Continued from Part Two...
Part Three highlights the modern game of databases and hand-sharing, examining the recent Hastings/Townsend debacle that led to Isildur’s demise. Today we look back at some quotes from Richard ‘Chufty’ Ashby, a high stakes Red Pro who won a near $1.5 million in 2009.
Battle of Hastings
Creating a favourable balance between talent and degeneracy is something few high stakes pros are able to achieve. In the last article, it was concluded that although Isildur was without question one of the rawest talents the online world had ever seen, his poor judgment and refusal to be more selective in terms of opponents would always leave him broke. On his first Full Tilt venture, that’s exactly what happened.
Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey certainly profited from the inevitable downfall, but the man to take the biggest bite of Isildur’s ‘roll was Brian Hastings. A former STT specialist, CardRunner’s pro Hastings became a regular in all games between $50/100 and $200/400 and quickly grew a reputation as one of the best young players in the game. However, that reputation sky-rocketed one rainy December when he took a record-breaking $4.2 million off Isildur in one single session, a loss which forced the Swede into the red for the first time since taking the Full Tilt tables by storm.
It was observed that although Hastings ran exceptionally well throughout the session, he also played well, and was able to predict Isildur’s every move and act accordingly. His timing seemed impeccable. As someone who attributes much of their success to experiences as a CardRunners’ member, Hastings is acknowledged as a true student of the game, but a few days later, he made a faux-pas of epic proportions by revealing to an ESPN interviewer: “I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here... He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots… The three of us discussed a ton of hands and the reports that Brian made…”
Inevitably, this was the carrot that Isildur’s fans had been searching for as forums became awash with accusations of cheating and collusion, critics quickly citing the Full Tilt terms in order to justify their cries: “Players are not permitted to use the hand histories for hands that they have not personally participated in” Isildur may have had a death wish, but had his demise come prematurely? Did his roller coaster deserve to crash when it did? Amid the initial storm, it seemed like everyone had an opinion.
Nik Persaud says…
A poker player’s objective is to make money. Isildur was pretty naïve to tackle all these poker geeks without having the necessary tools at his disposal. His opponents are students of the game, and they’ll do whatever they can to beat him in terms of discussing hands, analysing the stats and studying their Hold’em Manager.
In a move that some deemed foolish, Brian Townsend decided to confess to hand-sharing in his blog, commenting, “I had about 20k hands of play on Isildur and I acquired another 30k hands” However, he also added, “…the only person to break the T&C of FullTilt Poker was myself,” thus placing the blame entirely on himself. With Hastings conceding that discussions took place, and Townsend admitting to hand-sharing, the question on everyone’s lips was a simple, but crucial one: can Isildur get his money back?
Ben Grundy says…
I don't know the entire story surrounding Hastings/Townsend. From the bits I’ve read I assume that they swapped hand histories and talked strategy. It’s against the terms and conditions, but I'm sure loads of people do it and you can download hand histories from sites online too. I don't think Isildur has much of a chance of getting his money back.
Townsend had made a shrewd move by going public. It may have resulted in a one-month suspension as a Red Pro, but it successfully switched the focus from Hastings to himself, thus making it more difficult for Isildur to get his money back as Hastings, the supposed benefactor of the session, would remain an innocent party. Isildur’s complaint could only be directed towards Townsend as the one person who Full Tilt can confidently say was in breach of their terms and conditions. Sadly for the victim, it wasn’t Townsend who took him for millions.
If Townsend, Hastings and a rumoured Cole South had indeed pooled their financial resources together and tackled Isildur as a collective force, even if it was only one person playing at a time (as Townsend professes), then they seem to have got away with it, not scott free, but with minimal, and perhaps laughable punishment when compared to the monies earned. But whatever you believe, the whole debacle begs a number of important questions, the first challenging the very existence of this rule within the terms and conditions of online cardrooms.
Nik Persaud says...
Technically, Hastings and Townsend obviously broke the rules, but this doesn’t mean that the rule in place is a good one. For example, if a fish was playing in the Vic one day and cleaning everyone out, would the regular pro’s in the game then not be able to talk about him at the bar? Could someone like Neil Channing not discuss a hand he played with said fish with someone like Jeff Duvall?
Rules are only effective if they can be efficiently policed, otherwise we can never tell who is adhering to them and who isn’t. The rule on hand-sharing is virtually impossible to police. Online poker has progressed a lot recently, and technology is a big part of the modern game. The resources available to professional players are near endless, and there’s no way that sites can effectively prohibit the use of everything that is on the market, especially when it comes to players talking about hands that they’ve played with a particular player.
Sida Yuen says...
From my own experience at mid to high stakes, the pool of players are usually fairly small and many of them know each other either personally or, at least, within a poker group. You can't expect these players to not hand-share or discuss strategy, and it's the type of thing that every high stakes player is aware of, and will adjust to. As long as during a heads-up session between durrrr and Isildur, Isildur doesn't have four of his other high stakes friends railing right next to him and telling him what to do, then it's not really considered as collusion. It's a very grey area, and then the line is very thin.
Of course, the ability to hand-share derives from the emergence of online databases and other similar forms of tracking software. Anyone can write down a hand they’ve been involved in and share it with another player, but devices such as Poker Tracker and Hold’em Manager have given players the opportunity to share a greater volume of hands and collate vital stats in the process, stats which can provide them with the knowledge they require to topple a more skilled opponent.
But just because they exist, doesn’t mean it’s an ethical part of the game. Phil Ivey, for example, wasn’t even aware of the presence of results databases, and had no idea of the figures they claimed he had won over the last year. Others, however, will be watching those stats change daily, eager to see if someone is likely to be on tilt or in confident mood. Eager to hear from more high stakes players, I decided to pick the brains of Omaha specialists Ben Grundy and Richard Ashby in order to discoverer whether they considered databases a burden, or a constructive addition to the game.
Ben Grundy says...
All the tracking databases are cool to look at. It really doesn't help any of the winning players though. If other players look then it stops you getting action if you are a big winner. My results aren't that great on Full Tilt, but still 80 percent plus of people sit out if I try and play them heads-up, which really tilts me because I’ll play anyone. I don't think the tracking sites really affect how people play, but I think you should have the option of opting out of your results being shown if you want too.
It's pretty frustrating at the moment as I'm struggling to get the action. Sometimes I could be seated at a table on Betfair for a whole day and not get one person play me. When you have your results published everywhere, though, it's not really that surprising.
Richard Ashby says…
I think these databases are great; I like to see who’s winning. When you see people who’ve come through the levels to play high stakes, I think it can actually inspire people and make them realise that it is possible. It might put some weaker players off though if they know their results are going to be tracked and put on public display. These results aren’t always entirely accurate, to be honest, they seem to miss sessions.
Ben Grundy says…
You can only have one alias on these sites, but I wish you could play anonymously or have specific tables where you can sit down and call yourself anything so people don't know who you are. I'm not a fan of having results published on something like the High Stakes Database as there are rich, recreational players out there who just want to play and not have everyone know what they're losing. It's embarrassing. That might be the reason why Guy [Laliberte] stopped playing. He doesn't want people to know if he's lost 10 million or some equally huge sum and have people know his business. It should be private.
Richard Ashby says...
I prefer being unknown, I think there’s definitely an advantage to playing under an alias, especially on sites where you can change your name. With rakeback and being a Full Tilt Pro, though, the benefits outweigh any advantage you might get from being anonymous.
This is a debate that could rage on and on without ever reaching a common consensus, and would perhaps be worthy of a series of articles in itself. However, the fact in Isildur’s case was that databases were readily available, and it was inevitable that his opponents would, at some point, confer and discuss strategy, especially when considering the sums up for grabs. However good he is at changing his game, he can never beat those who have studied his.
What’s perhaps key to this incident is that if the Hastings tongue hadn’t have slipped, no one would have been any of the wiser, and Townsend would never have confessed that he’d been unfairly accruing hands. Even if he didn’t share them with Hastings, he would likely be saving them up for his own benefit, waiting for the opportunity to pounce and reap the rewards himself.
The likelihood is that people have already been discussing Isildur’s hands and sharing information they shouldn’t be privy to, and if it hadn’t have been the CardRunner’s pros, it would have been someone else. We’d all love to live in a world where online poker was perfectly fair, in which people didn’t MSN, play as a team or mask IP addresses, but unless you put a camera in everyone’s room, it’s never going to happen, it can’t. What we shouldn’t do is implement rules that can never be policed to any acceptable extent, as all it does is serve up more ambiguity in a game that has more grey areas than a herd of elephants.
The only thing we can do is make sure we are aware of these possible advantages our opponents may have and adapt accordingly. Isildur had suspicions that something was awry, but failed to adapt. He was blinded by his own naivety, and instead of quitting or dramatically modifying his game, continued to play on. It was this naivety that resulted in his gargantuan loss, and unless he returns with a different mentality, one that can examine his own game and make the adjustments necessary to be competitive versus these types of players, it may be one he’ll never fully recoup.
Read Part Four...
Isildur: A Pro's Perspective - Part One: A Hero Arrives
Isildur: A Pro's Perspective - Part Two: Snakes & Ladders