Hi all,

this is my first post and appreciate that it probably should be put on the official party poker thread however I feel that it probably warrants it's own thread.

I was playing the $3,000 Gtd tournament ID 115639054 on 11th March. I built my chips up on my first table to 10,107 and had a larger than average stack. I was subsequently moved tables and immediately noticed that my new stack was only 6,977. I thought I may have made a mistake as I was multi-tabling so I made a note to check the hand history later that evening. Upon checking I confirmed that this had indeed happened.

I was of course extremely angry about this happening, I went out of the tournament just outside the bubble. I contacted party poker with the following email:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Player: IfGodPlayed

whilst playing in tournament:

NL Texas Hold'em $35 USD Buy-in Trny:115639054

I built my chips up to 10,107 on my first table. I was then moved to a new table and my new chip count was 6,977. I had not played a hand and my chips were reduced, this obviously is extremely worrying and I have grave concerns that if this has happened once then how many other times has it happened? Not to mention the fact that I had an above average stack and then was all of a sudden short stacked.

I have attached the txt hand history files to this email for your perusal, please respond asap.

Regards

And received the following response:

Dear Neil,

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.


Our respective department informed us that on 12-MAR-2015 during an emergency maintenance the issue that you reported was resolved.

We have issued $35.00 Tournament dollars to your account as a compensation for the inconvenience. You can check the transaction in Account>>My Statements>>Tournament history.


In case you have further questions, we will be more than happy to assist you. We are available 24/7.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site.


Best regards,
Annie

Customer Service

This response was not acceptable so I again wrote an email:

A refund does not compensate me for this, I had an above average stack and could have gone on to win the tournament had it not been for your error.

His many other people did this happen to?

Have you provided a refund to everybody?

And received:

Dear Neil,

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused, however we cannot compensate you for possible winnings. You could have also lost all of your chips on the next hand as well.

In regards to your query how many players were affected and whether we have refunded them, unfortunately this is account specific information and we cannot provide it to you. However I can assure you that when there is an issue from our end we always refund our customers.


In case you have further questions, we will be more than happy to assist you. We are available 24/7.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site.


Best regards,
Kristian,

Customer Service

Again not happy with the response I replied:

Dear Party Poker,

I am very dissapointed with your response, to refund me my buy in when I went out just outside the bubble having had almost half my chips taken from me is simply unacceptable. It also raises a wider question, who gained my chips? I would like to see a detailed break down of the tournament showing where my chips ended up as this clearly gave that person an unfair disadvantage.

How did it happen? You have not explained to me how this happened, iit is rather worrying that you acknowledge the issue and then just brush it off as if it is a minor issue, this has fundamental implications for the way your site is run.

Regards

And received:

Dear Neil,

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

As per your email, I have attached the hand history of the $3,000 Gtd(32/3), table ID: 115639054 with this email. You can check your complete game play and I see that 35 tournament dollars have been added in your account on 15-MAR-15.

We notice that you have used the funds to register for $200K Gtd Sunday - 40 Seat Frenzy(18.5/1.5) and $100,000 High Roller Mega Sat - 10 Seats Gtd(46.5/3.5)on 15-MAR-15.

In case you are facing any other difficulty, please get back to us with more details.

In case you have further questions, we will be more than happy to assist you. We are available 24/7.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site.


Best regards,
Chandana,

Customer Service

Again, just a brush off and they actually simply returned my HH that I sent them in the first place so I replied:

Seriously?

You are clearly not taking me seriously!!!!!

I want to know where my chips went!

I want to know how this happened!

Stop giving me crap replies with none of the information I asked for!

Why are you sending me the hand history back that I attached to my first email?

Do you really think I am stupid?

A little annoyed as can be seen lol, doing away with the pleasantries. I received the following:

Dear Neil,

Thank you for contacting Customer Service.

I am sorry for the inconvenience you have experienced.

However, please have in mind that as per the terms and conditions of use we cannot share any players' account specific information to third parties.

Therefore, the hand history you already have for $3,000 Gtd tournament with ID 115639054 played on 11th of March is the only information we can provide to you regarding this tournament.

You had finished 22nd in this tournament after going all-in and the last ranked player to participate in the sharing of the prize pool was 18th.

We have acknowledged that there was a technical issue with your amount of chips transferred to a different table and you had been refunded your $35 USD buy-in in the form of $35 tournament dollars on 14th of March.

You can check the information from your end by going to 'Account' - 'My Statements' - 'Tournament History'.

You can see there that you had used those tournament dollars on 15th of March to register for $200K Gtd Sunday - 40 Seat Frenzy tournament with ID 115543067 and $100,000 High Roller Mega Sat - 10 Seats Gtd tournament with ID 115542923.

Unfortunately we are not able to refund any higher amount than the buy-in you had invested in the tournament on 11th of March.

Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the issue reported had been fixed by our technical department on 12th of March and it should not occur anymore.

In case you have further questions, we will be more than happy to assist you. We are available 24/7.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site.

Best regards,

Nikolay,

Customer Service

That is the end of the correspondence. I do not know if i should leave it there or if there is anything else I can do.

Has anybody else experienced this?

Assuming the total chips did not change then somebody got my chips, this is scandalous as far as I am concerned.

I appreciate your time reading my post and look forward to your replies

So you basically got refunded the tournament buy-in after a glitch very early into the event itself? Did the tournament continue to an end without any other issues?

It was around half way though through the tournament when it happened. The tournament continued and finished as normal but I can only assume that somebody had a nice surprise when they found their stack had increased.

It was only after I went out that I checked the hand history. If I had not contacted Party Poker then they would not have refunded me anything.

This is silly.

Thanks for your thoughtful and helpful response!

I went out in 22nd place, it wasn't exactly the Sunday Million!

The last part may very well be true but in your initial post it comes across as if that compensation is still not enough for you?

Technically they don't have to give him anything. But as a good business practice they should give him something that actually does compensate him for his inconvenience.

Probably the hand history that the OP needs is the one from the table that he had left. Just a couple of hands would be enough. If the chips were in fact given to another player, that is probably where they would be found. If no mucked cards are shown, I don't see anything wrong with giving him that.

The issue here is not about the compensation, I am shocked that this can actually happen. Imagine you make the final table of a big tourney and arrive there with half your chips!

OP, can you please post the HH from the last hand on the old table to the first hand on your new table?

#Game No : 14449901859
***** Hand History for Game 14449901859 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $35 USD Buy-in Trny:115639054 Level:9 Blinds-Antes(150/300 -30) - Wednesday, March 11, 17:43:17 EDT 2015
Table $3,000 Gtd (115639054) Table #2 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6/9
Seat 6: Anomander_R ( 9,120 )
Seat 7: IfGodPlayed ( 10,107 )
Seat 2: KAMSHULER ( 7,258 )
Seat 3: Omfg72oAgain ( 9,041 )
Seat 4: olli100555 ( 9,067 )
Seat 1: scildd ( 3,960 )
Trny:115639054 Level:9
Blinds-Antes(150/300 -30)
scildd posts ante [30]
KAMSHULER posts ante [30]
Omfg72oAgain posts ante [30]
olli100555 posts ante [30]
Anomander_R posts ante [30]
IfGodPlayed posts ante [30]
Omfg72oAgain posts small blind [150].
olli100555 posts big blind [300].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to IfGodPlayed [ 7s 3d ]
Anomander_R folds
IfGodPlayed folds
scildd folds
KAMSHULER raises [600]
Omfg72oAgain folds
olli100555 folds
KAMSHULER does not show cards.
KAMSHULER wins 1,230 chips
Game #14449907331 starts.



#Game No : 14449907331
***** Hand History for Game 14449907331 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $35 USD Buy-in Trny:115639054 Level:9 Blinds-Antes(150/300 -30) - Wednesday, March 11, 17:45:44 EDT 2015
Table $3,000 Gtd (115639054) Table #7 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 9/9
Seat 8: D0MUHAT0P ( 3,415 )
Seat 3: Freakshox ( 7,156 )
Seat 6: Gagaw ( 21,002 )
Seat 2: IfGodPlayed ( 6,977 )
Seat 7: KAMSHULER ( 7,858 )
Seat 5: NeverPL ( 5,485 )
Seat 1: Toady66 ( 7,745 )
Seat 4: joeyhebs ( 4,410 )
Seat 9: mangsmret ( 17,613 )
Trny:115639054 Level:9
Blinds-Antes(150/300 -30)
Toady66 posts ante [30]
IfGodPlayed posts ante [30]
Freakshox posts ante [30]
joeyhebs posts ante [30]
NeverPL posts ante [30]
Gagaw posts ante [30]
KAMSHULER posts ante [30]
D0MUHAT0P posts ante [30]
mangsmret posts ante [30]
Toady66 posts small blind [150].
IfGodPlayed posts big blind [300].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to IfGodPlayed [ Jh 4s ]
Freakshox folds
joeyhebs folds
NeverPL folds
Gagaw folds
KAMSHULER raises [600]
D0MUHAT0P folds
mangsmret folds
Toady66 calls [450]
IfGodPlayed folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 6d, 7c, Ac ]
Toady66 checks
KAMSHULER bets [885]
Toady66 folds
KAMSHULER does not show cards.
KAMSHULER wins 2,655 chips

There are 2.5 minutes between those hands! Did the whole site lag?

Not that I remember, I was multi tabling and think I would have noticed a lag. The hand was folded pre-flop so I agree 2.5 minutes does seem along time between hands but Party Poker's software isn't the best (clearly!!!).

If you look at KAMSHULER's stack it increased inline with the hand and he was on my new table so you can see that there were no more hands between the two I posted. Also Party Poker have admitted there was an error so that is not in doubt.

I just wonder if this happens often? I think it is rather sinister, I have been playing online for years and never seen this at any of the other sites.

This is Party accepting that OP's description of events is accurate:
And this is a terrible response that shows a total lack of understanding of the concept of equity
OP is clearly right to be unhappy here, and anyone who plays tournaments on Party ought to be concerned by this.

I bet if you had cashed you wouldn't have received any refund despite them taking 40% of your stack or whatever. Awful decision by party, just another reason why people are so hesitant to play on anything other than pokerstars.

A lot of people ITT seem to forgot that this could but more probably already did happen to other players at all stakes too.

Like: Join the weekly biggest tourney, get almost chipleader after hour or play, lose half your stack before FT due to software, with negates you the ability to ICM the smaller stacks and therefore really diminishes your EQ and party responses:
"oh, here is your buy in back"

And how often did this happen to multitablers who didn't realized it and didn't get refunded. Did the chips actually go to another player or did the total chips amount decrease?

Sure it's all not that bad. Who cares for online poker anyway? It's all rigged...

I am very unhappy and I think it shows a flagrant disregard for their players.

Yes, totally agree with everything you say. I do not know if the total amount of chips decreased or if somebody else got my chips.

I am unsure if I should leave the situation as it is or if I should send another email. Anyone got any thoughts?

Ask them for a spectator/observer view of the final hand of the tourny. You will be able to see if chips are missing or not