Hilarity ensues in HSNL thread as LHE god and Stoxpoker associate The Bryce attempts to defend stoxtrader
While only using bizarre terms such as "migrating accounts" and "re-rolling accounts", The Bryce is initially shocked people seemed to be in an "internet fury" over the allegations and calls most posters "pathologically bored":
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So far this thread has pretty much been a train-wreck, consisting of some outrage over Nick short-stacking some percentage of his hand, some outrage over him migrating to new accounts, and a lot of vague, unsubstantiated, and very serious (collusion etc) claims and people slandering Nick as an individual. As “internet fury” threads go this one probably has the lowest evidence to fury ratio I’ve ever seen.
Regarding migrating accounts what I’d like to do is not so much issue up a defense as offer some perspective. Three or four years ago it was entirely common for players to re-roll accounts to sign up for new rakeback deals, to regain their privacy, or even to outright refresh their anonymity. It was completely public information that many well-known nosebleed players (PA, David Benyamine, Lars Luzak) ran multiple accounts or migrated to new accounts and the poker community never so much as batted an eye. When I played nosebleed HU LHE it wasn’t uncommon for opponents to appear under new screen-names and it was something I never particularly took issue with; at the time I just felt it was a part of the game and something to deal with. While you can multi-account for the purpose of trying to hustle people it’s usually pretty benign. Attitudes towards that may be changing, and if you want to have a discussion about whether multi-accounting is something that should be actively cracked down on with no exceptions and strict penalties that’s a very reasonable discussion to have, but what’s been written in this thread so far is mostly the random sensationalist hyperbole of the pathologically bored.
He then claims the edge gained from MAing is nil:
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In mid-stakes games the effect of playing under an account other than the one you are known for is usually nil
or close enough to nil, anyway:
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In information saturated environments like high-stakes play with small player pools or heads-up play I'd say it's different, but the impact of briefly regaining anonymity in mid-stakes 6-max games is probably epsilon.
but then admits that what stoxtrader is accused of doing does not equal nil, or even epsilon:
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and what about playing 25/50 cap w/ pretty much the same player pool of regs day in and day out?
In that case it would be a pretty big edge for a while.
He then calls the extra money stoxtrader would have won by allegedly MAing and colluding "pocket change":
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For what it's worth, the idea of Nick colluding would be totally weird. He's been a successful pro for like 6+ years, is multi-talented, has a pretty laid back attitude towards poker in general, and is in no need of some extra pocket change.
The Byrce then reads some of the background information regarding the collusion claims and the other, unsubstantiated allegations I don't think we're allowed to talk about
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So there's a fair bit more going on here than I originally realized. The original post is a mess, however, and I had to dig through 150 posts to get a link to another huge post just to get a decent idea of what's being strung together here. The two things to do here are have someone who actually knows what's going on write a condensed, legible post with the relevant information and then, more importantly, someone (if they haven't already) should get FT on this and have them investigate the 40putts/kinettica accounts and then see if there's an IP overlap with the Stoxtrader account.
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Yes. I'll throw out some caveats, though, and am going to address this as if everyone can see the e-mail, since I'm assuming that it's circulating in the background now.
Nick was heavily involved in actively managing/maintaining SP in its early days before I joined up with the website, and for quite a while afterwards. He’s never made much of a secret of the fact that he played on an account other than ‘stoxtrader’ for years.
The TFTP is not so much false as misconstrued as badly as possible; I'll leave it to Jim to explain the details of how we process TFTP members if he sees fit (he's in Dublin right now). FTP is not being hustled out of anything, in any case (and, for what it's worth, we'd be morons to try).
The comments regarding Leatherass and his reasons for leaving SP are false. LA is ****ed up. We’ll leave it at that.
The comments regarding the SP video process are false. All videos are watched by the production team, obviously, who vets to some small extent. The videos of new coaches and coaches who’ve scored low recently are put through a review panel. Jason Ho made it in before we had a formal review system set up, and given that he was able to convince us that he was a winning small stakes grinder and that his videos were generally well received we obviously ended up with a debacle on our hands, which was embarrassing.
Regarding people knowing that BT had a second account and that Taylor or someone else has sat in Ezra’s seat at some point I can’t verify, but neither of these things would shock me. I’ve looked over Ezra’s shoulder and given his tips, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if someone has sat in his seat and given him tips while he looked over their shoulder. Obviously some people take issue with this.
Regarding the ‘friend’ that had a video put up on CR without review I can’t vouch for that individual case, but CR follows the same review process for videos that we do, and has been doing it longer than we have.
Nick recently changed accounts. I just got off the phone with Jim about this (given that he’s in Dublin and actually awake). Nick is going to have to make a personal decision about whether to out the reason that he recently changed accounts. To my own surprise there actually is a good reason, and it’s ****ed up. And yes, that’s a bull**** answer to the question of what’s going on, but it’s ultimately up to him whether or not to out this. He is not colluding.
The rest of the e-mail is basically speculation and slander.
I will stake my entire reputation and poker career on the truth of the above.
This 2/3rds answer with minimal details won’t be satisfying for some, and understandably so, but going into details beyond what I’ve written gets into information that is either somewhat intimate to the business or personally intimate and so it’s not my place to out it (it comes down to both Jim and Nick).
Please read the posts as they were originally posted in the HSNL thread if you have any questions regarding context.