Jason Rosenkrantz – pr1nnyraid

Rosenkrantz is one of the top NLH cash players in the world (picture courtesy of Poker Listings)

“The edge in tough games is very slim. It really only comes from being able to make incredibly quick adjustments one or two steps ahead of other very strong players. You pretty much have to be able to envision what your opponent looks like, eats for breakfast, what kind of car he drives. It’s a strange metaphor but once you’re in their shoes it is much easier to find your edge.”

These are the words of Jason ‘pr1nnyraid’ Rosenkrantz, who has been exploiting his ‘slim’ edge in the toughest games online to ruthless effect.

In 2007, the likes of Tom Dwan, the Dang Brothers, Phil Ivey & Patrik Antonius all posted over $1million profit on the Full Tilt NLH games – but ‘Krantz’ topped them all, with estimated earnings of almost $2.2million for the year making him the highest Hold ‘Em earner on the site by almost $700,000 (according to High Stakes DB).

This is probably why the NYC natives Deuces Cracked videos & coaching are some of the most sought after anywhere as low stakes grinders seek a glimpse into the mind of one of the sharpest Hold ‘Em brains in the world.

So how did ‘pr1nnyraid’ rise to where he is today? Not without hard work, it seems: in an excellent interview with Poker Listings (with his good friend Emil ‘Whitelime’ Patel) he explains: “I’ve been playing since I was 12, more or less, online for the past four years-ish. I had never heard of bankroll management and insisted on never folding top pair even if there were four all-ins and I had no money invested and no kicker.”

He admits this led to “Busto. Very. Frequently. But I eventually found twoplustwo.com, and lurked for a while. Then I posted for a while and finally realized you could study the game academically. I read a lot, did a lot of out-of-hand work and made my way up through the stakes.”

By the Spring of 2007 Rosenkrantz had worked his way up to $50/$100 and after running well took his shot at the $200/$400 and $300/$600 games, where he has remained ever since. The tribute to Two Plus Two is fitting, as ‘KRANTZ’ is one of the most respected regular posters on the forums and last year devoted a lot of time to answering some complex questions in a fascinating well (see here).

He also credits moving in with Patel as a key stage in his development as a player and together with Ariel ‘DaEvils’ Schneller and Vanessa ‘fslexcduck’ Selbst, the New York-based DC team analysed hands together and helped each others progress to becoming one of the top coaching teams anywhere.

One of Rosenkrantz’s most interesting high stakes matches to date occurred after a well-publicised feud with David Benyamine in September. The pair were playing heads-up NLH (Krantz admits he is a PLO fish so all of his big matches occur at the Hold ‘Em tables) when the Frenchman ‘quit’ to go and play Tom Dwan, Phil Galfond & the rest of the ‘Rail Heaven’ gang at the $500/$1000 game. Krantz was outraged at Benyamines behaviour, saying:

pr1nnyraid: david
pr1nnyraid: you realize that is piss poor etiquette right?
pr1nnyraid: dont play heads up if youre going to quit without
warning and say “500/1k with durr”
pr1nnyraid: i want to play you heads up because you are a
huge fish
pr1nnyraid: so come play me heads up
pr1nnyraid: you have tons of money and a wsop bracelet, you
can at least give me warning when you are going to quit me
pr1nnyraid: and i know you can read the chat
pr1nnyraid: id give you warning as well, except i would never
ever quit you

Benyamines girlfriend Erica Schoenberg shortly responded in her blog, lambasting Rosenkrantz: “I can only hope these types of players (young, arrogant, disrespectful) keep thinking this way because the ending will almost always be the same…They lose their money to Mr. B or some other top pro and give up on poker and go back to school, only to discover the brief fame they might have experienced in online poker means nothing to college students and they are inevitably the same trading card geek they always were, none the wiser…”

Upon reading this Jason immediately challenged Benyamine to some heads-up games in his blog (see here) which he accepted, to the surprise and delight of the considerable rail. (pr1nnyraid ended up a considerable winner in the game).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rosenkrantz has not devoted much time to live tournament poker, although he did cash in this years WSOP $10,000 Heads-Up Event (23rd for $21,657) – given his fondness for short-handed Hold ‘Em games its not surprising that he enjoyed the format of this tournament.

If it sounds like everything ‘pr1nnyraid’ does in poker turns to gold, we thought we’d put in a video of him losing a $130,000 pot to Patrik Antonius to demonstrate that not all of his bluffs come off. Although given the amount of money he has made to date, it’s hard to imagine him on the wrong end of too many big pots.