Nicholas Baltz is a sports journalist from San Diego, California and works as a freelance live reporter for PokerNews covering the World Series of Poker. He made his first steps in the media world at a local television station covering the NFL, NCAA, and high school, where he'd shoot, edit and write video packages for the nightly news.

Nicholas also served as Sports Editor for many years at The Southwestern College Sun Newspaper and coached five years of high school basketball before finishing his degree in journalism at San Diego State University.

Exposed at an early age to card games, his grandmother Rita taught him five-card poker and gin rummy as a small child. Watching the WSOP on tv, Nicholas would deal nine hands out to himself and pretend to play Texas Hold’em.

During his college years, he spent tons of time hanging around the local poker rooms with his friends or ditching class to read poker books. In 2021, he joined the PokerNews live reporting team to cover his first WSOP.