for any industry goes public by bashing other ambassadors in the same industry… Those kinds of things not only make Daniel look bad, but also make the whole industry look bad. I wish Daniel would consider that he does have some sort of responsibility.”
Kim was Friedberg’s mentor when he transitioned from tournaments to cash games. He’s a feared cash game regular under the handle “Nicolak” and explained why he inked an agreement with CardRunners: “I had a lot of trepidation about signing for a few years and had been approached before by a few different sites and didn’t sign. The main reason [was that I could] give away tells or how I play. After mulling it over, I thought it’s probably a good time now. I felt like poker has been good to me for the past decade, so why not give something back? Plus, it might open up some opportunities for me.”
How Kim approaches the game is now immortalized in training videos, leaving Friedberg to ask how he safeguards certain aspects of his strategy at the tables. “The strength of my game is mostly based on how I react to my opponents and get a read on them more than on how I actually play,” Kim asserted. “Based on that, I don’t think it hurts me as much if I’m showing on video how I play a certain hand because I’m actually reacting to my opponent’s play.”
It’s not an easy transition for players to go from tournaments to cash games, whether live or online. Kim explained why the seemingly simple process can prove to be so difficult: “I think the biggest reason is the deep stack poker they’re not familiar with. Tournament players are more attune to 20 to 50 big blind stack play. Once they sit at a normal cash game, there are always 100+ big blind stacks. I don’t think they know how to approach hands… with deep stacks, so they make a lot of mistakes post-flop.”
New episodes of “The Showdown with Jon Friedberg” are released every Tuesday exclusively here on Poker News Daily. View Part 1 and Part 2 of this week’s show!