For those of you who don’t follow the online poker forums there have been some serious allegations made regarding Nick “StoxTrader” Grudzien over at 2+2. Grudzien, who is one of the behemoths in the online poker world --not only for his poker skills, but also for creating the wildly successful online poker training site Stox Poker, and co-authoring the book ‘Winning in Tough Holdem Games’ along with Geoff Herzog that was published by Twoplustwo Publishing-- has had multiple allegations leveled at him.
The firestorm started when David “Viffers” Peat posted on the twoplustwo poker forum accusing ‘StoxTrader’ of multi-accounting --a form of cheating; Short-stacking and Rat-Holing –which is legal, but a clear misrepresentation of his Texas holdem poker abilities, and also very frowned upon; and worst of all colluding with another player. Grudzien has admitted to the first two charges, and flat-out denies the third --the most serious of the bunch-- which I’ll talk about in a future article, but for now I’ll focus on the concrete information involving the transgression of multi-accounting.
Grudzien admitted on the TwoPlusTwo Poker Forum, as well as the Stox Poker Forum, to having two accounts on both Full Tilt Poker –StoxTrader and 40Putts—and PokerStars –StoxTrader and knockstiff—as well as creating a third account on both sites sometime in January, bulltf0rdtuff and gr3atvlewbr0 respectively. Multi-accounting is not only against both sites’ Terms & Conditions, but also gives the player an unfair edge over his opponents that he is familiar with since it will suddenly give him anonymity.
This scandal comes on the heels of two other shameful occurrences involving StoxPoker or its parent site Cardrunners:
First off was the Isildur1 vs. Brian Hastings debacle that took place in December 2009, where online poker players were screaming foul when it came to light that Brian Townsend was guilty of data-mining Isildur1 and passing that information on to Hastings –who took Isildur1 for over $4 million in a single session.
Secondly, we have the Jason Ho situation. Ho was a Stox Poker instructor who drastically misrepresented his ability and results, and in the end scammed many of the site’s members out of money for private coaching and so on.
The reason I bring up these previous scandals is that both Brian Hastings and Brian Townsend are major Cardrunners coaches, and Jason Ho was another Stox Poker coach. What makes these two stories relevant is that Cardrunners purchased Stox Poker in 2009, making this the third major fiasco in a few short months for the company.
Grudzien has since resigned from the site he founded, and seemingly sold off his financial interest in the site.
A further wrinkle to the story is the admission by Taylor “GreenPlastic” Caby, the main man in charge of Cardrunners that he was aware of Grudzien’s multi-accounting in January of this year, and did nothing about it.
The entire thread on twoplustwo is over 100 pages long and is full of anonymous informants, as well as some of the biggest names in online poker chiming in, including Durrrr, AEJones, and Ansky. It took me two days to read through the entire thread but is well worth it.
In my next article I will go into more details on the collusion accusations that have also been leveled at Nick Grudzien.Read it here StoxTrader Collusion Allegations
Grudzien’s admission about halfway down
Taylor Caby’s reply to the situation second post on page
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