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Brian Townsend: On His Collusion Allegations

This article was written by: Jannah Strat for Celebrity Poker Players

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Jannah Strat is an efficiently writer from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. She's writes anything that has to do with online gambling. She tackles all about Casino Games, Poker Players and Sports Betting. She also owns two blogs about some of the best and hottest Poker Players and her blog about Celebrity Poker Players.

Brian Townsend
We all heard about Tom "Durrrr" Dwan, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius sitting in on the online poker games. One of the biggest mover among poker player you may not know a lot about is Brian Townsend – largely known for his success playing No Limit Hold 'Em and Pot-Limit Omaha at Full Tilt Poker, playing under the nickname "sbrugby".


On top of this poker successes, Brian Townsend has become a world class poker instructor on a popular training site Cardrunners.com. Last Novemnber 2009, Brian Townsend took a heads up match against "Isildur1". They played four tables of $200/$400 PLO (deep). Just recently Townsend got his own avatar and it seemed to give him edge over "Isildur1" as he won 1,107,300 dollars.

Brian Townsend Fulltilt
Allegations Brian Townsend's Multiple Accounts

In September 2008, Brian Townsend make a controversy when he admits the rumors that he uses 2 accounts on both largest and renowned online casino poker sites, Full Tilt and PokerStars. Brian Townsend issued a public apology after suspicions regarding his possible multiple account (a disallowed practice known as "multiaccounting") play on the sites above drew increasing public attention. Generally known as "aba20" on PokerStars, he also admitted to playing under "Makersmark66" at relatively lower stakes on the site. At Full Tilt, where he plays most publicly under his "Brian Townsend" red-pro name, he also admitted to playing the account "Stellarnebula".

Brian Townsend made the public announcement after discussing the matter with Lee Jones, the former poker room manager with PokerStars and later the executive host of the European Poker Tour, who moved on to become the COO of CardRunners. As a form of restitution for his violation of the sites' rules, he also announced that he will be donating $25,000 to a yet-to-be-determined charity, paid for from his CardRunners earnings.

However, online poker site Full Tilt, where Brian Townsend and other CardRunners poker pros have an ongoing business relationship, quickly announced that Brian Townsend would be suspended from "red pro" status on the site for 6 months.

Brian Townsend Poker Player

Another Contoversy: Brian Townsend On Collusions

Although after his 6 months suspension, Brian Townsend was actively playing poker online. However, Brian Townsend has another controversy wherein he will lead to suspension. The Full Tilt poker pro Brian Townsend has been pulled off from his "red pro" status for 1 month with the allegations that Tonsend shared a database of 50,000 hands with Isildur1 throtthler Brian Hasting.

The allegations, which claimed Cole South, Brian Hastings and Brian Townsend "colluded" to cheat Isildur1. The first public comments made by any of the accused came from an ESPN interview with Hastings and Townsend after Hastings’ big win. According to Brian Hastings, the three players worked together to understand and find weaknesses in Isildur1’s game.

Brian Townsend Highstakes Poker
Facing allegations of cheating, colluding and multi-accounting, Brian Townsend has come clean, resulting in his second suspension from Full Tilt. However, Brian Townsend clear up the allegations in his blog in Cardrunners.com. Here are some of the snippets of his comments:

"I wanted to clear up some allegations about Brian Hastings, Cole South and myself. First Brian H. Cole S. and myself never colluded. Collusion is nearly impossible HU but there was always one person playing and never any ghosting occurring. In fact the only person to break the T&C of FullTilt Poker was myself. I had about 20k hands of play on Isildur1 and I acquired another 30k hands. This is against the T&C of FullTilt Poker and because of this violation I am going to have my red pro status suspended for one month."

"I have never played on Brian H's or Cole S's account. 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 Isildur1. 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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