Brian Townsend Suspended

Full Tilt Red Pro Brian Townsend has been suspended from his privileged status as a Red Pro at the large poker room Full Tilt because of a breach of the terms of the site relating to the high profile poker matches between Isildur1 and the other high stakes poker players at the site. When discussing his recent matches with Isildur1 big winner Brian “stinger” Hastings said that he had Brian Townsend to thank for the 30,000 hand history report that he had compiled for Hastings that had suggested what Isildur1 may be doing in certain spots thanks to detailed analysis of his previous play.

Isildur1 went on to lose $4 million to Hastings in one day which has cleared out all of his previous winnings and most of his remaining bankroll. He has not been seen at the highest stakes tables since suffering this loss and it is believed he does not have enough money to compete at that level having been almost completely cleaned out.

Item 8 in Full Tilts poker rules says that ‘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’. By providing another player with hand histories and reports Townsend has clearly violated the terms of conditions of the site he works for and represents. He was immediately suspended for a month by Full Tilt for this breach and Isildur1 launched a complaint believing a team effort had ensued to relieve him of his money. There has been no official word whether or not Isildur1 will be entitled to any refund or make any legal bid to recover his losses.

Full Tilt have also been criticised for not dealing harshly enough with a player who has previously been punished for multi-accounting. Many Internet forums called for Townsend to be banned for this second misdemeanour. In 2008 he was banned for six months from Full Tilt for playing under a second username. He made a $25,000 donation to charity at that time by way of apologies for his actions. His suspension from Red Pro status means that he will no longer (for the month he is suspended) be entitled to collect the 100% rakeback that the Full Tilt Red Pros enjoy. Townsend can probably still play on the site as it is not a full suspension, merely a removal of his privileges. For a millionaire poker player this does not look like a harsh sentence but the rule breach is not considered a major one like multi-accounting would be.

Whilst rules have been broken this puts into the spotlight once again the use of poker tracking websites. All the hand histories used by Townsend to help him and his poker friends are available via these sites. All of them offer packages of hand histories for a fee. All players have stressed that at no time were they playing together over one computer. If anything, Townsend is a victim of Hastings speaking too openly on the matter but he has held his hands up and said that he was solely responsible for the rule breach and accepted his punishment.

This admission of guilt, however, could form the basis of a legal fight by Isildur1 as a player other than Hastings who beat him contributed to his loss by giving hand histories and custom report information to assist Hastings poker strategy. Without this information it could be argued Hastings would have played differently and not won much, if any of Isildur1s bankroll.

It will be very interesting to see what happens if Isildur1 was to take legal action to reclaim his money. He would be forced to reveal his identity but any judgement in his favour would see the poker hand tracking sites be placed in a very vulnerable position and possibly face closure. When he may be able to have close to $4 million returned to him you may think it would be a good idea to approach a lawyer and have a go. Isildur1 is known to be close to poker magnate Tony G who would relish the chance to bankroll such a lawsuit to discredit one of the biggest poker rooms on the planet.

2010 may develop in a new direction for online poker in terms of further analysis of different aspects of its legality.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: brian hastings, brian townsend, isildur1, online poker, poker, sbrugby, stinger