Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Brian Townsend

A few days ago, Brian Townsend admitted to using multiple accounts to get an unfair edge in his poker games. Since so many players were used to his style of play under his main accounts: aba20 (PokerStars.com) and Brian Townsend (FullTiltPoker.com), he decided to create 2 new accounts so that nobody would know who he was.

Brian has since admitted what he did was wrong in a recent apology posted in his blog.  Brian wrote:

“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 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.”

Brian has also opened a thread on 2+2 where he has been taking questions from players.  He seems to be avoiding all the questions about how much money he made from these accounts, but in an admission of guilt, Brian has decided to donate $25k to a charity for his actions.  Full Tilt Poker will also be suspending Brian’s Red Pro status for 6 months as a penalty for this.

The real question though is, was he so wrong to do this?  I don’t really see this as cheating as online poker is supposed to be anonymous.  Using software to study your opponents’ patterns and taking notes is part of the game, but why not allow players to keep their identity private also?  If he is THAT GOOD, then he deserves to keep winning no matter what account.  But hey, I guess the sites have these rules in place for a reason, so though I don’t really think he was right, I don’t think he deserves to be crucified for this also.

What do you think?  Was Brian wrong for doing what he did?  What should happen to him?

Poker Pro, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson is mad at Barack Obama.  Why?  For picking Joe Biden as his running mate.  What could Doyle have against Joe Biden?  For starters, Doyle says that Biden is a hothead and a potential screw up.  Writing on his web log last Friday:

“I’ve been watching the news all afternoon and it looks like Joe Biden is going to be Obama’s running mate. I think it is a bad choice because Biden is hot headed and might screw up royally. I think Hillary would have cinched the election if he had picked her. But, what do I know, I was a George W. man. If McCain picks Romney as his running mate, all the gamblers had better vote for Obama.

Why does Doyle think “all the gamblers” should vote for Obama?

He doesn’t go into details nor does he outline just how Biden might screw up royally.  Its interesting to learn that Doyle feels so strongly that Hillary Clinton would have been a better running mate for Obama than Biden.

Lifelong Republican and poker legend Doyle Brunson has said on several occasions that he will vote Democrat for the first time in his adult life, which when calculated is about a century.

“Well I’m a life long Republican,” said Brunson, whose online poker room is amongst the most well known in the world. “But I think I’m probably going to vote Democrat this year, because of the way that they ran the Internet gaming bill through. I think that maybe the Democrats will be a little bit more lenient with the online gambling.”

Doyle is one of the most well-known and influential poker players in the world.  He was the first player to earn $1 million in tournament winnings and has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets.  To date, his total live tournament winnings have exceeded $5,300,000.

Brunson is arguably one of the best, if not the best, poker players in the world but he may want to rethink his role as a political pundit.

With the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet cheating scandals still fresh on everyone’s minds, it isn’t surprising that the people allegedly involved have attracted media attention whenever they turn up.  “AJ Green” also known as Allan Grimard is the subject of much speculation of the “hole card” fiasco which many players are still seeking closure on.   Many people belive it was Grimard that played under the infamous POTRIPPER account.

It has been reported that this week by Gambling911.com that Grimard is living it up in Costa Rica, home to several online gambling companies.  He is reported to be building a large home in Los Suenos, an upscale resort in the area, driving an expensive new SUV and sailing a yacht.

Grimard, once a low level supervisor at an online gambling company, has mysteriously amassed enough wealth to partake in these ventures but how he has done that is anyone’s guess.  It should be mentioned that despite in-depth investigations by Gaming Associates and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, Absolute Poker has not publicly named Grimard as being involved in the scandal.

It has been alleged that the Canadian-born Grimard is a close college friend of the widely regarded founder of Absolute Poker, Scott Tom whose name has also surfaced in reports.  It has also been reported that there is a sealed US indictment being held for Tom’s father who is said to be an Absolute Poker investor.  What charges are involved is still unknown and surprisingly has not attracted much public attention or coverage despite the multi-million dollar makeup of the Absolute Poker hole card cheating scandal.

Insiders have claimed that none of Absolute Poker’s investors or management are to travel to the United States fearing further indictments despite the fact that Scott Tom is no longer involved with the company.  AP is now owned by former Kahnawake chief Joe Norton’s Tokwiro Enterprises group.  It was recently announced that Absolute Poker and UltimateBet is planning a merger into a new super-network titled Cereus.

In more positive news developments, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, who licenses both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, has hired Frank Catania, former New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement director and respected online gambling regulatory consultant, to lead the team probing the cheating scandals at both sites.

To date Tokwiro has paid a rather minuscule fine in the amount of $500,000 to the KGC in regards to the Absolute Poker scandal but doubt still lingers due to the lack of public exposure or prosecution of the fraud perpetrators.  The initial denial of both sites when players complained of cheating further complicates the issue.  Tokwiro finally took action after the allegations were proved conclusively by an expert player investigation at a major online poker forum.

This Sunday at Full Tilt Poker 4,880 players plunked down $500+$35 to play in the FTOP Main Event. Many of them found themselves at a table with one of the 60 Full Tilt Pro players who also dotted the field (The pro that lasted the longest was Kelly Kim, one of the final 10 players remaining in the 2008 WSOP who busted in 16th).

With a massive first place payout of $432,400 (US) payday, the games best were battle ready looking to cash big. When the smoke cleared after a little more than 11 hours play, the final table was decided. While no Full Tilt pro players graced the table, the warriors that made it this far now had their sights set clearly on the near half million-dollar payday.

The final table began with the following players/chip stacks:

Seat 1: valleyho (4,177,484)
Seat 2: Pokerguru19 (1,252,960)
Seat 3: dubbeemin (3,574,154)
Seat 4: hemlock1313 (1,273,018)
Seat 5: sckilla (5,646,087)
Seat 6: aaaFRANCESCOzzz (1,641,169)
Seat 7: TiltinShoes (3,472,702)
Seat 8: tvcsa (1,426,134)
Seat 9: TheTotalPkg (1,936,292)

It didn’t take long for the first elimination – With the blinds at 60/120K and 15K antes, dubbeemin made a raise to 280K UTG. TiltinShoes then re-raised to 600K. It was folded back to dubbeemin and popped it back to 1.3M. TiltinShoes then pushed all-in and was called in a hurry by dubbeemin.

TiltinShoes: As Kc
dubbeemin: Ah Ac

Flop: 3s 2d Qs
Turn: 3c
River: 5s

Bad time to pick up AK obviously when the chip leader (who barely has you out stacked) is holding Aces!
There were a few more clashes but nothing earth shattering like the first one that lead to a heads up battle for the first place money between dubbeemin and valleyho. By this time dubbeemin had a commanding lead with 18.7M chips to valleyho and his humble stack of 5.7M. It was almost over just a few hands into the match when both players got all of their chips in with dubbeemin holding pocket 10’s and valleyho holding pocket 8’s. Making a set of 8’s on the turn saved valleyho the early defeat.

The final hand saw both players seeing the flop after a small raise from valleyho in the BB to 725,555. The flop showed 9c 7c 6h and valleyho led out for 999,955 (he obviously likes 555), dubbeemin raised to 3.5M and valleyho went into the tank before pushing all in. dubbeemin didn’t think long before calling.

valleyho: Kc 10c
dubbeemin: Qc Jc

Turn: Ad
River: Jd

Both players felt good with their flush draws until the showdown that had valleyho holding a big lead. Unfortunately, the river brought the Jack for dubbeemin and with that, the tournament concluded after more than half a days play. For his efforts, dubbeemin took down the $432,400 pot along with a gold FTOPS jersey.

Full Tilt Poker player hAAydon took down one of the biggest online poker tournaments tonight after winning the 2-day FTOPs Event #22.  HAAydon outlasted the field of 942 in the $2500 + 120 buy-in NL Holdem event hosted by Full Tilt Pro, Patrik Antonius.

There was a little annoyance though at the final table.  When it reached just 3 players, hAAydon, triathlon4 and knickadam55 decided that they wanted to work out a deal.  Unfortunately, Full Tilt support was nowhere to be found!!!  What the hell is wrong with these guys that they can’t dedicated 1 support person to an event as large as this with so much money at stake.  This kind of thing would NEVER happen at PokerStars.  In the chat some of the players expressed their frustration with comments like, “triathlon4: you are kiddin me” and “hAAydon: lol support”.  Knickadam55 finally decided to email support and the 3 went on away in hopes that a support person would come to the table.  After waiting over 5 minutes, no support was to be found.

Strangely enough, the players were destined for their final standings as the tournament ended in order based on the chip counts they had when they tried to iron out a deal.  This probably cost the 2nd and 3rd finishers  thousands of dollars, but it worked out quite nicely in hAAydon’s favour as he took home over $541k for the win.

The final table also featured one of poker’s funniest players, Tony Guoga.  Tony even did a few endorsements for his PokerNews.com site in the chat, but eventually was busted in 6th place.

Here are the final 10 for this event:
1 - hAAydon - $541, 650
2 - triathlon4 - $341,475
3 - knickadam55 - $235,162
4 - sebbau - $194,287
5 - BootySmooth - $147,187
6 - Tony G - $105,975
7 - theMightyZep - $70,650
8 - Yeshaya - $55,107
9 - ClockWyze - $40,035
10 - Erich Kollman - $22,372

This event took place on FullTiltPoker.net

If it wasn’t for a good cause, I would probably never write anything positive about UB.  But, I think it is good that sites use their popularity to raise money for charities accross the world that really need it.

Beginning today, UltimateBet begins hosting a weekend-long series of six poker tournaments to raise money for the charity, Ante Up for Africa, which offers aid to the people affected by the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.  The series is kicked off today with a $10+$10 tourney hosted by Phil Hellmuth at 8 p.m.  A second charity $20+$20 event begins at 9 p.m. and will be hosted by Annie Duke.

Saturdays action will be hosted by the UltimateBet Star Players Team beginning at 5 p.m. with a $20+$20 event followed by a $10+$10 tournament hosted by Don Cheadle and Annie Duke at 6 p.m.  Sunday’s line-up begins again at 5 p.m. with a $10+$10 tourney hosted by Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy.  At 6 p.m. the Online Team UB will host a $20+$20 event.

The buy-in for all the tournaments will go into a prize pool where tournament fees will be donated to Ante Up for Africa.  UltimateBet will also be donating prizes to the cash pool for participants in each tournament.  Some of the prizes up for grabs include Aruba 100-seat entries for Sept. 13, iAmplify Phil Hellmuth White to Black Belt courses, UltimateBet gear, AUFA Christian Audigier autographed t-shirts, gas cards, magazine subscriptions and more.

In addition to the prizes, participants will have the opportunity of playing with some of poker’s biggest stars.  A few of the players confirmed to participate include Gary “Debo34″ DeBernardi, Shawn Rice, Mark “P0ker H0″ Kroo, James “POKERPRO33″ Campbell and Tiffany Michelle along with Hellmuth, Duke and Josephy.  Don Cheadle and Annie Duke, who together created the charity, put on another star-studded event at the 2008 WSOP.  In attendance were Ray Romano, Ben and Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Adam Sandler and Charles Barkley.

Players who aren’t able to participate in the tournament series can make donations under the ‘Scheduled Tournaments’ tab; under ‘Private’ there is a listing for Ante Up for Africa.  There, players can donate in $10, $25, $50 and $100 increments.

Who knows, maybe POTRIPPER himself might show up too!

Here is a video of Don Cheadle speaking at the live version of the tournament: