Was playing a $69+$6 NL 6man tournament on FTP. I think 320 people started and it was down to about 90 and I had a slightly below average chip stack.

All of a sudden I cannot connect to FTP. I can't get to their website even. Other websites are fine, everything connects but Full Tilt stuff.

I checked here and saw tons of people had the same problem. I assumed I would get my buy in back at least since it was something on FTP.

I wrote support and this is what I was told:

"Hello Ryan,

Thank you for your email.

Earlier today an Internet Service Provider (ISP) issue prevented some players from connecting to Full Tilt Poker. We've confirmed our software continued to function as usual during this time, and any disconnections were due to the ISP issue.

If you're having difficulty connecting to Full Tilt Poker, we recommend checking our system status. If our system status is "operational", your ISP may be experiencing a technical issue. You can view our system status at any time by visiting: http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/systemStatus.php

Before you access our software, your internet connection travels through 5 to 30 different third party servers, none of which are owned by Full Tilt Poker. If any of those servers experience technical difficulties, your connection to our servers may be affected.

We are unable to assume responsibility for external connectivity issues, and cannot offer compensation in these situations.

If you constantly experience disconnections, please let us know and we'll assist you with any technical issues.

We appreciate your understanding, and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us."

OK, this wasn't an issue with my ISP, I could connect everywhere else. Also I can't check the server status if I can't get to fulltiltpoker.com.

I let them know this and got this back:

"As previously stated, the connection difficulty in question was due to an external ISP issue and was not due to any problem with our serves. I can confirm that our servers remained fully functional throughout the duration of this issue and did not experience any troubles which could have caused you to be disconnected.

Please bear in mind that when you connect to Full Tilt Poker, You are not connecting directly. Your signal must travel through anywhere from 5 to 30 different servers before actually reaching ours. If any of those servers are experiencing connectivity issues, all players whose signals travel through the server in question will have their connection strength affected. The fact that multiple players encountered this issue simultaneously is in no way an indication of a problem with our servers. While you were certainly not the only player affected by this issue, the majority of players remained online and continued playing without incident.

Full Tilt Poker is not in a position to assume responsibility for disconnections that occur off our servers, as they are beyond our ability to foresee, prevent, or correct. Please remember that when you sit in any online poker room, you assume the minimal but ever-present risk that your connection may be affected by conditions on the Internet that are beyond your control or ours.

If you find you are being frequently disconnected while our servers are operational, please write back with greater detail and our technical support team will be happy to assist you.

You can check the status of our servers at any time by following the link below:

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/systemStatus.php

We apologize for the inconvenience, and sincerely hope this experience will not deter you from enjoying online poker in the future. If there is any other matter with which we can be of assistance, please let us know."


So they are telling me sorry bud, you are screwed. Did anyone else get this sort of response? Any recommendations?

Thanks.

A few times when I've been playing cash games FTP will lose connection. When this happens I open up my browser and try going to few websites and they connect just fine.

I never sent them an e-mail though.

Well there was a thread on here where it was down for a bunch of people...me included the other night.

They emailed me back after they had the numerous update issues and tried to say it was my fault their connections were messing up, or my cards would disappear, etc

I couldn't find that thread again, maybe I missed it or it was deleted.

People said they had a bunch of SNGs open and all of them were over by the time they got back on to the site. Just wanted to see if FTP told anyone else the same thing or if other people were able to get their buy in back.

I´ve gotten the same response.

Well, first timeI complained about it, the gave me a refund. The second time (several months later) they told me that hey had allready given me my >>goodwill<<-refund, so tough luck.

In both cases, I was able to connect to other websites, MSN, pokersites etc just fine, making it clear the problem was solely with connecting with FTP.

After my 3rd email they gave me a $75 tournament token, but they said it was a one-time thing.