Blackjack.com now open for business

I'm done with this lame joint...

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This site is a f'kin joke

 

Be glad you can't get in. They're dealing from the same sort of deck as Bet21.
And I've sent a number of PM's their way and gotten no response at all.

 

A WORD OF WARNING ABOUT BLACKJACK.COM!!!! This is the worst website i've ever dealt with. They're obviously planning on keeping the money i deposited and the money i won. They suck so badly. I guess there's nothing i can do to get my money out of them except contact them daily and spam them with e-mails although i expect they have blocked my e-mails which would explain why they never answer them. They used to reply to about 50% of my e-mails but now i don't get any replies. After playing on this site i haven't and won't ever play blackjack online again. I mean what's the point as the odds are against us winning anyway they don't need to make it worse by keeping are money when we do win. :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame: :flame:

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?p=63792

 

Wow. First posting here, and firing both barrels.

You actually sent them money? They're still a very unproven entity by standards on this forum.
Good luck with your quest, and keep us posted.

 

Let's see if anyone really is listening. This is going to sound bitchy, and maybe it is although one can't complain too much about a site which offers freerolls on an almost daily basis.

1. You'd better address the payout problem (noted above) ASAP. If you're thinking of making your site a viable entity, nothing will kill it quicker than the perception that players cannot cash out.

2. The player sorting for tournaments SUX. I have gotten the same opponent in the last 6 consecutive freerolls. With entries ranging from 25 to 37, the odds of that happening in a truly random shuffle are astronomical.

3. Why on earth does the site not only allow absent players to complete a match, but also plays out their hands for them? I've seen obviously absent opponents hit out hands and even double down. WTF is that????

4. A couple of weeks ago, a freeroll froze in the middle of the round of 4. No comments were available about the resolution given to the remaining players. And it happened again in yesterday's event! Not only is there a glitch in the software that obviously must be repaired but you need to address whatever resolution was determined.

5. A guaranteed tournament should mean just that! I played in a guaranteed $250 prize fund event that paid 8 places - yet only had 5 entries. Was the entire $250 divided among those who played? NO. The money for the non-existent bottom 3 players merely disappeared, meaning that the guarantee was not honored. And that's just one of numerous examples.

That's all for now. Problems inherent in the software have been pointed out here and in private messages, but nothing has been done about any of them. WAKE UP. Learn from the recent mistakes of others - communication is vital if you hope to succeed with your site.

 

Once again this site froze solid in the middle of a tournament. This time, it was Deb who was left waiting.
In her conversation with customer support, it was blamed on the probable disconnection of another player.
They also hinted strongly that she should read the disconnection policy. WTF??? :laugh:

 

Withdraws

from support@blackjack.com

"Dear Artur Szydlowski,

Perlake Corporation S.A has sent 200.00 USD to you, and is currently in your NETELLER account.

Thank You"

And cash is on acc. So they made it finally. lol

 

Hi Leftnut, and thanks for the feedback. In response to your points above:

1. I agree - we are trying to figure out what that particular problem is. I am not aware of a payout issue but am tracking it down.
2. Agreed and on the list to be fixed.
3. We took a decision to allow auto playing (optimal strategy) to keep a tournament going when players are disconnected. We will be changing the behaviour of this in a future release.
4. Very high on the list!
5. Right now the only way I could produce that behaviour would be to set the minimum player level higher which I am reluctant to do. Also on the list!

I can only apologise for these software issues - I am as frustrated at you with them. On the other hand I am trying to be as generous as possible with freerolls and guarantees and I hope this makes up for them.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Thank you for responding. However, the real response that needs to be exhibited is in making at least some of the obvious site operational changes necessary.

By the way, your "optimal strategy" for absent players is somewhat suspect.
I had an absent player double 5-4 vs. Q against me today, with no strategic reason for it. :laugh:

 

Drslyr

Leftnut is correct in stating the absent player can beat you. I lost a round to an absent player that doubled down on hand 5 and took me out. Absent players if allowed to play should only be allowed to have the hand they are dealt! None of this crap where the game takes over and takes a double down for the win! :flame:

 

Must be something new...

I know about a year or so ago an absent players account didn't play DD's, Splits, Surendars on it's own. If they are allowing that now something is very wrong with that system.

Are you sure the player was not there? I'd bet they were and just not chating. It they do allow the system to play for an absent player that could be a big advantage for BOT's to play for the house and rip of the players. Not saying that happend, but I sure wouldn't play there if what you are saying is correct.

 

Drslyr

Yes I am positive the player was not there! How? Well the player is a friend of mine who was unable to play at the time. Small world! So there is no doubt the game played it and hit a double down.

 

Introduction, please

First of all, let me introduce everyone to my lifelong good friend, Bruce - a.k.a. DRSLYR. He was with us at the Palms for the taping of Deb's UBT show and has taken up the game himself. And I'm telling you - watch out for this guy. He picked up the basics even faster than I did and he has no fear.

As for his opponent in the match in question - it was Deb! She was at work at the time and not playing at all. He is right, this crap of playing out absentee players is for the birds. I understand why they might want to stall things for a while in case of disconnection, but if a player has not responded in ANY way throughout the match, then it should be forfeited at the end.

Rick, you're right, there's a lot of things wrong with their system.

 

No way I'd ever play there again...

With a system like that, it is proven the games can be programed certain ways. Who is to say they don't have their own players in the tournaments?

I'm not saying they do, but it is a possiblity. I damn sure wouldn't feel comfortable playing there ever again with those rules.

 

Right now, it's all freerolls and small fee BJT's, so there's no risk of personal $$$.
You win some in freerolls, then simply use that for the $$$ BJT's.
I wouldn't invest my own cash there, either - especially with the myriad of ongoing problems that have not been addressed.

Sorry, blackjack.com - despite your attention to our posts here, we've still seen no actual changes in the website's operational difficulties nor procedural oddities - like the absent player policy.

 

You aren't confusing blackjack.com with blackjack21.com, are you? The system there deals with absentees like this -

• The colour of the button by each player's name indicates whether or not that player is connected.
• The system will stand on any bustable hand, otherwise hit. (At least, I think that's the only rule being followed.)
• After two thirds of the rounds, absentees are ejected from the game.

The only problem I have with this arrangement, is that the ejections are done manually by the 'tournament director', not automatically by the system. This means you can't be certain precisely which round it will happen in, and so you can't predict who will be acting first on the final round.

I don't know how that system deals with players who are connected, but not interacting with the system (e.g., fallen asleep ), or with intermittent loss of connection. I have a terrible feeling that if you happen to lose your connection at the point where the tournament director is checking the tables for absentees, you might get thrown out, even though you've been playing up to that point!

I'm not sure your concern about bots is altogether justified. The only difference I can see, with the system playing out hands, is that you can't treat an absence of chat as an indication that a player might be a bot (since they might be an absentee). At UBT, I used to regularly play with chat disabled. At Global Player, I didn't always open up the chat application. How was anyone to know whether I was real, or a bot?

Actually, a thought has just struck me - At blackjack.com do absent players still bet the minimum on every hand? That would be a pretty useless strategy for a bot!

If absent players don't just bet the minimum, but actively follow tournament betting strategies, that would be far more significant than how they play the hands they are dealt.


I think the following are, in order of importance, the key rules which any online BJT ought to follow for the handling of absent players -

1. Eject them from the game automatically at a predictable point. (such as UBT's after five consecutive rounds of no interaction.)
2. Place minimum bets for them.
3. Play their hands using a simple stratgey that takes no account of other players' hands. (This could be 'stand on everything', Basic Strategy, or something in between.)

 

Absent players do bet the minimum. I have put all of the comments about this into the dev mill - we will have a discussion internally about it and figure out how we go forward. I am also planning to remove absent players from freerolls soon.

I know that there is some frustration that things dont happen as fast as we would all like - but believe me I am as frustrated as all of you! We are working on the many issues that have been reported and progress is being showed on all fronts. Many thanks for all of your comments, feedback and support.

 

I have now reviewed last night's tournament. You lost to izvra in Round 3. The only double in that game by izvra was on an 11 against a 2 up card. And at the time of the tournametn izvra was online. You could tell that by the fact he was not betting minimum the whole time. Do I have the wrong tournament?

Our absent player strategy is clearly stated in the rules (see Disconnection Policy in the footer of the site):

If a Player is disconnected during a multiplayer game or match or he fails to indicate an action in good time before the expiry of a time limit, the software will take over the player's gameplay and continue to bet the minimum bet using Blackjack.com official basic strategy until one of the following occurs.


In Multiplayer against the house
- The Player logs back in
- The current hand is finished
In Matchplay or Tournamant play
- The outcome of the game or match is decided
- The player runs out of chips
- The player logs back in

 

Colin - Yes, the player bets minimum when absent. The optimal strategy in such a case is to bet a Martingale type series until creating a lead, then flat-bet the minimum until the game's end. Obviously this will cause a loss sooner or later when you are unfortunate enough to lose every hand. You can also lose when the site decides to give the absentee a split or DD (or both) on the final hand, similar to what happened to DRSLYR.

Blackjack.com - You have the right tournament for DRSLYR, but the wrong match. He was talking about a previous match with Angelrun5. By the way, the software doesn't only play out a hand if a player is absent. I've had it play out my hand on numerous occasions when I was present and attempting to play (a phenomenon that is random and thankfully quite infrequent). If this is somehow connected to a player's failure to act within the time limit just once, that's not at all fair because the time limits given are hideously short, especially when calculating and trying to create a complicated bet amount with the only frustratingly inefficient method available. And I will say again that the auto-generated strategy is pretty awful.

My second biggest frustration with the site is the worthless shuffle of player assignments within the brackets. I'll rarely play the non-freeroll events solely due to this. For example, I "paid" to enter 3 consecutive $10/entry tournaments. In each one, there were only 9 or 10 players, meaning that 1 or 2 (respectively) first-round matches were needed to whittle the field down to the necessary 8. I never got a bye, some got one every time. My numbers may be slightly off here, but the point is still valid - this is truly unfair.

In my mind, the three biggest problems in need of immediate fixing are:
1. The treatment of absent players
2. The non-random player shuffle
3. If you get timed-out while trying to create a bet, the penalty is being unable to see your opponent's bet at all.

 

I've had this occur on more than a few occasions...and ALWAYS on the first hand of a game(never the 1st game though).