Brian Townsend Biography

Brian Townsend is well known in poker for many reasons. Many know him as a high stakes pro on Full Tilt Poker. Others know him as an instructor on Cardrunners.com. Even more know him as the man that helped to bring down Viktor Blom screen name Isildur1. Hailing from Santa Barbara, California, this pro has put together quite a resume for himself.

Unlike many current players, Townsend chose to complete his education before moving on to poker. He received a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California – Santa Barbara. Townsend first started playing poker in 2005. He started out playing low limit Limit Holdem and moved up the limits before switching his game to NL Holdem in 2006. Within a year, he was playing at the highest limits online. Townsend officially turned pro in September of 2006. He now regularly plays $200-$400 NL Holdem and PL Omaha on Full Tilt. Townsend is also a member of Cardrunners.com, which is a poker training site ran by several successful online poker players. He also keeps a blog of his exploits on the site.

Townsend does not regularly play in tournaments, but he has some decent success in them. In 2006, he made the final table of the WSOP Circuit event at Harrah’s New Orleans, finishing 10th. Later in the year, he cashed in WPT event. In 2008, Townsend took down a Poker After Dark title, winning the Nets vs. Vets week. Later in the year, he finished 15th at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. His biggest live tournament cash to date was at the 2009 WSOP when he finished 13th in the $40,000 40th Anniversary event. His finish was good for $128,685. Townsend has over $366,000 in live tournament winnings.

Of course, Townsend may be best known for controversy that he has caused. In August 2008, it was discovered that he had multi-accounted on Full Tilt Poker when he used another account to drop down in stakes. He was subsequently suspended for six months from his red pro status. He also admitted the same offense on PokerStars.

In 2009, Brian Townsend was again involved in controversy. He had acquired over 30,000 hands of played by Isildur1 from third parties and helped Cole South and Brian Hastings to develop a strategy against Isildur1. This eventually resulted in Isildur1 losing Millions. The acquiring of hands from sources other than your own play is known as data mining and prohibited by Full Tilt’s Terms of Service. Townsend was suspended for 30 days from his red pro status.

Townsend has had a wild few months at the high stakes tables. A combination of winnings from Isildur1 and other opponents allowed Townsend’s online winnings to balloon to just over $2 Million in December 2009. He won $1.1 Million of this on November 25th alone. Since then, he has dropped about $1.6 Million of those winnings. Two days after hitting $2 Million, he lost just over $1 Million in a single day. He has been bleeding slowly since that point, but is still up about $472,000.

Whether online or in the live tournament world, Brian Townsend has proven himself to be a dominating player. While some of his feats may be marred with controversy, there is no denying that this online giant has game and will be a force on the virtual felt for years to come.