LOL you fooled me SIR!

So no type of freeroll or compensation for the players who played/spent 5.5 hours? Not even a goodwill gesture of any sort? I'm sure quite a few players gave up quite a bit of equity elsewhere whether it be by screen space life equity to play this tourney. Obviously it wouldn't be fair to do a chip chop or ICM but a tourney with some added seats for the next million or a freeroll for the players still in seems to at least be somewhere in the middle here or am I crazy?

I understand the issues you had but I value my time quite a bit as well and feel something in the middle could be done to compensate myself as well as 600 other players who were still in the tourney.

I heard they giving freerolls though. Like they said, they made the fairest decision and we just happen to be on the bad side of the coin, like losing a flip. I'm saying this despite I was still in the milly when it got cancalled.

This really seems like a joke to me. To think of all those small satellites you ran for months, so you made a ton of rake off that. Then all the ring that a tournament like this attracts lets not kid ourselves here. You got tons of exposure and rake off this promotion.

IMO you had to make a decision and went for the one that would cost you the least amount of money and please the most people. If you guys were worried about being fair you would have handled it differently.

I really want to believe you guys were trying to do the right thing. But I know business and it looks like you were trying to please the masses and minimize losses/damages.

You seem sincere when you say this. If you guys really want to make things right you can give a free entry to the next millions for those players still in. This would be fair. I think the fact that you refunded multiple buyins was a mistake on your part, if someone is going to fire 4 bullets they are understanding the lag risks.

With that being said a free entry to the next tournament for us still in the millions would really smooth things over, and I think you should consider it. Look how many people came out for the mil you can make that back.

I can confirm it was around 965k and climbing, they made enough in fee's but didn't want to have to refund everyone who emailed in about lag after paying out. From a business point of view it was best for the company to not pay the few still in rather than everyone else. I don't agree with the decision but I understand it.

I personally would have paid out ICM and given refunds to those with bad connections issues, and surely wouldn't have refunded 3 to 4 buyins for 1 person.

I want to let you know that you still have my support even though I'm super P/O'd. Americans deserve good tournaments, and the fact that people want to stop us from playing these tournaments is just an oppression tactic. We need to let them know that we will fight through, and they can't stop online poker. It's a great game, and depressing as this was for us still in, lets remember why we started to grind in the first place. I also want you all to know I feel your pain.

On a side note anyone know who is responsible for all the recent DDOS of sites and why?

The decision i think that would of saved us the most money would of been to watch us go over the million mark and take over $80,000 in fees and then refund case by case. Also forgetting the actual money side of things how would that of made us look in the short term?

You have to see it in the point of view that it wasnt a level playing field for everyone. If just one person had lets say AA sitting deep with another player and 4 bet timed out to a shove. Player B could of gone on to win where he should of most likely been knocked out. I know that is an easy example but it just wasnt fair and players gained chips unfairly. There are many scenarios we just saw this as the fairest and potentially most costly in terms of reputation.

My major issue here is the fact that you even ran the tournament in the first place given the fact that you knew you were being DDoS'ed and that your network was subsequently being disabled by said DDoS throughout the week leading up to the tournament. You sent a message to players explicitly stating that you were aware of an ongoing DDoS attack, but had found that you were able to simply pause gameplay and correct the issue. You should have either a.) rescheduled the tournament until a later date b.) continued on with the tournament as played.

Sure, the decision made to cancel the tournament at the time was probably most fair to all players involved, but we should have never arrived in this scenario in the first place. You as the network led us into this mess. You promoted the biggest tournament in US since Black Friday, the CEO even admitted on live stream he let the tournament run longer purely for selfish reasons (wanting to make history), but you weren't concerned about an ongoing DDoS attack perhaps being ramped up at a time when it would be most lucrative? Did you think the perpetrators were just going away?

I am just trying to develop a better understanding of the decision making process that went into this. Things need to change before I will even consider playing the Milly next time around. I don't feel confident in a site that would run such a massive tournament with their network in such a knowingly vulnerable state. I am going to need to see changes actively demonstrated to further instill my confidence moving forward.

Dan, I completely understand that WPN did the best that they could, and that the CEO had a tough call to make. I understand that you guys are human and that mistakes have been made, and that this was not an easy decision to make.

However, what I'm getting from your post is that there is nothing that will be done for the people who wasted their entire Sunday on this. I'll tell you that I reworked my schedule for schoolwork and other stuff specifically to play the tournament. If you're telling me that everyone who wasted their entire day on Sunday will get nothing, I am going to be very, very disappointed in you guys. In the past you have made everything right when there was a screw up, but if you're response to this is just "sorry" and "we tried as hard as we could have." then I've got to say I'm severely disappointed in how you guys are handling things. Because I understand how stressed, tired and heartbroken you guys must be about what happened. BUT you are a business, and you've got customers. If you're not going to do something for them, you're making a huge mistake.

You're basically saying, "Hey we screwed up, and we're sorry but we're not going to make it right for about half the people affected. But you'll keep playing anyway I hope." Trust me when I say if the tournament was cancelled a couple hours in I wouldn't be saying any of this.

Please read the email I sent you, I think the solution I thought of there would be more than adequate, and not a huge burden on WPN. It doesn't even have to be specifically what I sent you. I was trying to come up with a logical solution that wouldn't cost WPN a lot.

But if you're honestly telling me that there is no further resolution, I'm probably not playing next time, and will probably be telling people I know that they shouldn't either. And thus far, I've only recommended WPN to others, so I really don't want to have to stick to that.

^^ While I certainly understand the frustration (I was decently deep in a few things that were cancelled on Sunday, but not the milly), what is it you expect them to do?

The only thing I might suggest is that perhaps they ran a freeroll limited to entrants that were still alive in the milly when it was cancelled. Perhaps toss up $2,500 or so as a peace offering. But other than that, do you think WPN should pay each player still in the event for their time? That's very hard to quantify, sir. And even if they did do something, I'm sure there will be those that don't feel it's enough.

BTW, for those that played in the satellites and didn't get into the milly...I hate to break it to you, but you lost. If you had got in via those satellites, and made the milly, you would have been refunded the full $540. I myself played in about a dozen of them on Saturday and Sunday, spending about $150 (in T$, actually) to try to get in. I ran badly (ie: sucked), and that's the way it goes sometimes.

Do I expect to get that back? No. Why? Because I lost. I wouldn't have been in position to be eligible for a refund because I wasn't in the event to start with. Once you lost and didn't get in, you gave up the expectation of seeing any further return on that money. It would be like going to the store, buying apples you saw advertised, eating them, hearing they were taking all apples off the shelves even though the sale was supposed to last longer, and then asking for your money back. How does that make sense?

If there's no compensation for the players who were still alive in the tournament, I'll never play another hand on the WPN. And I've been playing since Bcp switched to the winning network.

You guys continue to offer apologies for "not canceling earlier." Well apologies are going to give me my time and energy back. And I earned the $540 refund months ago when I won the satellite into the Milly but WPN's terrible policy of not allowing players to unregister to receive tourney bucks forced me into a 5 and a half hour time-trap. You can read my comment history leading up to this event...I clearly doubted WPN's ability to run this tourney. And if I could predict that then how come you guys couldn't? Fact is I tried to unregister but you guys wouldn't let me, thereby costing me my Sunday.

How could I possibly give another cent to a company that has no qualms about absolutely wasting the time and energy of its customers? Letting it run on for so long was obviously a mistake made on your end. A mistake that cost your customers much more than it has cost you to this point. Time to fix that

Willing to bet you play next milly tourney.

Listen it sucks you missed time on your Sunday ... But so did everyone else.

$hit happens.


Blame US congress for shutting everything down and leaving us where we are. WPN is aleast trying.

Well then you'd be willing to bet that WPN is paying for my ticket.

Yes, when a company is at fault and has wronged a bunch of their customers, just chalk it up to $hit happens. What great value you've added here.

US congress is clearly incompetent. But they didn't lure me into a poker game by promising some big paydays for top finishers, only to pull the rug out from under me 5.5 hours after it began.

A for effort? Get the **** outta here.

^^ You make it sound like they wanted to do it and intentionally screwed you while sitting back and sipping mint juleps on the back porch.

Listen, I know a section of online poker players like to whine about everything, but put yourself in their shoes for a second. What would you have done? Better yet, since you probably don't know the intricacies of how to operate a multi-million dollar company, what is it exactly you want to have happen? Because even if everyone got precisely what they want, there's still going to be something to complain about, right?

They don't get an 'A' for effort perhaps, but you certainly don't get high marks for your approach either. Says something about people who were in this thing, took what happened with appropriate levels of hostile tension (The Patriot, ftw), and have moved on already. Why can't you?

I have moved on... to arguing about why WPN still owes it's customers.

What I want to have happen is for dummies like you to stop defending WPN. Though you haven't presented any sort of respectable opinion, you seem to think that everyone should just forget that anything bad ever happened.

YAY there will be another milly in February. Let's just move on to that.......

Do I need to look at the entry list to find your 1600th place elimination? Ofc you think they handled it fairly

What do they owe you, is what I asked. What do you feel is appropriate?

And if you had actually read what I wrote...

...you might see what I was saying.

O can agree that they would want that MTT to happen if they thought that there would be no overlay. without overlay they make $40.00 per buyin

^^ There wasn't going to be an overlay. They had over 1,820 entries with five levels of late reg left (a bit before the cancellation). Had it ran smoothly, it would have likely been well over 2,000 entries.

I had sent WTD an email when I was still more frustrated than I am now, but I think that I was very reasonable in what I thought a fair resolution would be, and it was going to cost them more than 2500. But no, I do not expect them to pay everyone who was in it at the time of cancellation. If they had to do anything close to an equity chop... well it's just unfair to everyone including WPN.

My suggestion was that everyone who was in at the time gets a bonus attached to their account, to either give a higher effective rakeback up to X amount, or 100% rakeback up to X amount. Personally, I don't expect them to do a lot for us, but I do expect something. And had they cancelled it 2 hours in I wouldn't care if they didn't do anything at all, but the intention of the rule matters more to me than the wording of the rule. Obviously they CAN do nothing more and still be within their own rules, but they'd very clearly be breaking the intention of that rule, IMO, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

This dude is right though. The prize pool would have been at least 1 million if it ran to completion. Probably more to be honest.

Which, in the end, is pretty effing cool given our playing options atm.

Who cares if it failed, it's running again in a few months.

yea, no big deal!

Granted though...if it falls through again I don't think anyone will want to play there any longer.

^^ There are still people playing on Lock, despite a year's worth of insanely long cashout data I myself collated and tried to promote to anyone who would listen. There's a company actually trying to squeeze every dime they can from players, and they still manage to exist.

WPN is on the far end of the other side of the scale. Even if the next milly has issues, it's not going to kill off the network.

You think Merge would run a $1 million event? Hell, even Bovada hasn't done one and if WPN could hit the guarantee, Bovada would crush it.

LOL. People still play on Lock? WTF?

You have to be kidding me dude. Isn't lock like a black hole for money lmao?

I will finish by saying how sorry i am and i really do understand the majority for their frustrations. Even with all the issues we can see that you guys support us and want us to grow. We all want the same thing so we will do our part and we need you guys to trust in us. Lets move on and just look forward to the next million and we will have another series to go alongside it. We are going to do everything we possibly can to provide the US with a great place to play poker.

I apologise if anyone feels like i am wrong for my comments but i am so sad and i wanted to just let you all know how i feel.[/QUOTE]

Exactly they did what would please the masses. Almost every single person defending WPN probably busted out, a lot of them 3 to 4 times. How can it be fair to let people knowingly re-enter (obv they understand the risks) a tournament 4 or 5 times, then give all their buy ins back? How do you cancel a tournament almost 6 hours in? I want every single 100k entry ever spent back. Because I usually run like **** in that tournament, and was finally running good, heading to get a good cash in a big tourney. So this is unfair can I have all my buyins back that I ever spent $100+ on WPN? I'm dead serious. can I have all my buy ins back ever spent on the 100k or 50k? OR any of your big tournaments? And for this prick to say he knows how I feel just makes it more annoying. I don't know the financial situation of most of the people who played this. But I am dirt poor and poker tournaments is just about the only thing I'm good at. All the practice I've put in lately, to tailor my game to these types of levels, all for nothing. Worse then nothing, to have the finish line close in sight only for it to be removed. So again I ask will you refund me every 100k buy in I ever spent? Because the one time variance was on my side you did not allow it to play through, and you ****ed up my results permanently.

It's a wonder that any of these people are supposed to be professionals, the way they are defending WPN. The people who, "Let it go", are the same ones who got knocked out and got their buy in back, don't be stupid.

I know manipulation tactics my sister uses them all the time. By telling us you feel bad or "sorry" for what happened, you expect us to find it in our hearts to forgive you for ripping us off. Well guess what? I don't believe you. We as poker players sniff out bull**** all day long, and you expect us to believe you are truly sorry? If you were sorry you'd do something to make it right. I am so pissed at not just being ripped off but your incompetence. WPN was booming, Americans finally had good tournaments. Who the *** will trust your tournaments now? When we know we can play for almost 6 hours and get nothing on top of risking $540.

All you had to do was pay out ICM and refund the players with the worse disconnection issue's. Or even only refund the 1st buyin back, and use the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th bullets people fired to pay out the people still in.

No excuse for pure incompetence, and you and the CEO's excuse for letting it go on so long is that he wanted to make history bla bla bla? Are you ****** kidding me? If you want anyone to ever trust your network to play on again you need to do something to fix this, instead of telling us your ****** sorry. I had a stack worth 3 grand easy, can I steal 3 grand from you and say sorry? Will you forgive me?

Lets just do that. You tell me where you live so I can come over and steal 3 grand to pay my rent, then we are cool.

I agree this would help, but they won't do that either man. Not to mention the network should have to pay for it and not the sites. I really feel bad for the people who own the skins because they really had nothing to do with this, and it will still affect them. They could easily give rakeback up to your icm when the tourney canceled. There are a million things that could be done to smooth things over here.

I want it to be known I'm not here to bash WPN. I just want to see some type of fair compensation. This is truly the only reason I am here posting now. It pisses me off to think these guys who did the DDOS are getting what they want making WPN look bad. I hope it comes to light who is responsible so I can make sure to boycott them for life.

This.

That's the #1 reason for cancelling and refunding everyone's' buy ins. WPN made the right decision.

They knew they would have to cancel the tournament after it started, well before it started. On the other thread I have already got the admin from WPN to make false comments. I was guaranteed there would be no issues on million from customer service on phone 2 hours prior. She stated they have cancelled tournaments already (this is 2 hours prior) and will be ready to clear out entire days schedule if problems arise and said word for word she guarantees no problems with million.

What this all told me is they knew this was going to happen prior and had no choice but to run knowing they would have to shut it down. Of course they have to do what they did once it happened. However, could this have been avoided? Does the CEO need to step down? Why are customer service reps given guarantees? This all comes down to money, and once again it the America players that get hurt.

There is no way anyone can believe this whole series and tournament, even with its mess ups didn't make the site millions. Just on cash game alone because of increased traffic on sunday they were up 1000% from a regular day. If this was such a big issue for them, why did cash games continue like clockwork?

Answer is money and they got a lot of it from this tournament reguardless of the turnout.

Does this mean they had bad intentions going in, NO, BUT IT DOES IT MEAN THEY MISHANDLED THE SITUTION AND IT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED PROPERLY and heads roll at company? YES