Full Tilt Suspends Brian Townsend
Facing allegations of cheating, colluding and multi-accounting, Brian Townsend has come clean, resulting in his second suspension from Full Tilt.
The allegations, which claimed Cole South, Brian Hastings and Townsend colluded to cheat Isildur1 out of millions, began almost immediately after Brian Hastings’ one-day $4.2 million dollar win against the unknown Swede.
The first public comments made by any of the accused came from an ESPN.com interview with Hastings and Townsend after Hastings’ big win.
According to Hastings, the three players worked together to understand and find weaknesses in Isildur1’s game.
"Honestly, I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here. I mean, Brian is honestly the hardest worker I know in poker,” Hastings told ESPN.
“He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots. The three of us discussed a ton of hands and the reports that Brian made, so I'm very thankful to him and to Cole as well."
When it comes to sharing hands and information on opposing players, Full Tilt’s terms and conditions are very clear:
“Full Tilt Poker defines an unfair advantage as a user accessing or compiling information on other players beyond that which the user has personally observed through his or her own game play” (from item #8 of the Full Tilt T&C).
Townsend has taken full responsibility for the infraction, and through his blog clearly explained exactly what his infraction consisted of.
“I had about 20k hands of play on Isildur and I acquired another 30k hands” wrote Townsend.
“Of the three I was the sole one to break the T&C of Full Tilt. The three of us never shared hands where mucked hands were shown besides a few hands I posted on weaktight.org, and in fact all the information I received could be taken from watching the game.”
In layman’s terms, Townsend combined his own showdown hand histories with another 30,000 hands from South and Hastings to run definitive reports and queries on Isildur1’s game, allowing detailed strategic discussions between Hastings, South and himself, which directly led to Hastings having the successful session he did.
"At that level, to be successful, you really have to take advantage of the little things," Hastings told ESPN. "They can help make the difference. That's why [analysis and discussion] is so important."
The actual breach of Full Tilt’s T&C’s is considered a relatively small one, which the majority of serious online players are assumed to commit daily using software or websites to acquire or view hand histories from hands they were not specifically a part of. These histories do not share any private information and can be found through multiple sources, including PokerListings' own MarketPulse section.
As a result, Full Tilt decided to suspend Townsend’s Red Pro status on the site for a period of 30 days. It is assumed that during this suspension Townsend will no longer receive any of the benefits or rewards from being a Red Pro, potentially costing the online pro thousands of dollars.
As for the allegations of collusion, ghosting and multi-accounting, Townsend denies all claims.
“Cole, Hastings and I live about 3000 miles from each other," he wrote. "I have never played on Brian H's or Cole S's account.
When it comes to the issue of conglomerating hand histories, Townsend said that is simply not what happened.
"I analyzed the database I put together, and the three of us chatted about my analysis, and optimal strategy against Isildur," he wrote. "Any discussion we had occurred away from the table when we were not playing a session.”
Townsend was first suspended by Full Tilt for six months in 2008 after he admitted to moving down in stakes and playing under a secondary username "Stellarnebula".
He at no time played under mulitple usernames at the same table, but it is against the site's terms and conditions to have more than one active account at any time.
As of the time of publication Townsend ($1.5 mil), South ($210k) and Hastings ($3.8 mil) have taken a combined total of over $5.6 million from Isildur1.
As a result, Isildur1 currently sits with over $2.6 million in losses on the year, and appears to have either lost his roll or spirit. The Swede's last session came Sunday, resulting in a $25k loss from games as low as $10/$20 Pot-Limit Omaha.
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Comments
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DucksFlyinHigh
2011-05-12Wow, now thats really sad, 3 "pros" ganging up on 1 nobody.. To all these "ccol" guys here stating that poker is a "dirty" game or whatever and anything is allowed, and that they put a lot of effort in it to beat him and so on... It is simply NOT fair if 3 guys play vs. 1 guy, imagine sitting @ a heads up table and three guys sitting in front of you and making their decissions --> 3 minds vs. 1 = fair?? no would not really say so...
Studying your opponent is of course not an unfair thing but using any kind of software and 2 buddys in order to crush your opponent is (plain & simple) unfair...
Just sad by the "pros" as well as full tilt for not punishing them harder.. ridiculous
KLAHoosier
2011-03-22full tilt kisses there ass .....and i have been trying to make a withdraw for 3 months this is bull shit, they should be shut down.
I will be playing on another site until i get my money......................
Gordon
2011-02-03When your representing Fulltilt being a "shadyass" shouldnt be tolerated at any level I'd bott the 3 right out the door Instead they give dude 30 day vacation ....sad!
BL
2010-12-15I would just like to thank CheatMyAces for the fantastic spelling and life lessons. Maybe it would also be an appropriate time to tackle grammar and how "Or not." is an uneducated sentence fragment. Or not.
db1
2010-10-30@ ChaseTh3Ace
because offline, or live play as its better known, you cant sit down and record 100k+ of someones hands can you dumbass? when a player mucks his cards live you never find out what he ws holding. Online you can buy or inport hand history, so when a few pros get together and find a strategy to beat the other player wothout him having any idea about it who do you think is going to have a very large edge? Honestly, some people are so stupid
Logan
2010-10-09CheatMyAces....... you should... SHUT THE FUCK UP! know one cares what the fuck you have to say... and you might be book smart but street wise and common sense your an idiot... get a life and take that stick out your ass you stuck up bitch
Rob
2010-09-20How the fuck where they not colluding they are fucking friends. They studied him together, trained together, and played together ABOUT what they were studying and training for but they didnt collude? Get the fuck out of here with that shit. Other people get banned from Full Tilt for ALOT less than what these punks did.
killthecheats
2010-07-25These cheaters need to be executed! Someone please murder them all.
ftpserverdown
2010-07-09GIVE ISILDUR1 HIS MONEY BACK NOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!! CHEATING MOTHERF*CKERS!!!!!
losingploplayer
2010-04-23sorry if i change the subject a bit, but i have a quastion: how come i very rarely win coin flips or most of the time i lose all-in bets with wich im clearly a favortie pre-flop?!
i understand the verience on this game, and im knew at PLO but i really like it, alough i been losing.
but i would likte to hear any sucess stories, if anyone has run good for while
T.A
2010-03-16THAT IS WHY ,ONLINE POKER WILL NEVER TAKE OVER THE LIVE GAME!!!!!!!!!!!IF IT IS NOT SHUFFELD AND DELT INFRONT OF YOU,SOMEONE OR SOMEBODY HAVE AN ADVANTAGE...
CheatMyAces
2010-03-11Wow. The level of speech and spelling amongst you all is astounding. Sounds to me as if none of you are even sure whether a crime has taken place. My suggestion is go back to school, get a real education, then apply that acquired knowledge to whatever makes you happy. Worry about what you can control. Poker and cheating go hand-in-hand, for what is bluffing? It is lying within the sport, period. Words like integrity, honest, pure, gentlemen's game, make me laugh my arse off. If you want pure and honest, go to church. Or not.
FLSir
2010-03-09Brian Townsend & Co. are cheaters and should be banned from Full Tilt. That is the only justice for repeat cheaters
Screenw132
2010-03-04Smh, a couple of years ago I was really worried that most people online had poker tracker or HEM and used that to study hands and improve to the point that there wasn't an edge in the game. From reading the views of people who think this was cheating confirmed that isn't the case at all. In fact ,I glad because you people don't have a clue what it takes to be a good poker player or the tools it takes. Getting thousands of hands on one player is very simple. Brian just took the cheaper and easier route to get them by requesting hands from cole and Hastings. IF he didn't do that he wouldn't even gotten in trouble. If you don't think people are studying the hand histories on other player to get an edge you clueless. And if you don't do so yourself your not putting in the work. I am just glad that most people aren't. They're too lazying calling this cheating instead of sharping there games......
wesong
2010-03-03Damn! I was just surfing around thinking I might learn Hold-em and play some. After reading all this crap, the whole on-line poker thing sounds like one big con game. Guess I'll stick with Tetris for entertainment.
youngin0420
2010-02-21the whole thing is bullshit if you ask me. its either a big conspiaracy with full tilt to try and gain publisity so people will join thier site. or online pros if you can call them that had to gain up against a nobody that took them for thier money just to get theres back. what happend to real poker?
westicleman@yahoo.com
Guillaume
2010-02-15:D
ChaseTh3Ace
2010-02-11Its not illegal offline so why the fck should it be illegal online, he but the effort into study Isldur1 and crush him, after all poker is about finding an edge, hes just doing what hes been told to do since he first started to study the game, i would do the smae thing, but i wouldnt publish it, its gonna get to a point were u get punished for making the wrong kind of bet one day, " waaaaaah his c-bets are to mutch waaaaaaaa hes so aggressive, waaaaa he lcuked out on the river betting each street with air, waaaaa" i need rehab.
Townsend has shown comitment to the game, stop bi.tching
zyg0tic
2010-01-29Yeah, since that isn't illegal or anything.
kenny
2010-01-29they should check the cardrunners phones and/or skype call logs to see if they were in communication at the time of play
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