2012 PCA Milestone Winner Wade Townsend Happy to be Back

Just this week, PokerStars decided to lift the ban on Wade "ricestud" Townsend's PokerStars account. Wade had been banned since late 2011, for accessing his PokerStars account while in the USA. Wade used teamviewer to access his account. Players in the USA have not been allowed to play on PokerStars since "Black Friday," in April 2011.

HUSNG.com spoke to Wade about his return.

Ryan HUSNG - How does it feel to be back?

Wade - It feels awesome. I actually didn't feel like it would ever happen, so it's like Christmas in July. The software is just so much easier.

Ryan HUSNG - How did you do on other sites while banned? What did you learn?

Wade - I made a ton elsware. My best site was probably 888 Poker, I made around $250,000 there. I really didn't realize how much poker existed online before all this went down. I made some great connections with various sites and learned a ton about the online poker scene that I did not know before.

Ryan HUSNG - How did you get your account unlocked?

Wade - I was never technically banned, just my account status was frozen. All that happened was that I appealed that account status every 6 months or so and Stars decided to reinstate me just now. I'm extremely grateful for that and hopefully I can become a positive influence in the mainstream online poker community again.

Ryan HUSNG - Do you think the punishment was fair?

Wade - Honestly, I do not. I understand PokerStars did what was best for them at the time given the circumstances, but for no type of warning, especially when my infraction wasn't poker cheating related, much less malicious in nature, I felt it was kind of harsh.

But it is water under the bridge, I just hope nobody makes the same mistake that I did and my case serves as a reminder and helps prevent others from making the same type of mistake.

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For those interested in reading more about the interesting life of Wade, visit the ricestud bio page.