Online poker scandals of the past decade: StoxTrader alleged collusion

While nowhere near the level of the Super-User scandals, or some of the other cheating scandals in the history of online poker, the Nick ‘StoxTrader” Grudzien incident is perhaps one of the most shameful in online poker history, not only because the offending players was a solid winner with a huge reputation in and away from the tables, but because the allegations -which are numerous-point to a person who was willing to go to any lengths to gain an edge.

Multi-Accounting

StoxTrader was first accused of multi-accounting on the 2+2 Poker Forums, and later verified the accusations himself. On PokerStars Nick Grudzien began as StoxTrader, then became knockstiff, and finally switched to the gr3atvlewbr0 screen-name. A similar progression also occurred on Full Tilt Poker where StoxTrader went through three separate screen-names -StoxTrader, 40Putts, and bulltf0rdtuff.

It appears the motivation was to not only regain his anonymity -which you can learn about here-but also to protect his reputation as a poker coach since the 40putts and knockstiff accounts were often used to short-stack and rat-hole, something that is loathed by professional players.

Collusion

The collusion allegations were never “Proven” but most people in the poker community feel it is very likely that collusion took place between Nick Grudzien’s accounts and a player(s) who used the screen-name LittleZen and Kinetica. NoahSD on the 2+2 Poker Forums did some amazing statistical analysis (read it here) in making the case for collusion against the two players.

The littlezen and Kinetica accounts supposedly belong to a friend/associate of Grudzien, which further adds to the allegations.

While PokerStars wouldn’t come out and say these players cheated, the E-Mail posted by Justin Bonomo (ZeeJustin) on the 2+2 Poker Forums pretty much implies that PokerStars felt the two players were cheating. You can read the E-Mail here.

The scariest part of the possible collusion is how undetectable it really was, since the two players were likely not sharing information. The collusion was done by utilizing a specific strategy in certain situations that is only +EV if the two players had prearranged the strategy. Not only is it difficult to detect, but PokerStars response -that they couldn’t “PROVE” any wrongdoing-means that is not only possible, but highly likely that other players are doing the exact same thing!

The only saving grace of the whole thing is that the collusion needs to be performed by extremely good poker players in order to work properly, otherwise it is more likely to backfire, and cost them money.