2+2 Member Adds To Nick “StoxTrader” Grudzien Collusion Debate

The game of poker has always involved gaining an edge over the opposition, but when those methods involve unfair practices the biggest casualty of the cheats is inevitably the reputation of the poker industry itself.
Poker has come along way since the early days when it was associated with hopeless gamblers and card sharks, but recent stories involving super user accounts, multi-accounting, data-mining and collusion have done a great deal to damage the strides made in legitimising the game over the years.
The latest scandal to hit the online poker industry has shaken further confidence in an industry which relies on the integrity of the poker rooms and the pros themselves to ensure that ‘fair play’ rules the day.
Nick “StoxTrader” Grudzien is not only a professional poker player, but was also a poker coach and founder of instructional training school StoxPoker.com. However, as recent details about his using multiple account on both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars emerged he was forced to resign from the site.
Despite admitting to multi-accounting, as well as the poor poker etiquette practices of rat-holing and short-stacking, he categorically stated that he had never colluded.
Now, however, a 2+2 high stakes forum member has revealed after detailed pre-flop hand analysis of Nick Grudzien’s short stack play, that he might not have been altogether honest on that score either.
Shortstacking involves buying into a cash game at the minimun buy-in of around 20 big blinds and then shoving pre-flop when dealt a premium hand. However, as  NoahSD discovered, Grudzien appeared to have colluded with business partner Robert Papps such that they had played more hands against each other than any other players, had highly synchronous session times and that they only 3-bet mostly AA, KK or AK against one another, which is a smaller range than with any other player and not in keeping with their shortstack strategies.
As NoahSD explained: “I proved that they played exactly like cheaters would.I showed that they had no rational reason for doing this except to cheat.”
If NoahSD’s analysis is confirmed it will deal another heavy blow to an industry in desperate need of policing and you would hope Full Tilt and PokerStars, as the world’s biggest poker sites, would refund money to the victims of the scam if they hope to maintain their reputations for  integrity and honesty.