If you haven’t been following the world of high-stakes online poker lately let me catch you up on the latest drama. Well known poker pro Brian Townsend was recently suspended from one of the online card rooms he frequents after he admitted to participating in data mining poker information on a potential opponent. Data mining is basically when someone extracts info from a database, which in poker’s case means getting a hold of hand histories.
Townsend revealed that he used software tools to gather approx 30,000 hands from a third-party source in order to prepare for an upcoming match with “Isildur1”, the online poker pro that has every high-stakes player foaming at the mouth to play him. Townsend received a 30-day suspension from the site and as a result a number of top online pros have chimed in with their two cents, with some talking to pokernews.com, as to the ethical use of data mining, considering that it is deemed illegal by practically all of the major online card rooms.
Andrew Robl
"What Brian did, although against the T&C, is a relatively small offense. He could have acquired the same information merely by opening the tables and watching the other matches Islidur1 played. He should be punished since he violated the T&C, but whether it should be in the T&C in the first place is definitely up for debate. I personally think this whole issue is being blown way out of proportion. In football, is it an unfair advantage for teams to watch tape of the games their opponents had played the previous week?"
Ryan Fisler
"I personally think it's a joke that Townsend gets a slap on the wrist, when it's far from his first offense. If anybody else had the previous offenses he had, then got caught with this, they would probably be banned. Double standards are never a good thing."
David Chicotsky
"I think this is minor compared to the previous offense that Townsend got suspended for - playing on other accounts!"
Annie Duke
"This reminds me of some of the stuff with imper1um. Just because you can do something online does not mean it is okay. I have heard arguments about account buying that since it is easy to do and relatively undetectable that it should be allowed. Of course, this is very fuzzy thinking. If (the poker site) has a clear rule against what Hastings and Townsend did then Hastings and Townsend are in the wrong, regardless of whether it is easy to do with the data or hard to detect. They signed the same ULA we did and, especially as Red Pros, they should be following the posted rules of the site."
