Brian Townsend Has His "Red Pro" Status Suspended on Full Tilt Poker for Second Time

In a recent blog post on Cardrunners.com titled "Allegations", Brian Townsend revealed that he has had his "red pro" status suspended by Full Tilt Poker for one month.

Townsend revealed that he was suspended after Full Tilt Poker learned that he had acquired 30k hands of someone else's sessions against "Isildur1".

This would violate #8 of Full Tilt Poker's Terms and Conditions - "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."

As you are already aware, Brian Hastings destroyed "Isildur1" earlier this month to the tune of $4.2 million dollars.

A few days later, ESPN.com posted an article on Hastings and his massive day.

This line in the article helped to trigger an investigation by Full Tilt Poker of Cole South, Brian Hastings and Brian Townsend:

"Hastings had played Isildur1 three times previously, so he, Townsend and Cole South conglomerated their hand histories, allowing them to study the mystery man's playing style."

Source: ESPN.com - Talented and Disciplined

Full Tilt Poker found that "Brian Hastings and Cole South were not found to have breached our site rules in any way".

Townsend, as mentioned, had his "red pro" status suspended by Full Tilt Poker for one month.

Townsend had this to say about the line from the ESPN.com article:

"As for 'conglomerating hand histories,' it's simply not an accurate statement. I analyzed the database I put together, and the three of us chatted about my analysis, and optimal strategy against Isildur. According to Full Tilt's T&C this is a permissible discussion as it's super common for players at all stakes to discuss strategy and certain players tendencies."

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This is not the first time that Brian Townsend has had his "red pro" status taken away from him.

In the summer of 2008, Townsend revealed that he had been playing under "2nd aliases" on both Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars.

Townsend revealed that he had been using the "Stellarnebula" account on Full Tilt Poker, rather than his traditional "Brian Townsend" account. This had occurred between February and June of 2008.

Full Tilt Poker ended up suspending Townsend's "red pro" status for six months.


Source: Brian Townsend Has His "Red Pro" Status Suspended on Full Tilt Poker - Again

Full Tilt seems to be really indulgent

Here's the list of Isildurs "worst enemies" from ptr-

NAME #hands $ Isi lost

Brian Hastings 8,463 $-3,841,151.95 <--- cardrunners
Phil Ivey 6,372 $-2,910,133.50
Patrik Antonius 22,230 $-2,181,212.00
Brian Townsend 17,725 $-1,571,392.75 <---cardrunners
Cole South 22,387 $-210,186.50 <---cardrunners
OMGClayAiken 1,310 $-122,436.00

I think it's really impressive and a testamount to the sincerely studious nature of these particular guys, and how that kind of focused work can yield awesome $$$.

I think this could actually be a good thing in disguise....it's further proof that poker is a game of skill and not chance.

i think that the fact that he was dumb enough to get caught doesnt say great things......

nor do i like this rule.....as I read it, every time I send a tournament hand history to someone to look at, I've now broken a rule. That's ridiculous. And strictly spekaing, if that's how they're applying the rule, why haven't they said anythign to all the training pros who work for the likes of Poker VT and others like it. They're showing everyone hands n the same way, and anyone can then get the "unfair" information on it.

Why not just tell me I can't have anyone looking over my shoulder while I play? Becuase to me, what they're busting him for is intrinsically the same thing.

Agree, terrible rule. And yeah. . . pretty dumb for getting caught. It'd be interesting to know how he got caught.

He got caught because of stupid comments made by Brian Hastings. In a recent interview with ESPN, Hastings made the following statement.

"We've done quite a bit of studying of his habits. Honestly, I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here. I mean, Brian is honestly the hardest worker I know in poker. He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots. In a way, I feel bad that it wasn't Brian who got this win instead of me. Obviously I'm happy and I'll take it, but Brian did a ton of work. 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."

According to Tony G who knows Viktor Blom personally, Viktor is currently drafting an appeal to Full Tilt, citing a breach of the following Full Tilt Rule:

"The use of shared hand histories provides detailed information on opponents a player has little or no personal experience playing against, and is deemed to be an unfair advantage. Violating this policy is subject to the maximum penalties for prohibited software use."

This one is far from over...

Nowhere in Hastings' statement does it explicitely say he broke a rule. Whose hand history Townsend studied is not given, only that the three of them discussed the results of the study, which is NOT illegal under the rules. Townsend has a better appeal than Krom.

Also, if Hastings can show that he has experience against Krom before the giant win, the rule is negated by its own language.

Hastings had 0 hands recorded versus Viktor before this win.

There was nothing wrong about Brian playing on another account. He used the account for playing lower stakes against players he probabally knew nothing about so having a seperate account almost made it more fair since his opponents would already know a lot about him without him knowing anything about their games if he played under his normal account. And how is sharing hand histories even considered cheating?