Brain “sbrugby” Townsend has admitted in blogs to using two separate accounts, on both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars the World’s two largest poker sites. Brian Townsend is one of the main people behind Cardrunners.com, which is a video instructional site on all types of Poker. Full Tilt Poker who has a business relationship with Cardrunners.com has acted quickly in reaction to the news; they have revoked his “red pro” status for six months. At this time no announcement has been made by PokerStars.com.
On Tuesday Brain Townsend put up a post on his blog which included details of the multi-accounting along with a public apology. He stated that along with his commonly known “aba20” user name on PokerStars.com he also used the alias “Makersmark66” on lower limit games. While playing on the FullTiltPoker.com site he tends to play under his “red pro” name of “Brian Townsend”, he admitted that he also uses the account “Stellarbebula” on Full Tilt as well.
Multi-accounting has become a serious problem since the emergence of major online poker, and has recently been in the news again as Natalie Teltscher just concluded legal proceedings with PokerStars.com over multi-accounting. All major online poker sites state very clearly that this is forbidden, and while knowing this Brian Townsend along with many other players do it.
For the Professional big name type players such as Brian the reasoning is always the same, it provides me anonymity on tables when I want to just play poker. After discussions with Lee Jones (former Poker Room Manager for PokerStars.com and current Executive Host of the EPT) Brian admitted publicly the multi-accounting and as an unforced restitution he will make a donation to a yet to be decided charity. The donation will be 25,000 and will be made with his earnings from Cardrunners.com.
Along with his statement and public apology, Brian Townsend made this statement:
“I hope that people cannot 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.”
Many players today do multi-account some for reasons that have nothing at all to do with dishonesty in the game, and some purely wish to try and gain an edge by cheating.
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