Capture the Flag: John ‘Nicolak’ Kim

Cash-game pro John “Nicolak” Kim has been supporting himself and his family for the past 12 years by playing poker.
The 37-year-old California native has been one of the most consistent winners in the online world during that time, and has won more than $600,000 in the last two years alone.
Kim, an instructor at the poker training site CardRunners, is known for his high volume of hands played and efficiency in focusing on anywhere from 12 to 15 tables. He began playing $5-$10 no-limit hold’em online in 2003, and has remained a fixture at those stakes ever since then.
Card Player caught up with Kim to have him discuss his start in poker, the pressure of providing for his family, and how he has managed to stay successful in the always-evolving world of online poker.
Brian Pempus: How did your poker career begin?
John Kim: I went on a poker road trip in 1998 with a buddy, and we spent all summer visiting casino cardrooms. We ended up in Vancouver, Canada, and I ended up meeting my future wife there. She was from Korea, and was studying there. We ended up getting hitched, and I needed to do something while I was waiting for her to get her U.S. immigration papers. I started playing poker full time up there in Canada, and I have been playing ever since. It was all limit hold’em back then. I was playing the biggest games they had around town in Vancouver, which was $10-$20. I was playing over my bankroll at first, and didn’t have a job or much money. However, I managed my bankroll very well after a short while, and was very meticulous about it. I ended up winning right from the get-go, and after a couple of months, I had the recommended bankroll size for the stakes I was playing. I was probably the biggest winner around town at that time. Once my wife got her papers, we moved to L.A. I decided to give poker a shot as a full-time job, and if it didn’t work out, I would look for something else. We had a baby, too, so it was a pretty big decision. I started frequenting the L.A. poker rooms, and played medium-stakes limit hold’em.
BP: It seems that most players today get their start when they don’t have a family to look after yet. Was it difficult, beginning your poker career with so much responsibility?
JK: There was concern that I had a family to support, so I almost needed to win. There was that little bit of added pressure, but I think I handled it very well. When I played, I tried to filter all of that out of my mind and focus on playing the best poker that I could. That mindset really went a long way. I did very well from the start, and was making more year after year. Gradually, after our move to Las Vegas in 2003, I began dabbling online. When we moved to Vegas, I kind of made the transition to online poker, which is funny, with all of the cardrooms around town. No-limit hold’em was becoming big at that time. Around that time, Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker, and that caused a boom. When that happened, I decided to play no-limit full time online, because the games were so soft. I liked staying at home with my wife and kid, as well. I have always been somewhat of a bankroll nit. I have heard many stories of players going broke, and I never wanted to be one of those guys. I really wanted something of myself, and to provide the best life for my family. By looking at it that way, I put myself in a position never to go broke. It might have cost me money by not playing bigger, but it provided the security of knowing that I would never have to worry about us not having food on the table or a roof over our heads.
BP: Do you think being over-rolled [over-bankrolled] is good advice for up-and-coming players, particularly in order to avoid going on tilt?
JK: A lot of it depends on your mental state. Your mentality in regard to how you approach poker is a big factor in determining how much you are going to win or lose. If you are over-rolled and very comfortable, you will be better able to control your emotions, as you’ll know that going on a bad run is not going to prevent you from playing the same game; whereas, if you are under-rolled, you feel that added pressure of the possibility of going broke. It is a lot easier to go on tilt that way. If you are under-rolled, it will definitely help you to play your A-game more consistently. The flip side of it is that you might not take shots at bigger games that could be profitable. It goes both ways, and it really depends on how well you can handle the swings. I believe that my strength in this area is one of the biggest reasons why I have been successful for so long. I have been playing poker for 12 years now, and have shown a consistent track record. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I play my A-game more often than most people, and I am so even-keeled. It helps over the years to get used to bad beats and losing sessions. At the time that I started playing online, the games were soft because no one really knew how to play. When I look back at it now, I didn’t really know how to play no-limit. I did pretty well because I didn’t go on tilt, and I had a pretty good sense of where I was in a hand.
BP: How has your online game evolved over the years, and what went into your decision to play so many tables?
JK: I approach poker with a low-volatility style. The more hands I play, even if it’s at smaller stakes, the more I can make sure that I can keep variance in check. By playing something like 10 times as many hands at $5-$10 than something like $25-$50, I knew that my swings wouldn’t be huge. The more hands that are played, the less that variance comes into play for a winning player. A lot of it has to do with the fact that if I went on a big downswing at $25-$50, it might have caused me to have stress in my life. Playing 12 to 15 tables didn’t happen overnight for me. I started playing one table, then two tables, and then one year I increased it to four, and in another year I increased it to eight. It was a gradual process over four or five years until I could play about 15 tables comfortably. It almost felt natural after a while. However, there is definitely a point of diminishing returns. For me, it happened at 18 tables or more. I had a hard time focusing on some of the tables. Nowadays, the medium-stakes games are tough. The $1-$2 games now are tougher than the $5-$10 games were five years ago. Now, I need to focus more at each table, and I have actually cut down on the number a little bit. I have to be more aware of everything that’s going on. In poker, it is important to do what is comfortable for you. You should never do something because other people are doing it, or because someone is telling you to do it a certain way. Some people can focus on 20 tables and some people can’t play more than two. It is up to each individual. Over a certain amount of time, I think that you want to find a sweet spot for maximizing your hourly rate, whether that is four-tabling, 12-tabling, or 24-tabling.
BP: You focus mainly on six-max games. What kind of strategy do you implement for them?
JK: Hand-reading is essential in six-max games. The fewer players there are, the more hands you should be playing. You are going to be getting involved with mediocre hands far more often in six-max games than in full-ring games. Post-flop play is more important, and handing-reading becomes critical. In full-ring games, you can play tight and straightforward poker, and wait for a good hand. You can play your hands more at nine-handed tables, but at six-max tables, you have to play the players a little bit more. My game is tailored more to post-flop play. In six-max games, there is a lot of light three-betting and four-betting going on, and everyone knows how to do it without premium hands. However, not everyone is very good at post-flop play. I have tried to improve my post-flop game, because that is where you can exploit a lot of edges. I three-bet around the midrange of what most regulars do, so I do tend to see a lot of flops and play a lot of hands. I feel very comfortable with this style. In six-max games, you are usually 100 big blinds deep, or more, so you are definitely going to have to play post-flop, regardless of how often you three-bet or four-bet preflop. It is an aspect of these games for which you have to train yourself. I would advise anyone to learn how to play well post-flop, because the great thing about it is that it carries over to all forms of hold’em, whether it’s tournaments, full-ring games, or heads-up games. ♠