Partypoker Pokerfest Events Plagued by Connection Issues

October 28th, 2014 | by Greg Shaun

Partypoker Pokerfest events cancelled 2014

Two Pokerfest events were cancelled by partypoker because of connectivity issues. The online site has been plagued by tournament problems this year. (Image: PartyPoker)

Two events in partypoker’s Pokerfest were cancelled on Sunday, as connectivity issues forced the company to eliminate some of the biggest events on the day’s schedule. Players had noticed issues on the site throughout the day, which eventually caused Events 38 and 39 of Pokerfest to be cancelled, along with all other tournaments over the course of a two-hour period.

According to partypoker, the issue was due to the Gibraltar ISP the company uses to host its poker games.

Unstable Networking

“We have taken the decision to cancel all tournaments which are due to start in the next two hours due to the Gibraltar ISP network issues we are currently experiencing,” partypoker said in a statement posted to the TwoPlusTwo.com poker forums.

“This cancellation will affect two Pokerfest events: Event 38 – $75,000 Gtd, and Event 39 – $150,000 Gtd, along with all other guaranteed and non-guaranteed tournaments in our schedule. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused this evening and would like to highlight that we are doing our utmost to ensure a stable network is resumed as soon as possible,” the statement continued.

Players found that there were issues remaining connected to the partypoker client throughout Sunday afternoon in the hours before the Pokerfest events were set to begin. At first, partypoker had hoped to fix the issue, but the problems persisted, eventually causing the tournaments to be cancelled, as it could not guarantee that players would be able to have uninterrupted access during the events.

It’s unclear if or when the tournaments will be made up, or if partypoker plans to compensate players in any other way for the cancelled tournaments.

Pokerfest Features Over $2.2 Million in Guarantees

The Pokerfest series began on October 19, and features a total of 76 events with a guaranteed prize pool of nearly $2.25 million. The final events will take place on November 2, including the Main Event, a $200 buy-in tournament with a $300,000 guaranteed prize pool. As with many online tournament festivals, most tournaments are offered at three different buy-in levels, with similar events at different stakes, usually starting just an hour apart. Buy-ins range from a low of $1 to high-roller events that cost up to $1,000 to play in.

Unfortunately for partypoker, the company is no stranger to having important tournaments cancelled at the last minute. The company ran one of the first major online tournament festivals in New Jersey this September, but the Garden State Super Series ran into issues on a Sunday afternoon when several tournaments had to be cancelled.

In that case, the issue appeared to be more about the system used to run those tournaments, rather than connectivity. Several events were cancelled, some of which were already in progress, with players who were still in the tournaments at the time they were suspended receiving refunds. Group Director of Poker Jeffrey Hoss blamed the issue on a tournament-specific bug that gave the site “no way to resume the tournaments.” That issue was later resolved with a patch to the software.

In that case, partypoker also took additional steps to placate players who were upset about the cancellations. The site added $50,000 in guaranteed prize money to tournaments the next weekend, though cancelled events were not rescheduled.