Brian Townsend Quits PLO To Master Mixed Games

Brian Townsend aka ‘sbrugby’ has enjoyed considerable success as a poker player having worked his way up from the micro levels to playing in some of the biggest online cash games available, and earning millions of dollars in the process.
Townsend in his poker career has often made the news, either because of his high stakes action on Full Tilt Poker or last year’s scandal involving multi-accounting on FTP and PokerStars which saw him losing his FTP pro status and receiving a six months ban from the site. He was quick to apologise for his actions and confessed to multi-accounting in order to drop to lower cash levels following a bad run, whilst maintaining anonymity.
Since August 2008 when the story broke, Townsend has put that chapter behind him and has continued his dominance of the PLO high stakes games having turned $100k into $2.6 million over the last 11 months alone. Despite his impressive earnings Townsend, like most high stakes players, has had to cope with major downswings caused by variance.
Most recently Phil Galfond aka OMGClayAiken in his blog was found lamenting variance and the stress he experienced while running $800,000 below equity at the $300/$600 game, equivalent to 15 buy-ins. He said: “It’s a little disheartening to know that I have so little control over my month to month results… It makes me feel, I dunno, not in control of things.”
Maybe it was Townsend’s major downswing of $3.5 million back in 2007 which has influenced his latest decision to quit the high stakes PLO game, withdraw all but $50k of his bankroll and concentrate instead on conquering the mixed games starting from the 20/40 and 40/80 levels. “I left myself 50k and want to grow this into enough to play the 1k/2k and 2k/4k mixed games,” he said.
Whether due to good management skills or an apprehension of a major downswing, Townsend summed his feelings up quite succinctly when he confessed in his blog:
“The thought of losing everything I made this year or in the past year on such a downswing sickens me. Although its unlikely with what I feel my edge is in those games, I still don’t have a massive edge and no one really does… To be honest I guess I am getting a bit older and am not willing to take the risks that I once was. I used to not mind the thought of losing a lot and grinding back up, but now I have no desire to have those swings in my life as they are incredibly stressful.”