Cole South: "We didn't cheat Isildur1"

Cole South. Photo: PokerNews.

Online poker legend Cole South visited recently Joe ”Chicago Joey” Ingram's Pokerlife podcast to discuss poker and other things.

In the podcast, South and Ingram go all the way back to December of 2009, when Brian Hastings won $4,2 million from Viktor "Isildur1" Blom in a historical $500/$1000 Pot-Limit Omaha session.

After the session, Hastings gave an interview to ESPN, where he credited his win to friend and fellow poker pro Brian Townsend and the scandal was ready:

"Honestly, I give most of the credit to Brian Townsend here. I mean, Brian is honestly the hardest worker I know in poker. He analyzed a database of heads-up hands that Isildur1 had played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in certain spots. The three of us discussed a ton of hands and the reports that Brian made, so I’m very thankful to him and to Cole [South] as well.”, Hastings said back in 2009.

After the interview, Townsend ended up losing his Full Tilt "red pro" status for 30 days due to accusations of collusion in opponent hand-history analysis with Brian Hastings and Cole South against "Isildur1".

Now, over five years later, Cole South tells his side of the story in Ingram's podcast. South denies sending or sharing any hand histories with Hastings or Townsend:

"Hastings gave an interview to ESPN. I think Gary Wise was the reporter. He then said something that got Gary to believe that we merged our hand histories into one database, and then used it to come up a strategy against 'Isildur'. That absolutely did not happen. I've got my hand histories. I never sent them to Hastings or Brian Townsend, and I have never received theirs.", South tells.

South adds that Brian Townsend instead bought some hand histories from PTR (PokerTableRatings.com) which he used in his analysis. You can listen the whole podcast with Cole South from below. Talk of "Isildur1" begins at around 49:00 mark: