Hey everyone, I have addressed the major issues from Viffer's post/this thread below.
David “Viffers” Peat Post:
"Taylor/CR knew Brian was multi-accounting, tried to cover it up, and Taylor actually encouraged Brian to get an office so he could play on a secret account"
Taylor "GreenPlastic" Caby Post:
To think that I would encourage Brian to do this, or to tell him to set up an office to do this, is completely ridiculous. Beyond the T&C issues, it's good for the company for our pros to be playing on their poker names, and more importantly, it's the right thing to do. There's just no logical reason why I would want Brian, or any CR pro, to be anonymous or to be breaking site rules. I found out about Brian's MA'ing sometime during the WSOP of 2008, which I believe was a few months after the multi-accounting started. I was very adamant that Brian should play on his normal account. I believe it was in late June or early July that allegations started to be posted at 2p2, and eventually, everything came out in August when Brian admitted to the MA'ing.
"Taylor played on other CR people's accounts. One time, I watched Taylor play on Ezra's account."
In June of 2008, I was living in a house with ~6 CR employees (we put them up in a house for the WSOP). Ezra was playing on Cake Poker and a bunch of us were sitting around playing poker, drinking beers, hanging out, etc. For a period of a couple of minutes (I'm guessing 5-10 hands), I played on his account. Ezra was tilty and we were all sort of laughing at how bad he was running, so I offered to step in and play a few hands while he was freaking out. After a couple of minutes, he got back on and played.
"At a party, I complained to Taylor about multi-accounting and how all the regulars were using different accounts. He told me I should just multi-account as well."
This conversation took place at a CR party in July of 2007. I remember this because I had a falling out with this person and this is around the last time we've ever had a friendly conversation. At that time, online poker multi-accounting was very common and many of the high stakes players did it. The sites didn't enforce these rules as well. I don't remember the details or context of the conversation, and I regret ever suggesting someone should multi-account.
TFPT accusations
There was also a post and some questions to follow from people about our TFPT promotion at FTP. I want to make it clear that the ex-employee that posted does not have detailed knowledge of our relationship with FTP and the inner-workings of the TFPT promotion. It would simply be insane for us to defraud FTP, as was suggested in his post. We have a great relationship with them, and they have been very supportive of our business as we have of theirs. When I returned home last night, I had received an email from the poster explaining his frustrations to me and apologizing for his contribution to the drama that has evolved. I spoke to him at length on the phone yesterday about the issues and motivations behind the post. He admitted to me that he didn't have first hand knowledge of our agreement with FTP, and part of the motivation for his post was his frustrations with the end of his relationship with CardRunners. The details of our specific arrangement with FTP will remain private.
Stoxtrader situation:
Finally, regarding the Stoxtrader situation, I'd like to clear up a few things. First, there have been some posts stating that we have long been aware of this multi-accounting and collusion claims and are trying to cover them up. This is just not true. In his blog and on the forums, Nick always said that his accounts were private. In retrospect, I should have pressed the issue. It's one thing to have private accounts on sites you don't make videos on, but it's not acceptable to have multiple accounts when it is against the T&C's.
I had no knowledge that Nick was using the 40putts account until sometime in mid January. Nick felt it was important to tell me about a personal situation that required him to share that he had been playing on that account. Nick agreed that when he resolved his personal situation and took some time away from playing, he would make a post explaining that he was now playing publicly on the stoxtrader account. During our conversation, I asked Nick about the fact that 40putts had been accused of collusion in the past. Nick assured me, and continues to assure me, that these accusations are false and that there was no collusion with this or any of his accounts. Based on all my interactions with Nick in the past I have no reason to believe this is not true. He also reminded me that Stars had investigated his account and found no wrongdoing.
Recently, an anonymous poster made a post to 2p2 outing Nick for his stoxtrader, 40putts, and some new screen names that he recently created, as well as collusion suspicions (and maybe other things, I don't have access to that post). I was unaware that Nick had created these new accounts or was even still playing poker at this time. At the end of last week, amidst collusion accusations, Nick admitted to playing on secret accounts. Since then, I have been in touch with FTP to give them the information of the accounts in question and to provide the background on the situation that I have detailed here.
Regardless of what happens with the collusion accusations, my company needs to set a precedent that it is not okay to violate the T&C's as representative of Stoxpoker or CardRunners. In the past, we have been more lenient on people for MA'ing situations, but we will adhere to a strict policy going forward. It was mutually agreed upon that Nick would be disassociated from CardRunners/Stoxpoker, both from a pro, financial, and management standpoint. I expect this transition to take at least a few weeks to be complete, and the decision is final.
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