Downswing

Brian Townsend une des figures de proue du poker en ligne de ses dernières années a été exclu 6 mois de l'équipe Full Tilt Poker pour avoir joué en ligne sous les pseudos Stellarnebula (FTP) et Makersmark666 (PS).
Devant une pression médiatique importante et de médiocres résultats sur les tables high stakes online Brian Townsend a préféré utiliser de nouveaux comptes (procédé interdit par les règles des sites FTP et PS) afin de pouvoir jouer anonymement sur des limites plus faibles et ne pas avoir à subir l'humiliation d'être vu sur ces limites inférieures par la communauté des joueurs de poker sous ses pseudos habituels Aba20 ou Brian Townsend.
Fin Juin 2008 SamH133 lance plus qu'une rumeur en accusant quasi directement Brian Townsend de tricheur sur le chat d'une table FTP où se trouvent notamment Tom Dwan durrrr et Chris Lee Genius28.
Alors que le sujet restera relativement discret pendant le mois de juillet il reprend une importance significative mi Aout sur les forums communautaires anglophones de poker.
En début de semaine l'histoire aboutie aux aveux et excuses publiques de Brian Townsend sur son blog.

Citation:

Envoyé par Brian Townsend For the past 6 months I have been playing under the 2nd aliases Stellarnebula on FTP and makersmark66 on PokerStars. I have not used the aba20 account on Stars since I began playing on the Makersmark66 account. I have since gone back to using the aba20 account and will play only that account. During this time I played the 25/50 and 100/200 PLO games. I played under the Stellarnebula account from February until the end of June at which time Lee Jones and I had a discussion and we came to an agreement that I needed to close it. During this time I was playing under the Brian Townsend account, never at the same table with the Stellarnebula. Under the Stellarnebula account I played 25/50, 50/100, and 100/200 PLO. During this time I played a very small amount of 50/100 PLO and primarily 200/400 PLO under the Brian Townsend account. I wanted to have come forward and make this public sooner, but unfortunately because of certain business relationships I could not do that. What I did was wrong and I am going to be punished by FullTilt poker by having my red pro status revoked for 6 months. I am unsure what action, if any, PokerStars will take. I have also hurt those that I work closely with primarily at CardRunners but also at FullTilt. To compensate those that were hurt by my actions I am going to be donating 25,000 dollars to a charity to be determined in the future. This money will be removed from my CardRunners distributions. This is by no means me making my actions correct but I hope that it shows some good faith towards those that I work closely with. I am very proud of CardRunners; we are doing something very special. My first reaction when this occurred was to go hide under a rock. I am not going to do that and I will answer any questions that are asked of me. I feel that I have nothing to hide. If you wish to interview me on this subject please email ezra@cardrunners.com and we can set something up. I will also be answering questions in not only the CardRunners forum, but the 2+2 forum as well. I will not be hiding from anyone or any questions. Those are the pertinent facts. The reason why I created these accounts was because I enjoy anonymity when playing smaller and am very prideful in what I do. The past two years I have made a lot of money playing poker. This year I have been breakeven. For me it’s correct to play smaller when things aren’t going well. I have never played poker for the money; it has always been a byproduct of my play. Whatever I do I want to be the best at it. For me playing the 200/400 PLO games was not the right thing to do because my results haven’t been good. I think I am a winner in those games and I intend to prove to myself that I am one of the best poker players in the world. I believe what it takes is an incredible amount of focus and work to accomplish this goal. I intend to work harder than anyone to prove this, because I have not been playing my best for the past year. I have something to prove to myself. I have removed what I have online and left myself with 100K. From here I am going to play 25/50 PLO until I have 200K then 50/100 until I have 400K online then 100/200 until I have 800K online. From there I will play 200/400. If things don’t go well when I first move up I will move back down and rinse and repeat until I am at the 200/400 PLO games. I used to think that playing 25/50, 50/100, and 100/200 was a failure because I wasn’t playing the largest limits. I am smart enough to move down when things aren’t going well; I was just too prideful to make it public. Along with this I plan on continuing managing CardRunners and create the best poker instructional videos. I have put a lot of effort into my past videos and I want my partners to know that effort will continue, as well as the effort I put into running the company. I hope that people can look to me and not only learn about poker and bankroll management, but also how to do the right thing and be a good person. Poker isn’t about luck or how you are running. It’s about the work and effort that you put into it. I have not had good results this year because of my poor play and lack of focus, not because I have run below expectation. I want to prove that to everyone. If you follow my play as I move up you will see the trials and tribulations that I face. There will be days of intense frustration and times when I will doubt my game. But I know that with hard work I can accomplish the goal I am setting. I hope that people can not only look to me for poker education but also for the way to live their lives. I made a mistake and I am willing to take responsibility for it. I am willing to stand up and face the music. I apologize to entire the online community. I will never partake in this type of activity in the future. This post should act as a full admission of my guilt, and I sincerely apologize to anyone that I've wronged.

Il serait assez facile de tirer sur l'ambulance en lisant les excuses boarderlines de Brian Townsend et la manière dont il envisage le dédommagement des adversaires lésés mais ça serait oublier que la plupart des joueurs high stakes (Degenyamine, Patrik Antonius, Sami kelopuro LarsLuzak present, Ozzy ... ) ont aussi plusieurs comptes sous lesquels ils jouent et que pour l'instant beaucoup de poker room en ligne dont les règles l'interdise ferment volontairement les yeux sur ce type de pratique.
Pire n'importe quel joueur pourrait le faire sans contrevenir aux règles en ayant plusieurs pseudo via plusieurs skin de poker room appartenant à des réseaux comme ipoker, prima ou ongame ...
Bref globalement cette histoire ne changera pas grand chose à la vie et aux pratiques de tous grinders micro, small et medium stakes mais rappellera quand même aux poker room leur obligation de moyen envers leurs joueurs/clients de proposer un jeu juste et équitable pour tous.