The Rise and Fall of Isildur1

Hey Everyone,

for the past few months we've seen an amazing young swede player come up in the stakes over on Full Tilt. He played the pros, and beat them at their games... in some ways he symbolized the average joe, that defied the pros and become this hero...

His career peaked at well over $5 Million... which is very amazing...

But then, he started loosing, and loosing really fast... no one really knew why... he was on his game, and played amazing poker...

In till he had lost almost everything....

This week, it was revealed that Brian Townsend, was accused of cheating Isildur1... by colluding against him, using Cole South, and other players...

Full Tilt has suspended Brian Townsend from the site...
read the article right here:
http://www.pokerlistings.com/full-tilt-suspends-brian-townsend-14503

that really sucks to hear, that pros are cheating in order to get an advantage on a good player that worked their way up...

In my opinion, Full Tilt should make Townsend give the money back to Isildur1...

what do you guys think of all this mess?

definitely a refund in
order and they should be kicked off any poker sites. low as hell and ive lost all respect for them

agreed FT should pay hes one of theres

He should get his money back...doesnt matter though...he'll just donk it off to Ivey anyways.

No way should he get his money back, thats not how this kind of situation works. Nobody, not a red pro, not the average joe should return the money in this situation.

TexasPokerStar said:

what do you guys think of all this mess?

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It seems like there's precedent. I've heard others post stories where they get refunds if the site they play on finds they were victimized by a cheater. How much do you give back is an interesting question, though.

I -usually- hold back from the "fire 'em!" mentality. So many rush to that judgement, but tossing somebody on the street because they pissed you off (dealer screwed up, fire 'em! type threads...) is really way overboard, but right now I'm thinking about some of the stuff I read in "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King". It's in EVERYONE's interest that these games be clean. I only play because I believe I have a fair shot at winning. When I think I don't, whether because I'm just not good enough, sites are overrun by bots, or people are cheating, I'm taking my money and going home. So, just like the Vegas pros had an interest in making sure the nosebleed games there are fair, so the online sites have an interest in making their games fair. No cheaters, no bots, no superusers. If they fail to do so, people -will- quit playing, or they'll open up a nice hole in the market for a new site to step into. Hmm...RoyalFish Poker. One strike and you're gone. Maybe I'll team up with one of those gold buyers. No deposit hassles, just ship me your old jewelry. ;-)

Now, as for Izzy, it was one hell of a ride and a lot of fun to watch. Day to day I would slip from pulling for "our" pros, or for the upstart. Some have raised the objection that he obviously analyzed the pros and found a strategy to beat them. Assuming -he- didn't cheat to do that, that's a really awesome achievement. It was inevitable the pros were going to learn to adapt to his style (which is the sad and stupid thing about the cheating biz...it wasn't necessary), the only question was whether he would adapt as well, becoming a moving target. If he was really better than they were, he'd keep at least some edge and perhaps we'd have a new reigning champ. It looks like he failed at that. Rather than stepping back to figure out why he was bleeding money so badly and what to do to turn that around, he blew through it quite a lot of it. Maybe that's just the nature of playing that high. I think PA said something about needing a $300 million roll to play that high--something I serously doubt any of the current pros have. Maybe they're always on the edge of ruin. I calculated my risk of ruin a few months back and it was around 0.01%. I play a very different game. So yea, awesome fun to watch then sad in its final train wreck. I hope he's off now, licking his wounds, analyzing how he lost, and planning to come back later.

RF

marginal said:

No way should he get his money back, thats not how this kind of situation works. Nobody, not a red pro, not the average joe should return the money in this situation.

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Im intersted in why you think that???

aseablom said:

Im intersted in why you think that???

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It sets a bad precedent, whenever someone loses to another opponent they would now have to luxury of saying, "I think he bought some hands on me and thats why he beat me" and then getting refunded unjustly.

It is a shitty situation but a lesser of evils kind of situation. It is like when someone gets their email account hacked and the hacker logs on and loses all their funds online. The site cannot refund that player because if they do, people who just monkey tilted would now have an excuse to get their money back.

marginal said:

It sets a bad precedent, whenever someone loses to another opponent they would now have to luxury of saying, "I think he bought some hands on me and thats why he beat me" and then getting refunded unjustly.

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Except for the little detail that he admitted doing it. Unsubstantiated accusations should never be enough, but when you have an admission or convincing proof, you should act.

RF

Yeah, when someone comes out and basically admits the wrong doing..the guy deserves his cash back. Full Tilt is smart enough to know when someone is throwing money away and trying to rip them off and someone who is a straight up thief.

marginal said:

No way should he get his money back, thats not how this kind of situation works. Nobody, not a red pro, not the average joe should return the money in this situation.

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So if 3 other people got together and shared their hand histories and did a collective analysis on YOU, then took your entire bankroll, YOU wouldn't feel to get your money back? Even if they admitted doing that in an interview. They admit cheating you out of millions and you wouldn't ask for a refund, right? You would just let that slide.

LizzyJ said:

So if 3 other people got together and shared their hand histories and did a collective analysis on YOU, then took your entire bankroll, YOU wouldn't feel to get your money back? Even if they admitted doing that in an interview. They admit cheating you out of millions and you wouldn't ask for a refund, right? You would just let that slide.

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Well put.

Nobody in their right mind would let it slide.

Really Makes think, why Townsend didn't try that with Phil Ivey or Gus Hansen

TexasPokerStar said:

Really Makes think, why Townsend didn't try that with Phil Ivey or Gus Hansen

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Well ya never know. But hopefully he's learned his lesson and we won't being seeing any of this kinda non-sense happening again.

Gus hasn't been around in a very long time. He use to play the 500/1000 PLO HU, and there use to be a looooooooong, looooooong waiting list at his table. Ivey also has a HU table, the waiting list was much shorter.

is it unfair to discuss a players weakness's? Personally, I dont believe so.

LizzyJ said:

Well ya never know. But hopefully he's learned his lesson and we won't being seeing any of this kinda non-sense happening again.

Gus hasn't been around in a very long time. He use to play the 500/1000 PLO HU, and there use to be a looooooooong, looooooong waiting list at his table. Ivey also has a HU table, the waiting list was much shorter.

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I remember reading elsewhere that these Card Runner scumbags were the ones that beat Gus so much earlier this year causing his big downswing on the year. Makes me wonder if they ganged up on him as well.

I'd be very surprised if these three jerks get any more action on Fulltilt. I hope everyone refuses to play with them. Or better yet, I hope Ziggy gets really drunk and plays them and destroys their bankrolls.

sportserh said:

is it unfair to discuss a players weakness's? Personally, I dont believe so.

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If that was the case, but that is not what happened here. It went way beyond that.

If me and a friend is playing at a live 500 person tourney.

Ive been seated with this one person for the majority of the tourney and I have picked up on some of his tendencies and tells.

Then lets say I get knocked out of tourney but my friend makes it to the final table and so does this guy. Is it wrong of me to tell my friend what I think his weaknesses are and his tells.

If you dont think this goes on all the time, wether you are pro or not, then you are crazy.

Seems like this is a very simlar situation.

Also if this is wrong what Townsend did then it seems like to me that all poker softwares that tell you stats of other players should be illegal as well.

Thanks

JEP712 said:

I heard it was only Townsend's fault.

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Townsend was the only player that was punished. I feel that all three players are at fault. They compiled hand histories, studied them, and conspired to ruin one individual player. They acted like a pack of wolves trying to destroy someone.

nc_royals said:

If me and a friend is playing at a live 500 person tourney.

Ive been seated with this one person for the majority of the tourney and I have picked up on some of his tendencies and tells.

Then lets say I get knocked out of tourney but my friend makes it to the final table and so does this guy. Is it wrong of me to tell my friend what I think his weaknesses are and his tells.

If you dont think this goes on all the time, wether you are pro or not, then you are crazy.

Seems like this is a very simlar situation.

Also if this is wrong what Townsend did then it seems like to me that all poker softwares that tell you stats of other players should be illegal as well.

Thanks

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Simply telling your friend another player's tendencies is one thing. That's not what went on here. These guys went out of their way to break a particular player. It is very clear that Fulltilt's TOS were broken in this situation.

Put yourself in Isildur1's shoes. How would you feel if three players datamined and compiled a database of your last 50,000 hands and then used that to take your entire bankroll? I think you'd be pretty upset after hearing them admit to what they did just to break your bank.

This was the response from full tilt poker:

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting, I just wanted to make sure I had all the facts together prior to doing so.

First, to clear up some of the current confusion about the current state of the rules at FTP:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with discussing hands, discussing opponents, or discussing strategy with other players while away from the table. I think most people are aware of this, but I just wanted to ensure that was clear from the beginning.

We have rules (quoted many times in this thread) about collusion, datamining and sharing hand history databases. I only make mention of collusion here to emphasize that nobody involved is suspected of collusion. If we were talking about collusion, we’d be seeing a much different outcome for this case (since in the poker world, there are very few rules as important).

Importantly, our rules apply to our Red Pros just as much as any of our players. In fact, we often have to be tougher on our Red Pros than our players because not only do they represent our site, they are looked up to by players as role models.

After doing an investigation and speaking with Brian Hastings, Brian Townsend, and Cole South, the Fraud and Security team have come to the conclusion that the statement taken from the ESPN article describing the three combining their hands into a shared database was inaccurate. Further, Brian Hastings and Cole South were found to not have breached our rules in any way. They did discuss hands, an opponent, and a strategy for that opponent, but it was all done away from the game. While they were playing it was always one player to a hand.

A breach of the rules did occur by Brian Townsend, and was related to datamining. Normally we wouldn’t share that information (for privacy reasons), but due to the fact it was a Red Pro who represents the site, we feel it’s important to clarify the situation.

As for the punishment:

On the spectrum of rule breaking, datamining, while serious, isn’t at the top of the list. Contrary to popular belief, we almost never close an account for a first datamining offense. We understand that not all sites have the same rules, and there is definite confusion surrounding datamining specifically. For this reason, we try to give our players the benefit of the doubt in many cases and allow them a warning to make sure they’re now aware of the rules and agree to follow them moving forward.

However, like I said above, we have to hold our Red Pros to a higher standard. So in addition to the warning, we’ve stripped Brian of his Red Pro status for a month. I understand this won’t feel like enough of a punishment for many of you. Many options were considered, but at the end of the day we felt this punishment best fit the offense.

It’s certainly embarrassing to all of us that this has happened and upsetting that the facts of the incident were not reported correctly. We will ensure that all our Pro’s understand that they are under the utmost scrutiny and are held to the highest standards of all of our players when it comes to the integrity and promotion of our brand.

We apologize for the delay in responding, and for the confusion that resulted from that delay


Sean (Full Tilt Poker Representative)

The part where Sean says that there was only one person playing the hands is amusing. They can't possibly know that is true. Townsend already admitted that he railed the whole session. Who's to say they weren't on IM or on the phone the entire session? I mean, come on. Townsend is the one who had the hand histories and the notes on Isildur1 and he railed the session. Gee, I wonder why.

I think no one should play a red pro kind of like a strike because this is just wrong all the way around.

ISILDUR1 SPEAKS

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2009/...-isildur1-speaks-about-the-4-million-7714.htm

Its ridiculous that he blew the whole lot.
If I was up to $5million then started losing I'd probably at least stop when I got down to $1 million rather than risk losing it all.