The trouble began with an ESPN.com article about Hastings in which he revealed that he had studied his opponents' previous games to anticipate how he would play.
“We’ve done quite a bit of studying of his habits,” Hastings said. “Honestly, I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here. I mean, Brian is honestly the hardest worker I know in poker. He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots.“In a way, I feel bad that it wasn’t Brian who got this win instead of me. Obviously I’m happy and I’ll take it, but Brian did a ton of work. The three of us discussed a ton of hands and the reports that Brian made, so I’m very thankful to him and to Cole (South) as well.”
Their actions were not illegal; the hands they analyzed were played against Hastings' friends, so they had access to the proper data.
However, some in the poker community aren't too happy to hear about this:
Whether Hastings put his strategy out there publicly in a "look-how-smart-we-are" display of poker nerd hubris, or whether it was a simple case of verbal vomit, this was his fatal mistake. Neither he nor Townsend would be worrying about the consequences they're now facing, the least of which is having their Full Tilt "red pro" status suspended for a month. This budding scandal taints CardRunners, the poker training site they have spent so much time and effort building, not to mention their own metagame against Isildur1 should he ever re-appear on Full Tilt. However, based on the thoughts Isildur1 shared yesterday with our own Matthew Parvis, that possibility now seems extremely unlikely.
The article compares Hastings' actions to those of the MIT students who manipulated the game of blackjack at some Vegas casinos.
To be honest, I don't know enough about online poker to fully understand what all the fuss is about. But I'm certainly not feeling sorry for Hastings and his $4.2 million.
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