No issues on Aced here.

505 people paid $215 for entry, it did not overlay


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Kahn

I cant login to ph currently, logged in earlier then was playing 1 tourney. It was frozen for a long time apparently and I didn't notice so I try to restart and cant connect

aced is fine

yeah, i got back but blinded out

I've been getting disconnected a lot today.

With the exception of late registration periods for tournaments lasting WAY too long, I have been very happy at Carbon.

Then again, I guess I'm the casual-type player, they are looking to attract.

Micro and low level cash games. $2.20/5.50/11.00 sit n gos.

I also like to bet $5-$10 on sports bets.

Happy with the customer service too..but reading some of the complaints of bigger players, I'm sure I would feel similar if I played at those higher levels, too..

uhmm, well not sure on this. under the advanced tab, I have the registering only check under the status tab. not sure where this click "status" would be, different screen than the advanced tab?

I used to be able to just click on the "Plrs" column and could sort the games by how many players were registered, now they are all over the map I guess.

"Status" is right next to "Plrs"

ok, that was overly easy, wonder why clicking plrs doesn't work anymore, but clicking on status does do the job here, thank you

Yeah I'm not sure why it doesn't work - must be a bug of some sort.

After the last update, I just clicked on all of them until it sorted correctly

UcantescF8 pretty much owns my soul. Forgot how big of a pain in the ass this guy is

Cannot view a friends list of tables via the "friends" tab. Glitches every time on both Carbon and Aced.

+1

I don't understand this strong movement against Carbon still, it's rather unproductive and in some ways misplaced.

First off, how are you an SNG grinder on Carbon? The traffic seems super light and for anyone to make money playing SNG's, it's all about volume. Maybe you find them and I just don't see the traffic but by you saying you got invited to Elite VIP makes me believe you're a hjigh stakes losing to break even player with multiple deposits on the site. You comment on their MTT schedule and although it's not great they have a stable of like 14 dailys they run and now they boosted the gtds by 25%.

It seems like since they ruined everything they at least seem to be listening to player feedback and making an effort to improve. Their VIP system is awful now but playing a site for RB or VIP points is a losing theory anyways so it's not all that big of a deal. And that's coming from someone that not only easily cleared enough VIP points a month to earn a $700 cash bonus monthly. But I also had 70K points banked up, after their change they lost 60% of their value, but I still made money in the end so I can't really complain. Things are slowly starting to turn around and any decent player should really like that they are trying to bring in more casual players.

As for they booting players, I haven't heard any of that and I play pretty often so I think I would notice regs just dropping out. Brovada has been accused of doing this though and I'm pretty sure the whole thing was proved in another thread. I would just be careful slinging allegations like that around with the state of these sites as it is. If you're a reg you should be happy that the site is actually picking up traffic and they are adding elements slowly. In case you missed it, Black Friday changed everything and we're lucky to even have sites to play on. All of this nonsensical bitching about poor us as US player is unproductive and in a lot of way works against the cause.

Either except that we have to take what we're given or just move on and keep trying other sites until you end back up at Merge. It's the best of a bad situation but by knocking the network constantly you're just giving players a reason to not deposit on the site and hand you money, just sayin.

Wow, acceptional post.

I except this post GrindMentality.

Listening to player feedback after "fixing" a site that didn't need fixed lol. How are they brining in more casual players? No one ever said *Carbon* kicked players off, but other *Merge* skins have. Even the affiliates will vouch for this. 25% increase in guarantees? You realize the guarantees were higher when they first introduced the new schedule, right? They are going back and fixing some of the things they messed up, bravo!

You want more casual players to play? Get rid of the 4 hour late reg and unlimited reentries. Or make some sort of compromise and make it 2 and a half hours and unlimited.

Sorry, I refuse to applaud Merge for doing minimal things to fix what they F'd up. I'll agree it may be unproductive to bash them, but they need bashed. They took a vibrant network and ran it into the ground.

Maybe if they had a support forum they'd get bashed less because we could interact with someone from the network and help them improve it. It seems to me they are just trying to milk as much money out of the US market as they can before the inevitable happens and the US is regulated and they are left with nothing but a sportsbook. (which seems to be what they want)

I agree with much of what you said, but the rake is a big problem. It's basically uncapped for microstakes. The rakeback made it bearable. It's almost unbearable now. I wouldn't care if there was no rakeback or VIP program IF the rake was reasonable. When it's unreasonable, you need a good rakeback or VIP program to offset it.

I too wish that it was all rainbows and unicorns but it's not. The fact of the matter is that the player pool has plummeted for reasons that can be directly attributable to business decisions such as increasing the NLHE rake to the highest in the US. When it really comes down to it, I think that it is the shrinking of the player pool that players are most miffed about.

Just because you haven't personally noticed that players have been thrown off the site that doesn't mean that it isn't true. The truth of the matter is that PokerHost has thrown players off the site for winning too much. And PH has thrown off more players than just the reported 12.

I'm not so sure why you believe how they are drawing in more casual players. They've shrunk their affiliate program, they seem to have reduced their advertising and they've done things such as getting rid of their play tables and freerolls. They have the best software in the US right now but they slam the door in the face of any casual player who might want to check out the software before depositing.

It's easy to blame BlackFriday for Merge's diminished role in the US but the fact of the matter is that the DOJ hasn't gone after Merge. It actually opened the market somewhat. Bodog has done just fine despite crappy software and a dirth of promotions. There is no reason that Merge can't be doing a lot better than it is. It's the bad decisions that have made it difficult to find action on Merge that has players are pissed off.

When you state that players knocking the network is causing problems, you are just blaming the victims. Remaining silent is not a very good solution.

I haven't been around much until the last month, so forgive me if the this question is old news.

Is there any rakeback available on carbon? I was a rakeback player on rpm, then took some time off from poker. When I can back, I found rpm closed, an email stating that my funds were transferred to carbon, and a link to install the program.

None. They have 15% points to cash if you earn 5K points a month, but you can only exchange 10,000 points at a time. There is a 35% invite only tier(that up until 2 months ago you could earn through play) that has a reasonable rate for points to cash. Essentially, unless you are invited to the top tier through some magical formula they won't explain, you're capped at a terrible VIP program. Thanks, Merge! Brining in more casuals and more regs!!!! Oh wait...

As far as I know, PokerHost is no longer a skin of Merge's so that should end that argument.

Site traffic is up overall, the changes they have made clearly have started to work. Affiliate programs will drain a site so fast, hence why they cut them out. When you have affiliates making 55%-even 100% rakeback the money that you make goes right back through the other end. Would you rather have a site at all or have only affiliates playing against each other with maybe a 500 player pool?

As for advertising, they never really advertised that much and there really is a cap on how much marketing you can really do without TV money. I still see banners on forums and sites like OPR so they haven't totally cut their budget and they are making an effort.

Of course I'm annoyed at everything that happened, but it's done and over now, so can we all just move on already? The changes that have been made are here to stay, so just like poker you need to adjust. Yes it sucks that they "revamped" the network but bitching and moaning about it does nothing. Try to create some constructive criticism or some suggestions and keep posting them here, they seem to be listening and hopefully they keep moving forward.

How can we expect to be taken seriously when there is very little serious content to this thread. Why would any network or site take any group of people seriously that act like children? On top of that, most of you talk about how the player pool is evaporating. So now any player thinking of depositing sees nothing but bad things about Merge, which might be the intention. But again, that just compounds the issue.

In the end, this is the state of poker in America. They have us by the short and curlies. But we all know this when we deposit and log on, so let's try to stay positive and hope for the best.

I stopped reading here because you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

Can you go into more detail about your affiliate insight going on at Merge? Very interesting statements there.