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pebbleboy · Royal Flush Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 757

http://blogs.cardrunners.com/Brian/My-Apology

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.

tracysanders · Message Board Junkie Joined: 02 Apr 2008 Posts: 1270

Thanx for the honesty and good luck in your punishment and future gaming

htichy78 · Royal Flush Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 993

send me 5k and Ill forgive you

but to be honest, thats cheating and you deserve to be punished.
why not follow the rules like everyone else has to, especially if your a successfu player?

good that you got it out in the open, but perhaps you are just trying to beat someone else to it, to save what little face value you have left.

my 2 cents

feihua · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:30 am Post subject:

ManilaDog · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:28 am Post subject:

wow guys..this was reported on 2+2 in June

feihua · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:20 pm Post subject:

cheecho · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:05 pm Post subject:

who cares. I mean how many players have had people watch play while giving comments or suggestions? That is much more cheating than any name changing. you can't walk into a casino and have 2 people play and talk about hole cards an d opponents. but it happens all day long.
this is just what online poker is, these are the things that can and will be done. look at what other things you can do online: name change, poker tracker, multi table, hud stats, other players helping (either watching behind or chatting in AIM and watching a table online).
In those HS games, they should be able to figure out if the guy is good or not regardless of what his screen name says.

boomsheik · High Card Joined: 28 Aug 2008 Posts: 1

Totally agree with the above comments - who cares if he used another name because he wanted anonymity?? I guess as a red pro he shouldn't and for that reason alone I see a problem but really there are SOOOO many worse examples of cheating than playing on a different username! As long as you're not playing them both in the same game it's not that much of a biggie.

In absoluetly LOADS of the CardRunners videos the pro's are "playing a friends account" in order that the opponents play normally against them rather than adjusting their game to try to "battle" a name pro - this just makes the videos play more like a regular game and represent real situations that arise rather than possibly making the opponents play a different game. Also, EVERYBODY knows that Patrik Antonious used at least 3 usernames on FT (Finndagrind, Luigi and IKNOCKOUTU) and nobody raised an eyelid to that and he's now a fully blown member of Team Full Tilt.

Ok, he made a mistake and he's been forced to admit it but at the end of the day it's such a load of fuss over nothing. Get over it!

Mark NPF · Banned Joined: 01 Oct 2008 Posts: 23

Ah, well at least you were man enough to come forward and own up to it. gl to u sir, your are one of my poker heros

Zara Marie · Banned Joined: 03 Oct 2008 Posts: 25

I for one, having read his statement on cardrunners, commend him. yes what he did was wrong, but he has owned upto it, and explained him self fully. hopefully now he will understand that playing lower limits is nothing to be ashamed off (even if his idea of low limits is 50-100)
gl to u brian

pebbleboy · Royal Flush Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 757

He's back in red

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