blackjack21 newbie questions

Discussion in 'Blackjack Events (Online Casinos)' started by London Colin, May 10, 2007.

  1. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    I finally got round to opening an account at bj21 a few days ago. I tried a play-money game on the day I opened the account, but today I deposited some funds and played a few games for real.

    I quite like it so far (mainly because I've been winning, so that won't last:) ).

    I can't find anywhere that shows the amount of the pending signup bonus and the 'loyalty points' accrued/required to release the bonus. (I'm using the Flash version, rather than the download.) Am I missing something obvious?

    Is anyone using the download version? One minor issue I have with the Flash version is that the text is a bit small; I find myself pressing my nose up against the screen to read the bets and BRs. :) Is the download version better in this regard?
     
  2. bjmace

    bjmace Member

    will leave this one for one of the regulars

    Am sure you will get a host of replys to this in short at the moment you don't get it and has lead to a lot of posts here as you will find out over to everyone else!
    but this post may wet your appetite

    http://www.blackjacktournaments.com/bb/showthread.php?t=3645
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2007
  3. Reachy

    Reachy New Member

    Rwg

    bjmace - I must admit I'm completely perplexed by your post. I suspect that the insertion of a punctuation mark here and there would make it legible, but for the life of me I can't figure out where to put them!

    :)

    Cheers

    Reachy
     
  4. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    Erm, ...

    Blackjack21, not Bet21. The 'newbie' part of the title of my post was meant to imply 'new to blackjack21'. I am all too familiar with the various issues surrounding Bet21/UB. :(
     
  5. bjmace

    bjmace Member

    oops

    My mistake any mention of unpaid bonuses seems to trigger thoughts of a certain site lol!
     
  6. pergo56

    pergo56 Member

    Blackjack21 newbie

    Colin,


    I started playing at Blackjack21 in July 2006. Bonuses were not offered at that time neither was a reload Bonus. I did keep a detailed record of over 1100 games that I played there, I also kept track of the Victory and Loyalty Points won. Last month I found that all but 90 of my victory Points in the game lobby disappeared. My Loyalty Points are in limbo and are useless at this time,:( other than that I have enjoyed playing at the site.:)

    DRP
     
  7. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    No problem, bjmace. I quite understand. :)

    Thanks DRP. Having looked back through some of Bear's posts here, it looks like the whole 'Loyalty Points' / bonus thing might still be a work in progress. Certainly the web site is full of inconsitencies and omissions relating to this subject. I have to wonder if Loyalty Points are actually being earned at all at this stage. :confused:

    I haven't contacted Blackjack21. As I've arrived fairly late to this party, I thought I'd enquire what people have already discovered. Also, maybe Bear could comment here.

    FWIW, the issues that I've encountered so far are -
    1. Is the signup bonus 15% or 10%? Main page says 10%. Promotions page says 15%.
    2. The signup bonus is 'up to an amazing $100', but the system wouldn't let me deposit more than $550, for some reason. That limits it to an amazing $82.50 (assuming 15%, not 10%).
    3. There's no indication of the rate at which loyalty points are earned. I would guess that it's 1 per $ of entry fee, but since there is no display of the current total or of the target total to release the bonus, this is just speculation on my part. I did find the following on the site - "Players accumulate Loyalty Points by playing in real money single table tournament or enter a real money multitable tournament. You will be required to accumulate XXX Loyalty Points for every $1 of bonus before the bonus will be credited to your account. For more information, see the page about Points Program." - I guess someone planned to replace the XXX with an actual figure at some point! Similarly, the 'page about Points Program' has yet to be written, as far as I can see.
    4. The promotions page invites us 'To know more about Victory Points click here'. Alas, there is no link there on which to click.

    DRP, I just noticed you said you kept track of Loyalty Points. How? Did you find a statement of the rate at which they are earned?

    Could your missing Victory Points have been used as an entry fee, or did they just vanish for no apparent reason?

    To balance all this negativity, I should mention one excellent feature which I stumbled upon. In the history section you can (once you've found it:) ) review the detailed, play-by-play history of a table.

    Are all 1100+ of your games still available to you in the history, or does it get purged every so often?
     
  8. pergo56

    pergo56 Member

    Blackjack21 enlightenment!

    Colin,

    I used Qualtro Pro (Excel) to kept track of my game records. It included information on Fees, Wins, Losses, players, Victory and Loyalty Points.

    If my memory serves me right, Blackjack21 stated on their site that, for every real money $10.00 game played (won or lost) you would earn 1 Loyalty Point. The points could then be used to towards merchandise listed at their site at that time. The Victory and Loyalty Points were listed in your game history along with your amount won. I believe the Victory and Loyalty Points were also on the My Money Page. I did looked over the site again but couldn’t find any reference to the earned Loyalty Points. I’m afraid those are gone to.

    As for my Victory points, I didn’t use them they just disappeared.

    Game history records are posted on a monthly basis and a new record then started. So keeping your own play record is a good idea. On occasion I have saved a detailed game to disk for reviewing later. Certainly a much better history record than Bet21.

    It would be nice to hear from bear on the subject of the missing Points.

    Regards,
    DRP
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2007
  9. Reachy

    Reachy New Member

    Vp

    I just checked and I haven't played at BJ21 for about 8 months but I still have all my victory points and $8 :D Not enough to play a game without reloading though.

    Cheers

    Reachy
     
  10. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    That tallies with my assumption ($1 of fee = 1 point). That's the way victory points seem to work for the 'mano a mano' games. (Except of course you have to win in order to earn those, not merely take part. :) )

    Thay are not there now though. Just the victory points in the lobby. Unless there's additional information proovided by the download version?

    I've just been chatting with someone while playing. Apparently I'm correct that it's all still being set up. A conversation with their customer services might be needed to get them to manually sort out anything the automated system can't handle yet.
     
  11. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    A bizarre experience

    I just played a 'mano a mano' game in which some kind of glitch meant that neither I nor my opponent could see my details; my BR and bet size were completely invisible to both of us, though the cards could be seen OK.

    In theory I should have had a big advantage from this situation, but I spoilt that slightly by spending the first two or three rounds in a total panic, trying to work out just what was going on. I lost track of my BR and was guesstimating it to within three or four hundred from there on, once I'd regained my composure.

    On the last hand, I believed I was a few hundred ahead but things had become very confused in my mind. (Even more so than usual.) I bet 900 and my opponent followed with the max 1000. Opponent got a BJ, and I was now totally unsure if I could win with my single 900 bet, so I elected to DD on my total of 14 against a dealer 5. The BJ gods smiled on me. I made 20, dealer made 19.

    Having now checked the table history, it turns out I went into the last round 798 ahead and didn't need to DD. Had I kept a calmer head at the start I might have known that.

    The final BRs were -
    me: 5098
    opp:4000

    So if I'd stood on my 14 and won the hand I'd have finished on 4198.

    Has anyone come across this behaviour before? Certainly adds a new twist; every bet a secret one! :D
     
  12. marichal

    marichal Member

    have experienced that in tourney play a couple of times, on the site. not in mano a mano situation. sounds like ebt style play on every hand.

    how is old london town treating you these days, my friend?
     
  13. bear

    bear New Member

    BlackJack21: Loyalty Points Program for the summer

    Hey Gang,

    Bear here... hoping all is well with everyone! And may the eyes about your faces see the tiny sparkle of aces. Wow, that was cheesy! Forgive me.... was just trying to wish everyone good luck! :D

    That 'Good luck' being said.... We are informing you of a plan we have for the summer based on these previous posts. Before I explain.... you should know the "Loyalty Point Program" is still under development, and no loyalty points have been distributed to anyone.

    However, in the meantime and for the summer only.... We will run a program, a loyal "Points Program," for the players at BlackJack 21. Here is the gist:

    Play 50 games (within a calendar month) and receive a 20% Rake back Bonus
    Play 100 games (within a calendar month) and receive a 40% Rake back Bonus

    Further details can be found in the promotions section at Blackjack21.com.

    Thanks for your patience with our small shop, but we are trying to implement some incentive programs for you guys... and the future does look bright on that front. We are close to a partnership that will create additional deposit methods for you as well. So, please hold tight as we improve our product offering.... We hope you enjoy along the way!

    Pergo, please contact Customer Service regarding your Victory Points.... We will redeem any points that you may have lost.... they should never disappear so please contact CS to resolve.

    We hope this program will help to kickstart some of your play at BlackJack 21. We anticipate lots of summer fun, and we hope that includes you.

    Thanks for joining us!

    Cheers,

    Bear
     
  14. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    Memoirs of an Invisible Man

    It's certainly something to watch out for then. After it was all over I felt a bit guilty about not having shown much sympathy towards my opponent's predicament. Clearly she had by far the worse end of the deal.

    London is treating me as well as ever.;) I occasionally toy with the idea of moving back up north, but then I would have to change my user name and avatar. :D
     
  15. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    Could you clarify a few things, Bear

    So will you be backdating the loyalty points when you eventually award them? The web site states that the signup/reload bonus system is in place now. If the games people have played so far don't count then that really is inviting comparisons with Bet21! :eek:
    Does that mean 20%/40% of the rake taken on games gets refunded?
     
  16. bear

    bear New Member

    I hope this helps...

    Hi All,

    First of all, let me state again for those that don't know.... Blackjack 21 is a quaint and comfortable site for enjoying the fun of blackjack tournaments. We are a young, small company trying to develop a great environment for you, the players. We are solely focused on blackjack tournament competition, and no other casino games.

    Some of our programs are still in development, some of our programs are difficult to implement due to software challenges.... but we are working hard everyday to make things better for you.

    Being small presents both a good side and down side. The down side is it takes us longer to develop some programs for we lack the resources of a more established company. The Good side is we are dedicated to the players like no other site, and are always available to you. When you post we respond, when you call we answer, and answer with the best explanations we can give. If we don’t know the answers then we will tell you we don’t know the answers but will do our best to find out. We try to cater to you the best we can….

    That being said, the points program we are offering you for this summer is from May to August. We will be handling this manually so we can offer you something based on your post. Any games played from the first of May will count toward your bonus.

    Until our other programs, such as the Loyalty Points program, are complete, no loyalty points are earned…. Nor will they be backdated. You will know when you begin earning points, and will not have to tally those points yourself. This is the idea behind developing our software.

    Our signup & reload bonus are always available. Contact customer service for questions on this.

    I hope this helps …. If not, let me know and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. Until the next, I’ll be wishing you all good luck!

    Buena Suerte,

    Bear
     
  17. London Colin

    London Colin Top Member

    Thanks Bear

    I hope my comments haven't come across as overly critical. I'm certainly a fan of the tournaments you are providing and the work you are doing.

    My only concern is that the web site is making statements as if they were current, when in fact it turns out they relate to future plans. Why not have a 'Coming Soon...' page for such things?

    As it is, if I were not a member of this forum with access to the generally positive feedback and to your own helpful contributions, then I could easily have been put off by the various discrepencies on the site. It's a bit of a leap of faith, depositing money online. These small details may put people off making that leap.

    To clarify things a litlle, when I spoke of backdating loyalty points, what I meant was that (according to the web site) loyalty points are the mechanism by which one earns the signup bonus, which implies that no points equals no bonus. From what you've said, and from what another player told me in the chat, it would appear that I can simply contact customer services and ask them nicely for a bonus. :) However, it's not clear to me what the minimum amount of play might be (if any) prior to being eligible for the signup bonus and then subsequently before being able to make withdrawals. But I'm sure customer services can provide that information.

    Thanks again for keeping us informed.
     
  18. bear

    bear New Member

    Hi Colin,

    First of all, your feedback is valuable to us.... whether critical or not, positive or negative... We take into consideration all comments made from you and others at this forum. So, thank you for your insight.

    The following is found in the 'Cash Out' or 'Cashier' tab on the site.

    "All deposits require a 1 time rollover prior to a withdrawal. Also all sign-ups and reactivation bonuses and credited transfer fees are subject to the player placing the initial deposit, credited fees, and bonus in action at least five times. Amounts above this sum can be withdrawn at any time. All payout requests made before meeting the required level of action will result in forfeiture of all bonuses and credited fees."

    If this is unclear, please let us know. Thanks!

    Bear
     

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