Sunday, March 21, 2010

High Stakes Poker Pro and Stoxpoker.com Founder Nick Grudzien Cops to Online Cheating!

Nick Grudzien admitted he cheated online poker by playing multiple accounts but still denies colluding with other online poker cheats (Sure).

Grudzien played online using at least four different screen names: “gr3atvlewbr0”, “Knockstiff”, “bulltf0rdtuff”, and “40putts”. He admitted specifically to violating the terms of service of Full Tilt and PokerStars by playing on multiple accounts. He then resigned from Stoxpoker and announced he'll be taking “an indefinite break from playing any poker at all.” Sounds like Tiger Woods! But I hope he comes back before the Masters!...I mean Grudzien, not Woods...LOL!

On his training site, Grudzien calls himself “one of the world’s best online professionals and accomplished author,” and says he´s won over $1 million in $500-$1000 limit games and $25-$50 no limit games. But he has often been accused of being a rat-holer at no limit, which is a player constantly playing with a short stack player who leaves the table each time he doubles up. Some think that Grudzien played on multiple accounts to conceal this method of playing.

But the collusion accusations against Grudzien are far more serious. Evidence that the account “40putts” and another player account “Kinetica” have been colluding is very strong according to online poker forums. So in effect, Grudzien could be guilty of multi-accounting and collusion play at the same time. The strongest evidence is that these two accounts have played more hands against each other than anyone else and that "40putts'" going to showdown percentage against Kinetica is far lower than against all other players, and that his cold-call to 3-bet ratio is at least thirty times higher against Kinetica than against all the others.

This is very strong evidence for me.

Grudzien claims he played on these accounts for only one month, saying that, “Since I have admitted to breaking the TOS of Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker, I don’t plan on playing any poker until I receive communication from the poker sites that it is ok to do so.” Addressing the collusion accusations, he said, “At no point have I ever colluded. This is a categorical denial without exceptions.” Although he offered both sites to do a thorough investigation, he refused to post his hand histories and to allow his hands to be independently analyzed.

A short time later, Grudzien wrote that, “It is with a heavy heart that I must announce my resignation as a Stoxpoker coach today. I apologize for breaking site rules by having multiple accounts. I cannot say why I made that decision, but it is something that is ongoing and I cannot make public.” He explained that his unusually high number of hands with Kinetica was not collusion but rather the fact that they had discussed poker strategy and “practice similar table selection strategies.”

Accoring to his agreement with Stoxpoker.com, Grudzien was required to sell all his shares in the company upon his resignation. In his response, he said he resigned to protect the site from negative publicity and hopes to continue to contribute to it as a member, but not a representative.

My take: This guy is a MAJOR online poker cheat.