It’s easy to see why Nikachu won CardRunners’ Video Challenge. Seriously, not bullshitting … call me under-educated in the new math of online poker, but this may be the best poker schooling vid I’ve seen. It’s certainly different, as a matter of both style and substance, and this player I was pretty sure was something out of Pokemon got me thinking about poker in new ways … yet ways that seem to make simple sense. (We’ll see how it all applies next time I sit down.)

Sometimes funny, too!

Am I right? Don’t he rabbits make it so much easier?!?And who knew it could be so easy to fold such monsters early in a hand. You can get more from Nikachu’s poker training at CardRunners for free via Truly Free Poker Training, which takes your standard online play to accumulate access to CR’s library of more than 2,000 training videos by the only players who consistently seem to be winning these days.

A note from @CRLana in Chicago that we’re happy to pass along to Pokerati readers (emphasis added) … and congrats indeed! We should like hang out sometime and/or follow each other on Twitter:

Congratulations to Jonathon “Nikachu” Zaczek, winner of the inaugural CardRunners Video Challenge. Along with the $5,000 Grand Prize, Zaczek has also signed as a new video instructor at CardRunners. View the winning video here.

Polls were open for two weeks and voting was very close. Fewer than 30 votes separated the top 3 finishers of our contest.

Final standings of the Video Challenge are:

1st Place – $5,000 – Jonathon “Nikachu” Zaczek

2nd Place – $2,500 – Matthew Janda

3rd Place – $1,000 – Lee Przytula

4th Place – $500 – Bryce Paradis

5th Place – Chip Set ($175 value) – Johan “Roundkick” Ryning

Thank you for all who participated and please keep an eye out for future contests at CardRunners.

As always, if you haven’t done so already, give yourself an edge over someone who likes to play online poker but is lazier than you by signing up for free poker training from CardRunners.