Pokerroom.com support – Part II

Filed Under Rants

As mentioned here, I emailed pokerroom.com to get their response on the connection issues and asked for their response.

In pokerroom’s defense, they came through pretty quickly. Here is what they had to say … and my comments on their response. I told them that I would publish their response unedited, so I will put my comments inline and not take out any stuff that I am not commenting on in the spirit of honesty. I have however removed personally identifiable information.

Thank you for your recent e-mail about your connection issues.

I am sorry to hear that you have experienced connection problems while playing our games.

As communicated to you previously, the problems you are experiencing are on the users end. Here is some information that can help you to improve your internet connection and playing our games plus solving some common problems:

Why does it only happen in the evenings then? If it was at my end, I would imagine it would be constant. Unless it was my ISP. At which point you are basically saying ‘pokerroom is fine, just don’t expect to play on our network if you are with BT. The UK’s largest ISP by subscriber number. Way to go – alienate the largest single percentage of your UK target market in one fell swoop.

DELETE TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES (CACHE):
In an Internet Explorer window then click on the “Tools” button at the top of the browser. From there scroll down the list and click on the last option “Internet Options”

From the new box which appears then under the middle section under the “Temporary Internet Files” then click on the box marked “Delete Files” and then finally click on “Apply” and “OK” at the bottom of the box.

ummmm … I’m not using IE to play – I’m using the standalone software.

BROWSER UPDATE:
If you have Netscape (or an old version of Internet Explorer) please install the latest version of Internet Explorer.

After you have installed IE, I suggest that you update your new browser with the latest improvements and security patches.

After you have installed IE and installed patches, you must restart your computer.

*cough* See above

JAVA UPDATE:
The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) can be found here:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html

Click on the link ‘Download J2SE JRE’ which is the most recent, stable version of Java. It will start to download this version of Java for you if you do not already have one. It’s for Windows XP, Me, NT, 2000, 98, and 95.

Not a bad idea. Let me check and see how upto date I am. V6.3 – latest version 6.11. I’ll update and see how that works.

Didn't work out so well really

Didn't work out so well really

APPLICATIONS RUNNING:

If you recently have installed new applications or have a lot of applications running in the background when playing that can be a problem. Try to experiment and close down programs that you don’t need.

I hope this helps with the general maintenance of your computer and allows you to play on our site without any hassle. Should the problem persist, please contact your Internet Service Provider.

Oh why do you guys insist on copy pasting and not listening to what your customer is saying. IT WORKS FINE IN THE DAYTIME, NOT IN THE EVENING. I’m not firing up another 20+ apps in the evening, if anything I’m shutting them down to try and maintain a connection to your site. Nice try though :/

As far as the information Trevor previously advised you about, I can confirm that this is accurate.

Here we go. It is actually a loading issue at your end isn’t it? It’s not my ISP, it’s not my PC running too many apps, it’s not my version of Internet Explorer. You guys can’t support the number of free games you are running. And if I am to give you real money, I NEED to know if you are doing the same on the cash games or not. Since you can’t/won’t answer this (see below) then I can only assume but yes. There is no way I will commit real money to a site that cannot guarantee it won’t fall over if a few extra users come online.

To query about the cash games, please send us some more information about what you would like to know about these games.

Quite simply, as I mentioned, whether they were hosted on the same servers or whether the same loading issue would occur as with the free games.

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,

10/10 for a speedy response from pokerroom. A fair question maybe is a quick, near useless, response better than a slighlty slower, considered response. Are we happy to receive boilerplate replies as opposed to if someone took the time to look at our problem, think about it and respond carefully?

More to the point – would you send these people your money?

Me … I’m yet to be convinced.

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Pokerroom.com support (or lack thereof)

Filed Under Rants

I play online poker at pokerroom.com when I have some spare time. Recently in the evenings I have a really lousy connection. Constant timeouts, disconnects etc.

So I tried a quick chat with pokerroom support. I sent them my logs indicating that there was no issue with lobby chat, just in the games etc and I got this gem in reply

You will be pleased to know that the relevant department has got back to us regarding the matter. We have reviewed the details you have provided, as well as the session history and can confirm that you indeed experienced intermittent connectivity issues during the $100,000 Freeroll Day 1C multi tournament on the 12th November.

No shit Sherlock! Thanks for confirming that I wasn’t in some wierd hallucinogenic trance thinking I was timing out left right and frickin’ center.

The same thing has been happening now for some time so I tried again with online support – when I got to the bottom of the problem

These are exact quotes from Trevor – the online support chap I was talking to :

Trevor:
Its due to the amount of traffic on the site.

Trevor:
It is due to the amount of traffic on the site and unfortunately it is one of those problems which occurs worldwide.

You know what Trevor (and pokerroom)? It’s not. It’s a problem when you don’t put money into infrastructure and expect people to put up with it. I was really hoping for Xmas to get $100 to play for real money as a gift. I have played at pokerroom for over a year now, checking it out, making sure I was happy to commit real money to play.

Guess what pokerroom – you’re proper fucked now if you think you’ve got a chance of getting a single cent off me in real money since not one of your agents will confirm that cash games are hosted on servers with a lower load.

I’m a whining crybaby when I lose at anything, but having to fold AA because your site can’t handle traffic means that you are actively costing me money (or would be in a real cash game) because you are too cheap to invest in infrastructure.

Now I realise I am not the bastion of all knowledge that is good and pokery, but if I may proffer this little nugget for anyone who wants to play poker online – at least check that the site can handle the friggin’ loads before you commit real money to it. In this case, that means don’t even bother with pokerroom.com.

I have emailed support@pokerroom.com linking this site and asking for their feedback. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Edit : This is how bad the connection is tonight.

What a joke

What a joke

And yes, two hands later I got AQs and timed out. Against Mr. AllInAllTheTime to my left … goddamnit. In the end it was unplayable – 20 hands, 7 timeouts, 1 complete disconnect – I quit the game before I had a stroke. And look what cropped up in the client software :

Yep - looks stable to me :/

Yep - looks stable to me :/

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