You're a Bunch of Factors

Original email to PokerStars wrote:Hey.

I registered for the $5.+50c 20k gtd NL Holden tournament that started at approx 2.30AM Australian Central Standard Time (I'm in South Australia, Australia) on Wed, 5th August. My username is AceLosesKing. I played for around 20 minutes with no issues before trying to load the tournament lobby for the "100 satelitte seats added!" WCOOP $7.50 tournament. This is where everything went to shit.

My $5 tournament started freezing, and I lost connection. After realising that the open WCOOP lobby was causing my problems, I soon closed it down (after Stars would respond). I had been gone so long that when I returned someone else was in my seat, but the "I'm back" button was still there. I hit that, and a popup came up: "NOSIT."

Ok, so one would deduce from that I'd been moved. I open the 20k tourny lobby, find my name and find my new table. I double click my name and the table loads... somewhat. The screen is there, but no table, chairs or players are appearing. The screen continues like this for a good 2 mins before I decide to close Stars and reload the software.

That was almost 40m ago. When I loaded I was told that I had to redownload a new software update - which is taking FOREVER. 3 attemps and almost 1hr later, and its not even 50% done.

I had double the average stack and would like to know what form of compensation I am eligible to receive, if any. I know we were nowhere near the money (something like 4k entrants with registration STILL going) but I would be quite happy if I at least received my tournament buyin back ($5.50), as the only reason I lost connection is because I was trying to look at another tournament's lobby.

For the record, network status for Australia has been listed at Good or Very Good throughout all of this (except when I had the WCOOP sat lobby open, but it soon graduly increased after I closed it). I will keep trying to connect to Stars, but I'm not hopeful, as right now the software is still attempting to download a new update (which I never had to install when I loaded Stars earlier this night, btw).

PokerStars wrote:Hello Aaron,

Thank you for your email.

At the time of your disconnection, the remaining players at your table
continued to play without difficulty in your absence. Clearly, this
disconnection was not our site freezing but was a localized
disconnection problem related to or near to your ISP.

Rule 8 of our tournament rules page states, in part:

By participating in a tournament, a player accepts the risk of
Internet disconnection, due to the problems with the connection
between their computer and the servers, lag or freeze or some
other problem in the player's computer. PokerStars does not
accept any responsibility for a player disconnect except in the
case of a server crash.

The complete rule list is available here:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/rules/

Even though PokerStars does not typically accept responsibility for
routing problems or connection issues beyond our control, we have
decided to place $5.50 into your PokerStars account as a one-time
exception to the above policy.

As your original buy-in was awarded in the prize pool and was not
taken back from the winner, you may consider this a gift from your
friends at PokerStars.

Good luck in your next event, and thanks for playing here on
PokerStars.

Regards,

Erick
PokerStars Support Team

David wrote:There are a lot of links though, I guess.

As you know, the chain of connections from you to a poker server is SO many - one down and it's broken.

Just because Stars and FT are working, and 888 isn't, doesn't mean it's 888's fault. And vice versa.

David wrote:You're a harsh man old-man daryl - where would Mistress Poker be without me
IN THE BIN WITH YOUR LIFE.