Poker Friedman

• Prahlad Friedman (@prahladfriedman) • Twitter
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• Prahlad Friedman Divorce Makes TMZ - PocketFives
• Poker Friedman

Prahlad Friedman is a man apart from the poker industry. While many young players have trodden the familiar path of gaining reputations based on their online play, many legends of the game cut their teeth at the live felt. Friedman falls between those two stalls.

The man known as Pragress spoke with us during the 2019 World Series of Poker on his incredible rise and fall, along with What he’d really say to Russ Hamilton if he met him today.

Dave Friedman is the man behind the signature tones of rock icons Eddie Van Halen, Steve Stevens and Jerry Cantrell. Dave has been building, modding and repairing amplifiers for many of the world’s biggest stars for the past 25 years. Friedman specialized in $15/$30 limit hold’em at these cardrooms. But he switched to no-limit hold’em by the early 2000s. He picked the perfect time to do so when considering that NL hold’em became the game of choice during the poker boom. Friedman also chose a great time to start winning live tournaments and padding his bankroll.

Watch the Prahlad Friedman Poker Central Podcast episode on PokerGO right now.

FROM HOOP DREAMS TO POKER

While Friedman has been incredibly successful in poker, he gave up on his dream of being in the NBA, growing up being a fine basketball player.

“I was very competitive, so wanted to be best the world at poker,” says Friedman, referencing how he began his discovery of the game from his father. “It all started with my Dad winning a lowball tournament. It was exciting.”

Friedman realized that it wasn’t just a game played for fun or bragging rights between older men. He quickly signed up online, and developed a fearsome reputation, mixing it up and pioneering some of the plays defined as optimal by the solvers in use today. Bridging the generation gap with his father’s poker pursuit, Friedman became a big name in the game.

TAKING ON ALL COMERS

“I miss waking up in my underwear, taking on all comers,” states Friedman when asked about those formative years.

“Whether it was Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson or ‘Durrr’ [Tom Dwan], there was a time where I would literally play anyone,” admits Friedman, “That’s how I got cheated for so much. There was some ego there, which was detrimental to me in the end. I did think I was the best in the world. I wanted to stay there.”

THE ULTIMATE BET SCANDAL

Friedman could not stay there, but it wasn’t down to his own play. The Ultimate Bet scandal saw players robbed of millions due to others being able to see hole cards. Friedman himself lost a fortune.

“I had done well for so long and taken swings; up a million, down a million. I figured it was a downswing. There were times when I started to get nervous something was happening, but [I was] picked me off for a couple million. It really hurt me bad.”

CHANGING HIS GAME

Friedman noticed his game changing, which was one of the worst things about the whole affair.

“When you’re being cheated, you change your game, I stopped over-betting, I became nitty. No bluff worked, [I was] being cheated. Getting cheated out of maybe $3 million maybe cost me something big.”

Prahlad Friedman (@prahladfriedman) • Twitter

While he was winning, Friedman was ‘helping friends out and splashing money’, but then the black cloud descended on his game as he puts it. After the Ultimate Bet scandal surfaced, he would receive a call from a poker legend.

“When I found out I was getting a big refund, Phil Hellmuth called me in Aruba, I got $60,000 [as first payment] and he said, ‘You’re going to get a lot more than that back.”

THE FALL OUT HITS HARD

Hellmuth’s call precipitated a return to UB for Friedman, something he was criticized for by Daniel Negreanu at the time and now feels bad about. If he has regrets, however, it’s not just losing such a ‘tremendous’ amount of money, but that he was cheated again after he turned pro for the site to get a 9% yield.

“Now I wish I hadn’t done it. It’s embarrassing, but I lost most of my money playing on the site. I haven’t come face to face with Russ Hamilton. I don’t know what would happen. I’m sure I’d say, ‘f*** you’. He’s a bad element of the world. If online poker was regulated, he would be serving time right now.”

Despite his obvious frustration at the episode, Friedman didn’t go crazy. If anything, what has tilted him most over the years may come as something of a shock. It wasn’t even missing out on the biggest-ever WSOP Main Event prize in 2006 after coming so close (Friedman came 20th for $494,797).

“$12m for first and I had a shot! I never got crazy after the Main. I threw some [computer] mice at the screen, maybe punched a wall over online poker. If you have a friend watching you, you go more nuts, it’s psychology.”

CALLING A BLUFF, THE CADILLAC OF POKER FEELS

Despite Friedman now considering ‘2-7’ to be his best game, he can still make spectacular plays in NLHE and a recent hero call against Darren Elias with pocket fours gave viral broadcast to the phrase ‘It doesn’t snow often in Vegas’. Believing that he was being bluffed, or ‘snowed’, Friedman’s call went around the world.

“I just felt like I was in a cash game,” he says about the call, “I felt comfortable in the moment, talking and trying to see his reaction. John Hennigan’s done this to me so many times, he’s the master snow-catcher. It’s great to read anyone’s soul and make a non-conventional play.”

Cached

Friedman still retains a burning passion for poker, and still wants to be the best. With a one-year-old daughter and partner on his side, he is clear about how much the game means.

“Poker is emotional, you’ve got your whole life in it. You’re fighting for food, rent, family.”

Friedman will always fight the good fight, and it looks as though he’s here to stay.

You can listen to the entire Poker Central Podcast featuring the legendary Prahlad Friedman right here.

Looking to be entertained and learn along the way about your favorite players? Subscribe right now to PokerGO to watch the Poker Central Podcast and make sure that you never miss another minute of action such as Poker After Dark, the Super High Roller Bowl and much more. Follow Prahlad Friedman on Twitter.

Prahlad Friedman Divorce Makes TMZ - PocketFives

Poker Friedman

The poker world is replete with examples of loving relationships between pros, including Marco Traniello and Jennifer Harman, Chip and Karina Jett, Erick Lindgren and Erica Schoenberg, and Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly. However, one couple who will no longer appear on that list is Prahlad Friedman and Dee Luong, who have now decided to call time on their marriage as a result of what Dee Luong calls “irreconcilable differences.”
Prahlad Friedman, 35, is a top poker talent having earned $2,449,742 playing tournaments since 2002, including capturing both WSOP and WPT titles. The US pro has also earned a small fortune playing high-stakes cash games online but did suffer a horrendous blow to his career after having millions of dollars stuck on Ultimate Bet following the major cheating scandal which came to light in 2008.
Prahlad Friedman originally met Dee Luong, 45, whilst playing poker in Las Vegas where she plied her trade as a high-stakes cash player having been introduced to the game by Huck Seed. During their time together, Friedman said Luong had helped get him through all his tough times, including the UB scandal, but after almost 7 years of marital bliss the couple, which separated in April, have now decided to finally split up.
Since Prahlad Friedman won the WPT Legends of Poker in 2009 for $1,034,000 he has remained largely low profile, although he did draw some criticism from the poker community after re-signing as a ‘Team UB’ member in 2011. As he explained at the time:
“I feel like they took care of me after the scandal. I feel like they didn’t have to pay people back and they did. It was amazing to find out I was going to get a hunk of money back.”
Friedman and Dee Luong have no children to complicate their divorce, but they do have a 4,200-square-foot Malibu mansion just miles from the beach which they will now likely divide up.