Mike , Adam, and pokercast team

We all want a big long segment on the almighty screw-up that was the stars 25billionth hand. The forums have lit up with chatter about the guy not posting his blind, another guy timing out due to disconnection etc. you HAVE to go over this hand, with an explanation from stars support. A bit of background about how people were struggling to register on any table leading up to the big moment, about how there were waiting lists of up to 120 people for 6-max tables, about how on earth Stars are going to prevent themselves coming out of this looking bad. I saw loads of table chat with people complaining about not being able to register, and there being a registation problem. Yuo should also include a bit about how, overall, the stars 25billionth promotion was excellent value for the players.

Yes, the pokercast is sponsored by Stars, but if this isnt a hot topic i dont know what is

I have to agree with this. If you want to perform a stress test on your software, don't do it on a live server.

we need to get confederate on the show. that dude's gotta be life tilting so hard. if nothing else I just wanna listen to him flip out. lol

It may be a hot topic because the player who didn't post his blind was dumb enough to click the 'wait until BB' button knowing the 25 billion hand was coming soon and the delay in dealing the actual hand because the server couldn't handle the number of idiots who decided to cram the waiting list for the table even though the milestone hand had already been dealt and they had no chance of being involved. The disconection of the player and the subsequent delay in dealing the milestone hand didnt' effect the outcome of the prize distribution in any way.

While I'm sure Stars wishes they had installed a 'cap' on the waiting lists at their tables and limited the chat for the milestone table, I have no idea how you would conclude Stars would come out of this looking bad at all.

If I am informed correctly one of the players timed out after disconnecting; PokerStars then decided to treat all players as all-in. This is a solution, but it does not look perfect. Fact is that the server couldn't handle the traffic generated by this promotion, and this should have been foreseen.

Why people would jump on the waiting list is of course a mystery. Are we sure this is a skill game?

Cangurino,

Every player in the hand(including the guy who was disconnected) was on a potential 150K freeroll(should they scoop) having already won $33,333. I don't believe any player in the hand had more than a couple hundred in front of them, and the disconnected player had $7 in front of him when he was disconnected. In a .50/$1 O8 game, no player on the planet is going to fold with $7 in front of him with a chance to win $150,000. No one was going to fold at any point in the hand even if they had 9 high.

The server disonnecting the player simply delayed things by a few minutes, it didn't alter the outcome in any way.

Treating everyone as all-in is the only solution because no other scenario would have occurred in a million years.

The servers were severely stressed by the action leading up to the big hand. When the 24,999,000,000 was dealt there was ~100K players online. Then everything exploded. Tables filled as fast as they were created. The cashier crashed. You would try to join a table and the thing would be full when it finally appeared. Then there was a large lag before a new empty table would be created.

Tables were lagging like crazy.

Then the whole hand stuff happened. Whatever....Confederate = idiot. They did right by the timeout guy imo.

After the hand was dealt the place looked like the aftermath of frat party. Rubbish and vomit (clearly Confederate's) everywhere. People passed out at empty tables. The seats where people left did not say open seat - they just had a blank avatar. I would assume a few people having sex in a closet or bathroom somewhere.

I think it actually goes to a more long term problem and that is as Stars keeps hitting 200K+ players are they gonna fix the infrastructure to handle the volume. There have been many lag issues the last few weeks. I think waitlists getting hung up have been a problem too.

LOL

over 1500 people on waitlist AFTER the hand was dealt

O RLY?

http://www.pokerstars.tv/movies/541/...onth-hand.html

BTW. I agree with Mike's solution, just not his logic.

The pot should have been spit because of the server problems--not because no one would ever fold.

Anyone arguing there were no server problems clearly was not playing at the time.

Lol. If the 2 people who folded there knew they were already winners in the milestone hand(as they did last night) and they were getting guaranteed table share, then those are the two worst folds in poker history IMO.

Also, remember Neon only had $7 in front of him at $1/$2 O8 in the 25billion hand. Luckily in the case of the 10 billionth milestone hand, the only way it cost those two clowns who did fold more prize money was if they happened to have a higher flush. If that had happened they would still be on tilt. But OMG, is that video unbelievable.

Nonsense. They're just creating a solid, tight image they'll exploit in future milestone hands. Especially with that many players watching. I'm sure their future opponents won't think twice about laying down middle sets to a min raise, even in a 5 figure freeroll.

5 stars.

Easily the POTD

I don't think that you can assume how someone would play their hand. The truth is that there was a problem with too many people on stars and I think that should be somehow covered in the pokercast. Treating the players all in or not is not the problem here, but the problem was the fact that the servers could not handle the stress.

Yes, any one who knows they are in the 25th billionth hand would never fold; but I guess that goes the same for saying that anyone who knew they were being dealth the 25th billionth hand would always post BB no matter the cost, and yet we see this not happening. If we start assuming that everyone would go all in when they are on a freeroll for scooping the 100k + tournament package, then pokerstars should also assume that confedrate posted his BB, no?

ORLY? Did you happen to watch any of the MS hands leading up to this? Play was atrocious. Short stacks folding preflop all over the place.

in before Bunner records an intro about 'waiting for the big blind'.

To late IMO

It's not good when you become predictable.

I sure as hell can't predict what PH is doing in your avatar.. Electric tooth brush?

nevermind. wasn't that far into this week's episode. PH porno music FTW. that guy is such a cartoon.

I think it would be mathematically correct, even with only $7, to fold 2222 in PLO in this instance.

I LOL'd so much a little bit of pee trickled out