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Early this summer, Brian “sbrugby” Townsend ventured to Las Vegas to play in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha w/Rebuys event at the World Series of Poker. He figured he would play the tournament, find a few cash games, and spend some time with his friends who were there.
For those who aren’t already aware, Brian is considered by many to be the greatest No Limit Hold’em cash game player to arise from the internet. He has played and beat the biggest games for millions of dollars, and is so feared that it is nearly impossible for him to find someone to play him heads up online.
While Brian was certainly looking for some big games to play, he surely had no idea that what followed in the upcoming months would become one of the year’s most discussed topics among poker players.
Bluff sat down with Brian to discuss how it all happened…
Bluff: How exactly did the cash game that you would go on to play all summer get started?
Brian Townsend: I was in Vegas to play a WSOP tournament, and I went to dinner with my friends Brandon Adams and Jorge “Twin Caracas” Arias. They were telling me how people wanted to play really big, and they wanted to play No Limit and Pot Limit Omaha. So I got in touch with some guys who were interested, and we set up a game at Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio.
Bluff: Tell us about the first time you sat down to play. What game were you playing?
BT: The first game I played was against a very loose-aggressive player who wanted to play high stakes. We both were very comfortable playing No Limit and PLO, so we decided that we would play ten hands of each, rotating back and forth. The stakes were $500/$1,000 blinds with no cap, meaning that there was no maximum amount that a player could put in one specific pot.
Bluff: How did this heads-up match go?
BT: It went very well for me. We played for four or five days, with short breaks. At one point we moved the stakes up to $1,000/$2,000 with no cap. Bobby Baldwin eventually sat in the game, and he was the first player to break heads-up play.
Bluff: When you play these stakes, how much money do you have in front of you?
BT: I usually had about $1 million in front of me.
Bluff: Give us a feel for exactly how big this game was playing. Do you think it may be one of the biggest games ever played?
BT: I think it is one of the biggest poker games that has ever been played. The bigger pots got well over a million. The last pot of the summer, which I lost, had $1.8 million in the middle. We were playing $1k/2k PLO and had been playing 1k/2k NL with a $400 ante. In the $1.8 million hand, I made a decision to bluff before the hand even began, and I ended up bluffing all the way into Bobby Baldwin, who had the nuts, I made a decision to bluff, went with it, and it backfired.
Bluff: So, while you were playing in these games, the World Series of Poker was going on. Did you get a chance to play many tournaments? Was it easy for you to do so with all the cash games running?
BT: I played three different tournaments, and went 0 for 3. I think I played okay in two of them, and then in the Main Event, I certainly wasn’t playing my best. I wanted to get some sleep and go back to the cash games. I made a marginal call when I should have folded, just because it was really hard to care about it with the cash games going on. I almost didn’t play the Main Event, and I wouldn’t have if the other players in the cash game had skipped it.
Bluff: Mark Vos, a professional player, recently was quoted as saying that he believed you to be the most successful NL cash player in the world, but that he believed that when playing live, you give up some things that a lot of the other live players do not, suggesting that your live play was still exploitable. How would you respond to that?
BT: Mark Vos and I have only played a small amount of time together, so his assertion is based on a very limited amount of experience playing with me. People write things like this all the time, but I don’t agree with it. I think you would be really hard pressed to find anyone in the games I played this summer who would say that I was a good spot or who was sitting there just to play me. I was very comfortable playing live and don’t think I was giving up things that would give others an edge over me.
Bluff: Last time we spoke, you said with a great deal of confidence that you felt you were the best No Limit cash game player in the world. After this summer playing in these games, do you still feel this way?
BT: Yeah, absolutely. I mean we didn’t play that many hands over the summer. While I put in probably twenty or so sessions, I can probably see just as many hands in two good online sessions. But my last two summers playing live cash games during the WSOP have gone very well for me, so that has certainly helped my confidence.
Bluff: You had mentioned that your big goal was to become the best PLO player in the world. Did this summer help you develop your game? Did you feel you were one of the best PLO players in the game this summer?
BT: You know, what really has helped me with my PLO was when I decided to swallow my pride and move down stakes. I rebuilt my bankroll for PLO and have been doing great in the bigger games since. I feel like my PLO is getting to a point where it is catching up to my No Limit Hold’em game.
Bluff: Relative to the stakes, are the pots built bigger when you play live than online?
BT: I think generally you have weaker players who put money in the pot in worse spots when you play live. People are generally more controlled and better players online. The top players are still the best either live or online. Guys like Antonius and Ivey are some of the best, and they play both live and online. I think that the distinction between live and online players will disappear as poker develops in the upcoming years, when eventually rather than calling someone an “online player” or a “live player,” you will just call the person a poker player.
Bluff: At your high point this summer, how much money were you up?
BT: I think at my high point I was up around $3 million. Then the downswing came, and counting my live and online losses, I think I ended the summer up about $300,000. It certainly wasn’t bad for the summer, but it was a little disappointing after having been up so much at one point.
Bluff: Did you gamble much at all? Did you do any prop betting at the table?
BT: None at all. The only prop bet I made was toward the end of the summer when Barry Greenstein and I got in to a discussion about the difference between online tournament pros and live tournament pros. He argued that the online guys have had so much live success because there are just so many of them, and we decided to make a bet to crossbook his action against any two “internet players” of my choice. So I choose Sorel Mizzi and Justin Bonomo. So if they outperform Barry in some upcoming tournaments, I will win the bet.
Bluff:Was there ever a point, when you had millions in front of you, that you felt overwhelmed and decided that maybe you should stop or get up and leave? Or were you always determined to play it out?
BT: I play where I think I have an edge. I felt I had a big edge in this game. The stakes never really bothered me and I’m not that worried about losing, because I know that I will be able to build it back up. So I suppose I don’t have that sort of fear because I have had so much success in big games. Even when I lost that huge pot, I didn’t really care. I mean I cared, don’t get me wrong, but the money wasn’t the issue. I was disappointed with how I had played. I got up and left because I was so disappointed. I went to my room to play online, and lost another $500,000. After that, I just decided to head home to California to get away. I called the next day, and the game had stopped, so that was the last time I played. Whenever the game is running again, I will be ready to play.
Brian Townsend is an instructor at Cardrunners.com
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