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Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Ultimate Gaming goes busto.

11-14-2014 , 07:19 PM
Ultimate Poker posted an update for Nevada players:

http://ultimatepoker.com/nevada-players-update/
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-14-2014 , 07:28 PM
I have mixed feelings about Ultimate shutting down. I am sad to see them go. However, I think something was seriously flawed with this software's RNG. You can bash away, but I played on this site from the beginning and something was just not right. I started noticing this playing sngs everyday. It seemed like no matter how bad I got my money in if I was chipleader in a sit and go I would win. It seemed like I would always win vs. a higher pair and catch that two outer to win.
Something must have been programmed in to the rng to end these sit and gos as quickly as possible. I also think that the rng was programmed to maximize rake. I just saw so much bs on this site constantly. I have played on tons of online sites and something was just really off with this site's rng. I would really like to have seen how their RNG worked, because I'm sorry, but I just did not trust it. I found it bizarre that I could never see the loser's hand in hand history when I went to showdown.
Also, I know people think the software was just atrocious, but I didn't find it all that bad, except for not being able to take notes. I know they could've allowed for note taking without approval from the NVGCB. How hard would that have been to implement into the software?
For me what is really softening the blow of them shutting down is just the fact that I just do not think they had a truly random RNG. Before you start bashing me for claiming rigged. I was not a losing player on this site. I actually won on the site. I just think something was way off about this site's rng and just felt like posting it.
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-14-2014 , 07:33 PM
R.I.P. online poker. The government wanted to kill online poker and they are doing it.
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-14-2014 , 08:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by trup_qq
Just going to leave this here.



That guy is just so full of himself it's unreal. I can't imagine working there and handling customer complaints/suggestions.
Not sure why the link didn't work:

https://mobile.twitter.com/UltimateP...46832442957824
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-14-2014 , 08:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by FivePrime
I have mixed feelings about Ultimate shutting down. I am sad to see them go. However, I think something was seriously flawed with this software's RNG. You can bash away, but I played on this site from the beginning and something was just not right. I started noticing this playing sngs everyday. It seemed like no matter how bad I got my money in if I was chipleader in a sit and go I would win. It seemed like I would always win vs. a higher pair and catch that two outer to win.
Something must have been programmed in to the rng to end these sit and gos as quickly as possible. I also think that the rng was programmed to maximize rake. I just saw so much bs on this site constantly. I have played on tons of online sites and something was just really off with this site's rng. I would really like to have seen how their RNG worked, because I'm sorry, but I just did not trust it. I found it bizarre that I could never see the loser's hand in hand history when I went to showdown.
Also, I know people think the software was just atrocious, but I didn't find it all that bad, except for not being able to take notes. I know they could've allowed for note taking without approval from the NVGCB. How hard would that have been to implement into the software?
For me what is really softening the blow of them shutting down is just the fact that I just do not think they had a truly random RNG. Before you start bashing me for claiming rigged. I was not a losing player on this site. I actually won on the site. I just think something was way off about this site's rng and just felt like posting it.
I played cash on there for a while... didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-14-2014 , 09:44 PM
does this mean im out my 29 cents
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11-14-2014 , 10:12 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Union Of the Snake
A lot of you aren't aware of the full truth of the situation.

Ultimate Poker was an ill-fated, mismanaged mess from the start.

While indeed the weaker than expected online gambling markets didn't help matters, most of Ultimate Poker's failure was their own doing. Even if you want to claim that Nevada's population can only support one poker site, that's certainly not true of the much larger New Jersey market. Despite that, UP was never able to grab more than 3% of the market share over there.

The failure of Ultimate Poker is a classic tale of clueless and arrogant upper management steering a sinking ship into a whirpool, and slapping the hands away of anyone below them attempting to correct the course.

Their first blunder was their insistence upon proprietary software. They paid a staggering $25 million to acquire software outfit CyberArts, for the purpose of developing the UP software. Proprietary software in an established industry is always a risk. While it affords you the chance to be innovative and exceed the offerings of the current marketplace, the new UP software did neither. CyberArts simply wasn't up to the task. They developed a product which was in fact inferior in several ways to the Planet Poker software in 1999.

The second major blunder was their obsession regarding being first to market. First to market can indeed be a huge advantage in industries where brand loyalty is common, and online poker is definitely one of those industries. However, such loyalty can only be established if your customers are happy with your product. If your product is severely flawed, being first to market will backfire, as your customer base will be chomping at the bit to immediately jump to the competition as soon as it exists. That's what occurred at UP. They released a highly flawed product which was also light on features, and somehow expected brand loyalty despite that. It is unclear if they simply did a poor job testing, or if they were aware of the numerous issues and decided an early launch was still the correct way to go. From what I have heard, it was the latter, but I believe they also were unaware of just how bad the software was. In any case, their product was very poorly received, and it was an inauspicious start for Ultimate Gaming.

Third, they did a poor job correcting the issues brought to them by their player base. While it is true that all software changes had to be approved by the gaming control boards, that's not the reason they failed to fix the software. They just weren't giving priority to the matter, and were closing their ears to the loud player feedback received both here and elsewhere. If you recall, when former UP Pro William Reynolds mocked them on his Twitter, he mentioned the fact that he sent them a long list of things to improve, and how they implemented none of them. Reynolds felt that they were more obsessed with silly social media campaigns than putting out a good product, which sadly was mostly true. Indeed, most of their software updates did not contain fixes for the software's bugs and annoyances (including minor, easy-to-fix ones), and the player pool got frustrated with it.

Fourth, their marketing was beyond poor. They refused to accept that they were slipping into the abyss and take drastic action. Their entire business plan was to simply stay the course and hope things improve on their own. No groundbreaking promotions. No hiring of props. No insane rakeback deals or rewards for game-starters. Finally, in their last few weeks of existence, they finally got a small clue and tried some 11th hour promotions to get some traffic. This included a rakefree 2-5NL game and a $10,000 bad beat jackpot at 0.25/0.50NL or higher. It was too little, too late. Their fate was sealed.

That brings me to my final point. Ultimate Poker had a lot of talented people on board. Many of these people were known to be intelligent, in touch with the wants and needs of the poker community, and some had even worked successfully at other online poker companies in the past. They seemed to have an A Team of employees, so what happened? How did this immense fail occur?

Upper management handcuffed them. This mostly was the doing of CEO Tobin Prior, but Chairman Tom Breitling had a hand in this as well, as did a few others. Basically, the poker people were not allowed to be poker people. Their input was ignored. Their suggestions were overruled. Their innovative solutions to fix the collapsing company were laughed off. The arrogant upper management at UP felt that they knew best, and that their poker community underlings had no clue how a successful poker site should work. That's tragically hilarious if you think about it. UP failed mostly because managers with little-to-no poker experience refused to listen to those with 10+ years experience in the industry.

Nearly everyone involved with UP on their April 30, 2013 launch date was long gone from the company by the time they closed today. These people mostly quit, though a few were fired. Many of these people quit despite not having another job lined up. They just couldn't take it anymore. It was that bad over there. I was told that it was one of the most frustrating, toxic work environments you could imagine. Even gentle, softspoken Terrence Chan walked out. It's not like legalized online poker jobs are plentiful. The fact that most of their staff walked out shows just how awful it really was over there.

While Ultimate Poker's failure has been apparent to many for a long time, this closure surprised people because the company was hoping to bide its time until major market states (like California) would legalize online poker. The fact that this goal has been abandoned, perhaps just a year off from California legalized online poker, shows how badly this whole effort was hemorrhaging money, and how little faith the parent company had in the whole situation. Basically, this was a fail which cost them tens of millions of dollars, and I can't imagine the existing UP software being able to sell for very much money (if at all).

It is easy to blame this on "the market", but that's simply not what occurred here. It's just a part of the story. The bigger part of the story involves empty suits thinking they knew poker better than those with connections to the community, and the catastrophic results that followed.
I thought Dan Druff was banned on 2+2? Same post on LVRJ with Druffs logo, but well written and said! Bring back Druff!
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11-14-2014 , 10:24 PM
What would stop them from re-opening once interstate compacts are signed or California opens its doors?

Does anyone feel they might re-open if there's a bigger market up for grabs?
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11-14-2014 , 10:26 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by pokervangelist
I thought Dan Druff was banned on 2+2? Same post on LVRJ with Druffs logo, but well written and said! Bring back Druff!
I wondered how long before he was outed.....
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11-14-2014 , 10:45 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Tall
Get used to the cell-phone/wifi pings for iGaming Geolocation. It's only going to become more common, not less.
My intuition is that this technology is cost-prohibitive to implement, no? I understand that it allows operators to conform to regulations, but isn't there an easier (cheaper) solution?

I'm ignorant of the implementation and value of said technology, but it doesn't seem to benefit operator or customer enough to warrant its widespread growth. What am I missing?
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11-14-2014 , 10:46 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sect7G
What would stop them from re-opening once interstate compacts are signed or California opens its doors?

Does anyone feel they might re-open if there's a bigger market up for grabs?
Why would they want to reopen? So they can spew millions more dollars on a product that no one will play because it's awful?
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-14-2014 , 11:25 PM
They are not prohibited from operating in California or elsewhere, but it's not going to happen, nor is this in the plans.

They aren't just shutting down UP in Nevada. They are closing Ultimate Gaming, a company which existed years before UP opened. Basically they are shutting down their entire online gaming operation and giving up. For them to operate in California in the future, they would need to start the entire company back up (no small task), and then convince tribes there to partner with them, even though they failed in their two previous markets. Won't happen.

Today's shutdown somewhat surprised me, because I thought they would make more of an effort to at least tough it out (even with decreased marketing expenditures) until next year, and then take a final crack at making this work with the large California market.

But they're just giving up. Looks like the parent company has had enough, and the upside of letting Ultimate Gaming hang around until then isn't great enough. And you know what? They're probably right. While California has a 35 million population, it looks to me like, similar to the New Jersey situation, there will be maybe 2 dominant rooms and the rest will be appalling failures. So even if UP latched onto some desperate CA tribe, they would be crushed by Party, Stars, WSOP, etc.

It would be throwing good money after bad.

The UP experiment is over.
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11-15-2014 , 04:18 AM
UP were greedy and desperate, when they went online w/ an unfinished product. after the pullout from NJ is was obv, that this would happen. But even before you could see, that they struggle.

anyway, about California or "coffin nail to online poker" discussions:

Even France, which has more people than California, struggles w/ liquidity. for anyone interested, Chris Grove wrote something interesting about US poker compared to the fenced market in Spain
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11-15-2014 , 04:45 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NerdSuperfly
anyway, about California or "coffin nail to online poker" discussions:

Even France, which has more people than California, struggles w/ liquidity. for anyone interested, Chris Grove wrote something interesting about US poker compared to the fenced market in Spain
The french gaming regime is highly restrictive though, both in terms of the licensing/compliance regulation and high taxation. That prevents play.

California could do far better by looking at regulation based on other jurisdictions (jurisdictions which, incidentally, their gaming team speak to regularly).
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-15-2014 , 05:53 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by NerdSuperfly
UP were greedy and desperate, when they went online w/ an unfinished product. after the pullout from NJ is was obv, that this would happen. But even before you could see, that they struggle.

anyway, about California or "coffin nail to online poker" discussions:

Even France, which has more people than California, struggles w/ liquidity. for anyone interested, Chris Grove wrote something interesting about US poker compared to the fenced market in Spain
Liquidity in France is great. Supports four top-20 online poker networks, two (Winamax and PSFR) flirt with the top 10, and there's lots of competition between them, big headline tournament series (5m+ guaranteed aross at least 3 tournament series a year), loads of live tournament series run by both Wx and PS, etc.

And this despite terrible regulation (game restrictions, bunch of sign-up hoops etc) and taxation (equiv of 37% GGR).
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11-15-2014 , 06:25 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hood
Liquidity in France is great. Supports four top-20 online poker networks, two (Winamax and PSFR) flirt with the top 10, and there's lots of competition between them, big headline tournament series (5m+ guaranteed aross at least 3 tournament series a year), loads of live tournament series run by both Wx and PS, etc.

And this despite terrible regulation (game restrictions, bunch of sign-up hoops etc) and taxation (equiv of 37% GGR).
Has anyone ever said what percentage of players on .Fr are from outside France?
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11-15-2014 , 06:40 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sect7G
What would stop them from re-opening once interstate compacts are signed or California opens its doors?

Does anyone feel they might re-open if there's a bigger market up for grabs?
Didn't you tell us less than 2 month ago, that Ultimate Poker will be the biggest poker room in the world in the not too distant future?
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11-15-2014 , 12:12 PM
The site was no good from day 1 glad this pathetic site is closed.
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11-15-2014 , 12:47 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by madlex
Didn't you tell us less than 2 month ago, that Ultimate Poker will be the biggest poker room in the world in the not too distant future?
It certainly could have been if they stuck with it and endured the tough times until other States/Countries opened their borders.
Things like software are totally fixable if you hire the right people to do the job and put the money into it.

What separated UP from every other online operator was their ability to advertise for free to a non poker playing market that is the perfect demographic through the UFC. Last week Unibet spent money to put their logo on the mat for the UFC show in Australia. Pokerstars has adds running during every commercial when the UFC cards are shown on free TV. When their competition has to pay for marketing and you can do it for free, you have a big advantage.
With over 500 fighters under contract from around the world who could advertise for them through social media to non-poker players the site has a better medium to reach new players than any other site. Some of their fighters have twitter followers in the 7 figures.

Where the site went wrong in my opinion was rushing to market with an inferior product that is not up to par with what customers have been accustomed to. Entering NJ without a land based partner that would help market the product was their 2nd big mistake. Furthermore a lot of people are saying that the owners were playing too big of a part in dictating the day to day operations and not leaving it to the experienced proven employees.

Last edited by Sect7G; 11-15-2014 at 01:01 PM.
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11-15-2014 , 01:50 PM
Post Mortem from Terrence Chan, former director of Player Operations for Ultimate Poker and Ultimate Casino from March 2013 to July 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgFiRjwH5NM
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-15-2014 , 01:51 PM
damn **** got so bad in just few days... first pokerstars , now this....
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11-15-2014 , 02:18 PM
Union of the Snake are you Terrence Chan?
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11-15-2014 , 02:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by njpokerplayer24
Union of the Snake are you Terrence Chan?
No definetly Todd Whittles post similar comments on LVRJ article on UP under s/n Todd his Avatar was same as PFA
Ultimate Gaming goes busto. Quote
11-15-2014 , 04:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by pocket_zeros
Post Mortem from Terrence Chan, former director of Player Operations for Ultimate Poker and Ultimate Casino from March 2013 to July 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgFiRjwH5NM
Thanks to Terrence for posting this very detailed 36 minute video. It was very fascinating to watch, at least for someone interested in the UP story.

I can confirm that I am NOT Terrence, btw.

I agree with most of what he had to say.

He spent some time complaining about the salary structure of the UP employees, even though he conceded his own salary was probably too high!

Terrence's complaint was that they brought certain talented people on board for relatively low salaries ($28-$40k), with the implied or stated promises that they would move up quickly if they did a good job. Then these people would pour their hearts and souls into the company, do a great job, and when it came time to review their salaries, they would be rewarded with a $5k raise when they were really doing work which justified doubling their salaries. When Terrence questioned upper management about this, they conceded that these people were worth more, but "they'll eventually get there", which obviously never happened.

At the same time, Terrence watched them hire expensive consulting firms, spending obscene sums of money, and getting very little bang for their buck.

Terrence was also annoyed that they did not take his feedback when assigning salaries or raises, even though he was the direct manager of these employees and in fact a junior executive himself at Ultimate Gaming.

I can tell you from my experience in the corporate world that, sadly, there is a general resistance to huge salary increases, even when justified. This is because of an idiotic, old-school, bureaucratic model where a "raise pool" is established, and everyone at the company gets a piece of it. When the pool is out of money, that's it for the raises. Therefore, nobody gets staggering raises, even when completely deserved. At the same time, the company has no such budget restrictions on hiring expensive consultants, wild marketing expenditures, useless new hires (which oddly can make more money than people already at the company at the same position), etc. I will go as far to say that not consulting the direct manager for salary input is NOT standard, even at large corporations. Unbelievable that they operated that way at Ultimate Gaming.

But I'm not defending Ultimate's practice here. Ultimate Gaming, while operating under the umbrella of Station Casinos, was supposed to be acting as a startup. A startup should be small, nimble, and flexible, and not subject to old-school, bureaucratic HR practices that large corporations are known for. That's why a percentage of startups become so huge so quickly. They aren't hindered by the red tape of large corporations.

Sadly, Ultimate Gaming embodied the worst of both a startup (instability) and large corporation (inflexibility). A well-run startup will compensate people what they're worth, and not worry about what percentage of a raise it is from their existing salary. A well-run startup will not take the lazy way out and hire expensive consulting firms, but rather will pick out the right men for the job and get it done better and far cheaper. Ultimate Gaming did none of these things. Ultimate Gaming spent way too much in some places (and got little return), and way too little in others.

A word about Chris Danek. He's Terrence Chan's friend, but he's not my friend. I barely know the guy. However, I have to echo Terrence's sentiments that he was dedicated to UP and seemed to know what he was doing. My first impression of Danek wasn't good. It was on this forum, and I didn't appreciate his initially flippant attitude regarding UP's usage of Greg Pierson's company to do identity verification (remember that?)

However, as I got to talk to Danek, I was pleasantly surprised that he was very aware and knowledgeable about UP's existing problems, and had a lot of good ideas on how to fix them. It was actually a shock talking to him, because I was pretty sure I would be speaking to a clueless idiot making excuses, but instead reached someone who pretty much already knew all the problems. I asked Danek when these things were going to be implemented, and he told me it would happen on the next release, but that releases take a long time due to regulatory matters. Then most of these things didn't happen, and I wondered how someone so in touch with UP's issues could have again screwed up so badly.

It turned out he didn't. Upper management stood in the way, which is why things didn't happen. People like Danek wanted to improve things and knew what they had to do to improve them, but weren't allowed to get the job done. You will see Terrence echoing this in his video, where he states that "deadlines were more important than quality control" and how "new features were prioritized over keeping existing players".

You might have gathered by now that I didn't work at UP, and you're correct. You might also have some guesses as to who I am. My identity isn't important here, but I can tell you that my information came firsthand from various sources, which I pieced together to make my posts on the subject. Guys like Terrence obviously have more information than me, so it's always nice to hear from them.

The takeaway here is that a poker site cannot succeed in the US legalized market if not run by poker people. This isn't like the unregulated market where there is enough of a player pool where slick marketing brings in the fish, the grinders will tolerate pretty much any kind of abuse as long as the games are good, and those companies often succeed to some degree in spite of themselves. The US legalized market is much tougher and there's much less room for error. If it's not run intelligently and efficiently, it will fail.

"But wait, WSOP.com has all kinds of problems, and they are still around," you might say.

Yes, but WSOP.com is still losing money. They're just not losing as much as UP, and they also benefit from the wise decision to partner with an existing mature product, so there is less potential for fail. There's lots that WSOP.com could be doing better, but that's another discussion for another time.

So the basic story of UP was "good team, bad market, terrible upper management."

Live and learn.

PS: I hope Terrence is not referring to me when talking about those "dancing on the grave of Ultimate Poker." I'm not doing that at all, and feel I've made a fair assessment.

Last edited by Union Of the Snake; 11-15-2014 at 04:14 PM.
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11-15-2014 , 04:27 PM
nice post ^
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