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.
Townsend Analyzed Database of Isildur1 Hands
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).
"I Was Sole One to Break T&C of Full Tilt"
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.
Townsend Denies Collusion, Multi-Accounting
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 multiple 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.
I say anything to gain an edge….its gambling, its not Sunday school….just ask the head coach of the new England patriots, Braun, mcgwire, bonds, lance Armstrong.
Wow, 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
full 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………………….
When 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!
I 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.
@ 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
CheatMyAces……. 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
How 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.
These cheaters need to be executed! Someone please murder them all.
GIVE ISILDUR1 HIS MONEY BACK NOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!! CHEATING MOTHERF*CKERS!!!!!
sorry 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
THAT 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…
Wow. 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.
Brian Townsend & Co. are cheaters and should be banned from Full Tilt. That is the only justice for repeat cheaters
Smh, 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……
Damn! 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.
the 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?
[email protected]
😀
Its 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
Yeah, since that isn’t illegal or anything.
they should check the cardrunners phones and/or skype call logs to see if they were in communication at the time of play
This just made me lol for like 20 mins.
Poker is a game of skill because you can study your oppenents and exploit there weaknesses to make $$. I doubt anyone that is bitching in this thread is capable or willing to study hhs like they did. you whiners should go play tennis or something.
I am a beginner, small stakes player with a goal of playing with the big boys; but I paid for college with football and was a very good baseball player. That being said, I cannot see the harm in studying my opponents. I understand the Full Tilt rule, but they seem to be rather paradoxical in their punishment. If this type of behavior is to be disouraged, then punishment should fit the crime. However, 30 days is not a punishment, it is a vacation. I can go on, but I think that most points have been made already. The question is, “Is Full Tilt trying to discourage this typeo f behavior? Or, are they trying to paint a good picture as IF they are trying to discourage it.” My current opinion would lean toward the latter right now.
I didn’t say ‘honest and pure’, did I? But am I wrong in thinking it was various levels of knowledge of the game and the element of risk – that made it exciting? If its me against the corporation, what’s the name of the game?
It’s kind of funny you say that the “Brunsons of the game” are the example of being honest and pure.
Brunson and his crew of road gamblers are some of the most notorious gamblers of all time, mostly because they exploited every edge they could find, without ever actually cheating (according to them… not according to some others).
In fact, these guys made most their money by convincing people to play Hold’em (a game they had NEVER played before) for high stakes. They spent their lives looking for marks, then they took them down by doing everything they could.
This is always how poker worked, you use every tool and angle you can get your hands on to beat your opponents.
From a beginner’s perspective, this is very troubling. I want to learn how to play the game, not learn how to do industrial espionage. No wonder the Brunsons of the game are fading into the shadows, they had character, and balls – but it seems what a top player needs today is specialized software and someone elses’ balls.
^^^^Right here.
So if serious poker players are cheating by studying there opponents previous games…. surely professional boxers are cheating by watching footage of their opponents previous fights
hes a boss
Anyone in this string who honestly believes that studying your opponent is wrong, should tell me their user name so I can jump on their table. Absolutely stupid to think that this isn’t part of the game. Playing a playoff game, you wouldn’t go back and watch game tapes of your opponent? IDIOTS.
He’s Lucky,
In the old days Townsend woulda got a bullet in the head !!
If poker is going to be taken seriously as a legitimate “sport”, this kind of cheating SHOULD NOT BE CONDONED! PERIOD!
Brian Townsend should BANNED for life!
I would not play with him online or anywhere else!
Does anybody really believe that these 3 sneaky little sods didn’t share HHs where mucked hands were shown? This is the kind of thing that really makes me question whether I want to play this game anymore.
First, the “viewing film of another team analogy” is wrong. Because both teams are aware that film is being used. With that being said the film is used to game plan. What film does not do is give the team the EXACT game plan that will be used by the opposing team. Using artificial means to analyze an opponent and fill in your memory gaps and give your strategy a crutch goes way beyond the “spirit” of the game. Isildur1 said in an interview that he did not know this was happening. He should sue the crap out of Full Tilt, because if they are not going to enforce their own rules they must be forced to put up a disclaimer everytime someone joins a game to warn that person about data mining. Half of these online chumps would no do well live without their little HUDs and other crap.
I really don’t get why you guys are all mad about this. Why only 30 days? Simple, he didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary.
He looked at hand histories from games played in the past. This is no different than watching poker on TV. It’s against the rules for Full Tilt, so he got suspended, but he never comprimised the integrity of the game.
In my opinion even the 30 day suspension was too much.
Obiously Brian Townsend is a CHEAT! Two strikes and he’s still not out. Now hes banging Kara Scott!!! Nice peice of ass!!!
f-ing bullshit alright, what is a 30 day suspension to townsend anyways? who cares about the ‘thousands of dollars’, he owns cardrunners and is a FTP pro, he is a multi-millionaire ffs. if this happened to some average joe FTP simply would just say ‘F OFF, YOU ARE BANNED PERMANENTLY’ but townsend is different i guess
absolutly not cheating, a technical violation of FTP rules, which are ridiculous, any serious player will study his opponents, and the only way to know if someone did this is confession, if i was townsend id punch hastings in mouth
lol the haters commenting here have no clue about poker. hastings south and townsend worked harder studied harder and reaped the rewards, every half decent online player shares hand histories and use holdem manager pokertracker etc to compare it to the ub bs is a joke. im sure isulder1 studied durrrrs game in the same way before playing him
Scummy lowlife cardrunners instructors or should I say “Potripper” gang.
You guys are crooked, especially Brian Townsend. Making millions by stealing it. It’s clear you had no future coming out of a terrible school like santa barbera so had to resort to cheating online poker players out of their hard earned money. I am sorry Brian, but I don’t believe a word of your “confession.” You got caught cheating before and u got caught again only a few months later. I am almost positive you guys were ghosting each other while playing isildur1. He would destroy you losers otherwise.
Let me ask you this you cheating cardrunners bastards. If isildur1 and some of his swede buddies got together and got caught doing the same thing, wouldn’t you suspect him of cheating? But the only reason you are getting off so lightly is because full tilt and CR are the brands you hide behind. Us innocent and unsuspecting poker players have been mislead into believing you guys live by some poker code of integrity. But all you guys are about is the easy way out and how to make the fastest buck possible. Well what you did is the same as what Marc Dreier and Bernard Madoff did. You stole. And thieves are sinners so you better worry about how to change your lifestyles bc u made your money by stealing it. And I thought you had a gift. The only gift you have is one that u made – collusion.
Well you guys totally lost my respect and I am discontinuing my CR account. Don’t think for a second that because your other professional poker peers say nothing about this bc many of them will truly wonder if you guys really cheated. I don’t want anything to do with cheaters and definitely don’t want to pay a subscription that goes into the pockets of cheaters. You guys are scum and I think you should return all of isildur1’s money. What a disappointment. I had the utmost respect for all of the cardrunners instructors, but after reading Brian Hastings Cardrunners blog (read it guys. got to cardrunners.com and click brian hastings blog. he writes about his win like he just found the cure for AIDS and is giving shout outs like he won awards or something. pathetic little boy). What if isildur1 gets so depressed when it truth u guys did nothing but cheat him and he goes off and hurts himself? Maybe it will teach you scum a lesson.
And why do you guys trust full tilt so much? They are breaking federal laws and have designed very sneaky methods to avoid getting arrested. Brian Townsend you are scum and always have been, but Cole South and Hastings…I never expected this from you, but now you are always going to be viewed as Potripper2 in my eyes.
I can see you CR guys doing organized crime now. You’re just a bunch of young little street punks destined to go down….and down hard.
Isildur did this to himself….anyone in their right mind would have quit while they were ahead…..
A played on Full Tilt and this nasty guy used History Software on me … it said I was a massive Fish … so he sharked me for $60.
I think he also had some poker friends.
Who can I see about getting my money back?
zygOtic, point taken
What I want to know is this being his 2nd (or 3rd) incident of cheating (that he was actually caught) why does Full Tilt keep putting up with his crap? It makes the whole company look no better then Ultimate Bet letting him get away with it
then brian, towsend and hastigns, and 4th cardrunner pro who isildur played before at NLHEadsup for 500k profit at same day can definitelly explain how every new opponent showed up 1 seconds, after isildur finished any game. And Cole was there, ready to play 2 more tables with isi too too keep him busy at same time (that’s what hastings recomended). It was so obvious it’s typical hustling,
knowing one will make him on tilt, and isildur
is not that smart player when goes on tilt.
Shame on Full Tilt anyway.. 30 days suspension. WHAT is that?!?! so they accuired 3 millions profit that night, and Brian got suspension for 1 month and he’ll lose like 3-5k Sponsorship deal?!?
If me and my 3 friends played same opponent at 1/2 cents same day headsup and sharing hand history, i’m 100% sure our accounts would be terminated and money would be confiscated.. But it would be bad for site to ban it’s own “pros”. And Brian is repeating his cheating and hustling actions! He can donate another 25k to charity.. Someone need to clean the game from people like this.
The guy lost 4.2 million in one session.
If that’s not donking off stacks, then what is?
Are we not allowed to comment on a player losing anymore? Also, I love Isildur, I think he was fantastic for the game and to watch. I’m not a hater at all… but there’s a reson Hastings chose to play him, because he’s famous for DONKING OFF STACKS.
Also, full tilt security didn’t “catch them” they openly came out about it and said what they did. If FT had to terminate all accounts for people who share hands, they’d lose 90% of their players. Don’t be ridiculous.
Why is it that he gets a 30 day suspension? If it were a non red-pro or a mid,low-stake player there accounts would be terminated. I’m not sure i was the only person thinking how Hasting goes from playing $25/$50 and jump to nose-bleed stakes steadily thet was a red flag right there and this is why I am sure Fulltilt did some investigating. In a way I am happy to see that Full tilt security is always watching. But if the only thing that they did was exchanging stratagey’s and analizing hand’s to find betting patterns and also to figure out who Isildur1 is well then that is fine. I mean this guy comes out of nowhere and crushing the worlds best online players and nobody has a clue to who he is i would do the same to make sure that it is not another full tilt red-pro using another account or another well known pro. All i know is when a new player pops up on the online poker seen and wins well over 5mill in a 3 day span against the best player’s his idenitey is usually found out fairy quickly and when online poker blogs thought it was Blom everyone thought the mistery was solved then Blom comes out denying that he is player ”Isildur1” well Hmmm is it Guy L. the Billionaire who has been rummered to have several accounts? Or how about Eli on National T.V. on ”Poker After Dark” stating he has more than 15 accounts with Howard L. sitting in the game. So i can honestly say that i do not blame them at all trying to figure out who or how an unknown player wins Millions playing HU sessions against the world’s best online and live players.
Hey zygOtic, usually the people puting down others, “donking off his stack.” suck. I can’t wait to see what limits you actually play at. Every time I search “zygOtic”, it says they are not seated.
Townsend is in the right… ‘Common. What he did is absolutely awesome (mean studying) and deserves the reward.
I really don’t understand why anyone’s upset by this at all. everyone does it. People share hand histories, talk on forums… shit I just watched like 30 hands replayed on this site right now. Technically, I’m just as guilty as Townsend for it.
This is BS, if you don’t want people to be able to review previous hands played, then don’t give players their hand histories.
Townsend worked harder than Isildur, he figured out his game, and shared that info with a friend. Isildur should have spent more time studying his opponents, and less time donking off stacks.
This seems pretty shaky to me. Why in the world would Full Tilt care if someone accessed hand information and discussed it with other pros? Totally lame suspension. This kind of crap comes up way too much with online poker…
Hey Billy’s mom you are stupid. The guy is smart so who cares about it.
He used hand histories that he wasn’t involved in. End of story. It was a crafty cheat, but an infraction nontheless.
It’s cheating because it says so in the Full Tilt terms and agreements. Period.
“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).
“I had about 20k hands of play on Isildur and I acquired another 30k hands” wrote Townsend.
So it is unfair.
how dare they talk poker and review hand histories shocking. Apart from the number of hands we’re talking about whats the difference between this and the november 9 watching the espn coverage of their opponents before the final table
Under the pretext that this is cheating.. then watching the WSOP reruns to see how players do their thing is also cheating. Dude used the information he had at hand. It’s no different from watching these guys play at the WSOP or the WPT events and seeing how they react, noticing tells, etc.
Townsend was in the right, if you ask me.
these comments are dumb. just as the article itself notes, every successful player uses poker tracker and similar software to get hand histories. every serious online player uses forums and chat groups to review hands and build successful strategies. if this isnt you, your ceiling for success online will be very low.
Only 7 comments until someone played the shame on you card! awesome!
Think this is just rotten! I hate those cheating mother ****’rs. Watching Isildur play was the only reason for me logging in to Full tilt. I hope this will be consequences for the pokersite. You lost your creadability! Shame on Fulltilt and you cheating bastards.
How much money is Isildur getting back? If they are suspended then there are no other option than to give their victim his money back.
And now you expect people will play your red pros? Give Isildur his money back.
Too bad this punk didnt try this back in the day,they would find his pussy ass buried in the desert.
Wonder why he didnt pull this shit on Ivey or Hansen, oh wait a minute they are on Full Tilts bankroll just like him. Those pros are like vultures to anyone not in their click.
brian townsend should ban for life,FBI should involve to check the con job.anyway,i would shut down the fulltilt.this site should going down.30 days means take a long vacation,not punishment.using pokerbot will take your money,but cheating only 30 days suspend,wow.
Maiba
so fucking lame of these guys the wouldnt have breaked him otherwise..