In the last 11 work week (Monday through Friday) offerings of the $10,000 GTD $109 at 6pm EST, it overlaid twice for a total of $400 and made Merge a profit of approximately $10,600.

Even I'm a little perplexed as to why Merge has removed this tournament from the schedule.

correct

chill out man, this isn't the Watergate hearing. you seem angry like you saw the Merge CEO drown a bunch of puppies in a bathtub, not like you're talking about online poker site traffic projections.

also you seem throwing out accusation of lying and misrepresentation:

yeah there is nowhere in the English speaking world were a company reducing the value of a promotion they run is "stealing". when you post calling some1 out for lying, maybe dont lie in the same post?

What if they do it over night w/ no warning and your points go from being worth 35% to 15%. Is that stealing?

is isn't the Bovada player pool for just US and Canadian players? aren't the "Asian fish they market to" in a completely different Asian Bodog network?

Carbon has what, a decade long track record of paying out all withdrawals?

the reason saying they recently "stole from players" is so stupid is because there are poker sites that have actually stolen from players. there are site stealing from players right now. and Carbon is not one of them.

who American Express changes their frequent flier mileage program, do you go on credit card forums and say they stole from you?

Bovada and Bodog share all players.

No, it isn't the same at all. A reputable company doesn't change a policy over night with no warning that pertains to the value of a loyalty point system.

Just because they pay out doesn't mean they didn't steal. If you had 100K points that went from $3,500 to $1,500 in a 24 hour period w/ no warning at all that's a pretty big deal.

i know that's what happened. no, it's not stealing. it sucks they did that to use, but it isn't stealing.

requesting a withdrawal and never getting it is stealing. if Carbon had said "instead of 100% of your balance being available, now its only going to be 80%" that would be stealing.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. Stealing is stealing in my book. Employers steal from their employees and still pay them. Happens in the world of commissions all the time.

since the security of your money is the most important part of choosing where to play online poker, and you think Carbon stole from its players, it would seem to be a pretty easy logical conclusion that Carbon is not a safe place to play poker (which is obviously untrue).

so if you think Carbon stole from its players you would tell anyone who asks that they shouldn't play there because their money isn't safe (which is obviously untrue)?

or you would tell someone it is safe to deposit money on a site that stole from players (which is obviously ridiculous)?

I would say that your money is safe but they treat their players like **** and you're probably better off somewhere else. The lack of even 24 hours notice about such a big change is a slap in the face. I compare it to an employee stealing $20 out of a cash register. Sure, they didn't steal the whole thing, but they still stole.

I know, I've said this before (and been flamed by the other Merge trolls for it), Bodog Network has superior marketing.


The segregation between Jazette and Merge started approximately 2.8 years ago, so you're "facts" are wrong yet again.


I never said it would triple overnight. But you don't seem to understand how poker room traffic dynamics work, and it's beyond my ability or desire to correct your ignorance. We can agree to disagree.


--
Kahn

It may have started 2.8 years ago, but everyone could play with everyone in at least a good amount of games up until May. Nothing wrong with correcting him, but don't make it seem as if they have been completely separate for 3 years. Not even a year for most the games and 3 months for tournaments/ all games.

You tell me to chill out and you accuse me of self-righteous indignation and then you go on about how offended you are that I stated that Carbon stole from players. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. When I told CarbonRyan the same thing he didn't get all bent out of shape like you. It's not, by far, the first time you've gotten all self-righteous on us.

I don't know if you just haven't followed what has gone on at this site over the past year or what. That Carbon/Merge stole from its players has been brought up many times by many players. And many players have left the site specifically because they had been stolen from. If you've followed what has gone on at all you'd know that we aren't talking about players' bankrolls.

Merge, when they ended rakeback, took our points away from us, for many, with absolutely no notice and for those of us who did have a short notice it wasn't enough time for us to use them in tournaments which was the only way we were allowed to spend them. They actually reached into our accounts and confiscated our points for no good reason other than they wanted them. Those points were earned by us and they had value. They weren't devalued they were simply taken from us.

Likewise when they put time limits on the life of tournament coupons they did it in a way that essentially caused players to lose coupons for which they paid good money to play satellites to win. The site has a right to put time limits on the coupons and I told CarbonRyan that I didn't have any problem with time limits. But the problem was that the email system was broken and most players weren't getting emails notifying them of the change in status for the coupons they already had won that didn't have time limits. The network told CarbonRyan that everyone was in fact getting emails which was clearly not true. Over and over again we complained that the emails weren't going out and the network ignored the complaints. Players eventually started coming into the forums stating that they had just lost large amounts of coupons having no idea that they now had expiration dates. Support told them they were out of luck; end of conversation. I made a big stink about it in the forums. CarbonRyan stated to me in the forums that he was making sure that each of those players who contacted him was getting their coupons reinstated. I think it was about a week later the subforums and CarbonRyan disappeared, leaving those players **** out of luck.

As far as the VIP loyalty point system goes, I completely agree with iPlayPLOhigh. It's the way in which they implemented the change that I would call theft. They essentially promised players if they play a certain number of hands this month they would receive certain rewards for the following month. They ripped the players off when they encouraged players to put in the long hours and then pulled the rug out from under them by not giving them the rewards of their labors. Many multitablers play for points alone, not winnings. If they had made the change in a responsible way I wouldn't have had a problem with the change. If you don't want to call it theft, that's fine; I'm not telling you what you can or can't say. But don't tell me that I can't call that stealing.

The segregation that everyone in this forum have been talking about for months now happened about 6 months ago. Any segregation that took place 2.8 years ago has absolutely no relevance to what we are talking about here. There was a very large drop in the player pool between BlackFriday and 6 months ago. That was not caused by any segregation that happened 2.8 years ago. You're just grasping at straws in order to continue your Orwellian misrepresenting about what has been going on here to new players who don't know better.

I know perfectly well how poker room dynamics work. I'm not about to call you ignorant because I feel that what you are trying to do is purposely deceive.

I'm not sure how I could possibly make my statement any clearer.



Neither of you two even play at Merge but seemingly just want to troll all day. I'm going to set both of you to my *ignore list and move on with life now.


*Instructions: Click poster's name in upper left of their post. Select view public profile. While viewing a user's profile, in upper left under the username click "User Lists." Select the "Ignore List" drop down. When prompted, select "Yes, I'd like to ignore this poster's constant thread-cluttering babble."


Have a blessed day,


--
Kahn

thanks for the updates Kahn, I'm far from 100% happy with the merge and US poker situation, but I truly appreciate your input in the thread. IplayPLO's same opinion spammed all over this thread doesn't help me with anything.

What a complete lie. I play on Merge. I've stated several times in the forums that I play on Merge. And you know perfectly well from private conversations that I play on Merge.

Yeah except I do play Merge and have a decent roll stuck on there. I don't play full time there any more no. Kind of hard to do considering no games run....

All you ever try to do is make it look like flowers and rainbows. You make these vague and misleading posts and any time you get called out you throw a hissy fit. It's hilarious.

It's sad when the sites affiliate spokesman puts players on ignore because they won't believe his misstatements. Actually, it's kind of funny. Just so new players know, what these two have said about Merge stealing point value and tourney tickets is 100% true. Affiliates won't tell you that because they get paid 40% of each players rake that they sign up to this site. So there you go, judge who is telling the truth. The players who were affected or the person who get's paid by the site.

I no longer play on Merge (other than the free tickets they now seem to keep sending me) and I harbor a fairly deep loathing for the company, so take this for what it's worth to you. It's nothing I haven't posted before.

Whatever terms you want to couch it in, I considered the unannounced VIP point deflation on par with theft. At best it was extremely deceitful. For those of you that were either not around or not paying attention/forgot, before this happened there were VIP changes that encouraged storing up points in some situations.

I also considered it stealing when there was no consideration given for point value during skin closings, especially after the process was repeated several times.

Same when they shut down a couple SNG grinders I know that were very profitable, first under the guise of a collusion accusation (which was ridiculous) and then changing the accusation to having logged on from the same IP at some point (which was not even in breach of any TOS, afaik). This included theft of point value and significant LB equity.

I never felt my cash balance was at significant risk.

If these issues come up again in another few months, I might post my opinions yet again, whether I play there or not.

I'm not 100% happy either, but this constant wah wah is ridiculous. Things are looking up though...





--
Kahn

I wonder how many companies have gone under as a result of management only listening to those who agree.

Merge: I don't like table caps, I don't like segregation. can't speak much on late reg issues

Anyone else having problems tonight? Client keeps freezing up, so I close, reopen and log back in. My tables all pop back up, but as soon as I sit in everything freezes again. Across the top of the lobby it says "Carbon Poker (Connected) - Not Logged In". WTF?

I've been fine all night on Aced.