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 Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2003 6:14 pm Post subject: gamemasteronline.com |
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The owner (GameMaster) is involved with a monthly casino tournament at Global-Player casino (global-player.com). To qualify for the final you needed to risk real money but the finals used free chips. Players started with $500 in free chips in the final and played a set number of hands. The winner was the person with the most money after the final hand.
I used to enter this tournament and I luckily qualified a lot of the time I entered. The trouble was that the GameMaster always had an unfair advantage when playing me and most other people when these tournaments first began (the format has changed since). The first ten or so tournament finals were against only the GameMaster (subsequently the finals were multiplayer) and usually the GameMaster got to bet last in the tournament final which was a huge advantage. It should be randomly chosen but the GameMaster didn't seem to have a clue about it and gave no explanations.
The final is usually decided on the final hand (the max bet is $200) and since he gets to bet last, he can do what's needed to have a chance of winning (e.g. double) whereas the opponent doesn't know what is needed to win and could bust out trying to get a better hand that might not have been needed. The advantage is huge and no explanation was given why the GameMaster usually bet last in the tournaments. Although I did win the first final, it didn't depend on the final hand because I got into an early lead and GameMaster lost most of his money attempting to catch up.
If this wasn't bad enough, I posted a very long message on his message board enquiring about that plus another incident that happened in the last tournament final I took part in. The incident was that I got kicked out and they continued without me before I managed to log back in. I was leading in the tournament at the time! He was quite sarcastic in his reply to my message and almost accused me of disconnecting on purpose. A few weeks later he deleted the whole thread on his board hoping nobody would notice. I noticed but didn't bother mentioning it.
Incidentally, I had to post my message twice. A few hours after the first time I posted that message I described above, he changed to a new forum and all the old messages were not converted to it so there was no trace of my message! In fairness, he did provide the link to the old forum on his site for a few days. He hadn't replied to my original message though, which was posted a few hours before the forum was changed.
I had to copy what I wrote and post it in the new forum. It seemed like he changed to the new forum early due to my post. He mentioned a precise date on the site when the new board would take effect but the new forum was in place a few days early.
I have copied the first few messages of the deleted thread below (from August 2002):
ME: | Quote: |
I was just now reading the tournament accounts from the Global-Player site and also on yours and there are a few discrepancies.
The one here says the rules state there is a 3 minute limit to make a move or to bet and the one at Global-Player says 5 minutes.
The fact is there isn't any limit stated in the rules! Also, it doesn't say it applies when you are disconnected. As I'm sure is obvious, I was trying hard to reconnect but the disconnection was so odd I had to reboot.
Another minor point about the write-up you wrote is that you said that people kept asking where I went when I was not making a move. Actually, hardly anyone said anything about it when I got disconnected. I was given the log file of the chat from Global-Player. You said something once and that was it. People starting talking about other things. The last thing the Global-Player people told me from the chat room (you weren't there as you'd left) was they'd do something about the situation but I never heard anything from them again. I have the log file still.
My ISP said it was an abnormal disconnection and told me that anyone with a broadband connection can nuke my connection with a ping flood. I was only on Dial up. The problem is that the chat room uses normal IRC and people could log in to the chat server to find my IP address from it. That is all that is needed for someone to disconnect me. Firewalls don't even help with ping floods.
It was odd that I was $100 ahead and had only just started up my computer and gone online for 15 minutes (I never usually get disconnected, anyway). The rules don't have a limit stated and if it was so important I don't see why a rule wasn't implemented with the old two player finals. I don't see the difference it makes that it's now multiplayer but that's not really the point.
As you probably know but never mentioned, you had a very big advantage in the first ten finals because you always got to play and bet last (so are able to double when necessary to give yourself a chance). People entering the tournament might have thought it would be fair but it wasn't really. This advantage helped you win at least one of the matches against me.
The rules are to be followed you say but the rules don't say how long you have to make a move. You have until a bar on the screen goes down but I wasn't even connected. It is apparently 5 minutes.
In the previous tournament we were waiting for about an hour and then they said that it had to be postponed due to technical problems! I suppose it's ok for them to delay things!
It was only the fourth round when I got disconnected. I was only going to bet $5 bets for a long time after I got into that lead because I like being a bit ahead and letting those behind try to catch up later (I had nearly 90% chance of getting that far in the lead so it wasn't much of a risk).
I remember when you played me in an earlier tournament and you got disconnected too for quite a few minutes and I had to wait for you! You probably won it too, but I can't remember!
I won't be bothering with the tournaments again now!
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GM:
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Sirius, have you ever heard the expression, "chill out"? I mean, here we are almost a month after the match and you're still pounding on it, but it cost you NOTHING to enter. It's FREE!!! Somehow you're beginning to think that you're entitled to win these events. Talk about an over-inflated ego.
It must really bother you to lose and even more so to lose to an "inferior" like me, eh? After all, I can only win by getting to bet last (not true, but I'll let you check all the replays) or by "nuking" your ISP connection. What a joke! First of all, I've beaten you plenty of times, so you don't scare me in that regard and I certainly do not know how to flood somebody with pings, even if I had the time between chatting and playing a match.
Every time you've lost, Sirius, you've had an excuse. Let's see, the first time you were drunk, and I forget the others, but this time you were going to win it, right? After all, you were ahead in Round 4 of 30, so the rest of us were just going to roll over and die.
I love the bit about how you did me a favor by waiting when my connection broke in a previous match, but you conveniently forget that it was a two-person match, so what else could you do but wait? And, if that did happen, I guarantee you I wasn't gone for 10 minutes like you were in July's match. But that's neither here nor there. Just to show everyone how truly over-inflated your ego is, you make the Grand Announcement:
"Although I've entered almost all of them so far, I won't be bothering with the tournaments again now!"
Well, Sirius, I suppose there's nothing for us to do except just stop holding them, now that you won't be competing.
Do you really think any of us care whether you compete or not? You're over 21, so do what you want to do.
The tournaments cost you nothing to enter and, because I won, the prize for July's match rolled over to August's match, so you didn't lose the opportunity to win that, yet you're still complaining. I am so glad that there's an ocean separating us, because it appears you're capable of letting something like this boil over and I'd hate to be a target of someone who can't deal with losing. One of the first things you said when you came back in was that there was a "conspiracy" against you. You have the Chat logs (what the hell for?), so check and see.
A conspiracy??? Puh-leeze! My bet is that you were trying some ill-conceived "strategy" and it blew up in your face.
So, Sirius, we'll try to get along without you and you can at least rest easy knowing that whoever wins the August match won't be "the best man", because you weren't there.
GM
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ME:
| Quote: |
I never said you were the one who pinged me offline (you would be the last person I would suspect of that). It is likely though that someone did. I don't know why you think I sound that angry but I don't think I am! I just think it hasn't been resolved but I didn't have time really to follow it up earlier and only just read these reports you wrote on the final.
You're wrong when you say it didn't cost anything to enter!! I could easily have lost $100 entering for that July Tournament (I redeposited another $50 after losing $50). I can't remember how much I deposited the previous time but by entering the tournament you obviously always risk losing money! I actually think I should get at least the $100 I risked after what happened in the final!
Please, someone make me understand why the rule was so necessary in the multiplayer finals but not in the old finals. The attitude with this rule that effectively disqualifed me seems to be that if there are more than two players in the finals then it doesn't matter if one gets disqualified but you can't disqualify one if it means the other wins by default! I honestly don't understand why the rule was necessary in the multiplayer final but not in the two player finals (more people waiting??)! Also, if the rule was so important why wasn't the actual time limit specified? I think the rule is a bit flawed if you can't even tell how long you have to bet (if you get disconnected you can't see the limit bar going down either).
You should not disqualify people for getting disconnected! I was trying to get back on as fast as I could. When I returned I was suprised no one was even talking to me for ages! You'd just carried on playing as if nothing had happened. I said it's a 'conspiracy' half-jokingly at the time! Mainly because everyone was silent when I returned.
I was offered the logs from the chat room and I didn't ask for them. It was at the end of the chat after you'd left and one of the Global-Player people there sent it to me. I probably should have emailed them again afterwards but they did say in the chat that they would do something about what happened.
Maybe I assumed wrongly that you always bet last but you always bet last when I played you. Are you saying that it was random?
Why do you think I got disconnected on purpose? I don't see how that would help me at all, so of course I didn't disconnect myself! If the rule (as you stated in the chatroom) was to get people to bet quickly, then I would have thought 5 minutes was a bit too long! The rule is very vague too and it isn't fair if someone doesn't even know the limit from the rules or whether it applies when you get disconnected.
Why do you think I make excuses for losing? It's mainly luck, anyway. I told everyone in the chat room I was drunk before that second tournament even started (I was even an hour late cos I got confused with the time zones). I was luckily ahead of you after the penultimate hand and you did your crafty double to win if I recall correctly and the dealer bust! The third time I played you I realised that you always bet last against me. Sorry if you didn't always bet last and it was random, I just assumed you did and you didn't say anything to the contrary when I mentioned it on the Casinomeister forum all those months ago!
You don't need to get annoyed because my post was mainly trying to get things fixed because there were problems with the way it was set up. Mainly, the rules weren't clear and the chat room made it easy to get the player's IP addresses which makes it possible to knock players offline (and disqualify them). You didn't actually have to be in the chat room to get the IP addresses, you just needed to connect to the IRC server.
I just managed to do it now with a bit of trouble (because I'm no real expert) and got this info about 'Pluto' who's always in the chat room (there are actually quite a few chatrooms on the server). It shows his IP address as 192.168.4.2
Pluto is ~pluto@192.168.4.2 * Pluto Operator
Pluto on @#R_11 @#R_8 @#R_29 @#R_32 @#R_1 @#BJ_1 @#BJ_9 @#R_39 @#BJ_10 @#BJ_17 @#BJ_11 @#BJ_37 @#BJ_30 @#BJ_20 @#BJ_14 @#BJ_22 @#BJ_8 @#BJ_13 @#BJ_21 @#BJ_23 @#BJ_7 @#BJ_2 @#BJ_4 @#BJ_5 @#BJ_12 @#BJ_3 @#BJ_32 @#lobby
Pluto using chat1.global-player.com
Pluto is an IRC Operator
Pluto has been idle 532hrs 4mins 16secs
Pluto End of /WHOIS list.
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There were a couple of other replies (no more from GM) that I didn't keep a record of and are lost forever. Someone else who had got to the final twice but hadn't bet last in either, agreed that betting last is a huge advantage but didn't think anyone tried booting me offline. He also said that GM didn't bet last in two or three of the finals. GM suggested (in his reply above) that I look at the replays accessible from the Global-Player software but the replays only showed the 1st and 10th final and GM bet last in both.
Someone could have been trying to sabotage the tournament. I haven't entered the tournament since this incident because nothing was resolved. The previous tournament (I was luckily a qualifier too) had to be delayed a day due to undisclosed technical problems (probably not related) and everyone waited around for an hour before it was postponed. I noticed there was a change of rules after my disconnection incident and the time limit was explicitly mentioned and increased to 10 minutes (it was apparently 5 minutes when I played, although not mentioned in the rules).
GM didn't answer if the betting order was random or if he chose it, but it seems a bit suspicious to me. I would think it would have been best to alternate it each month to remove suspicion. It's a moot point since the format changed. The multiplayer final still favours the person betting last but GM isn't usually in that position and it seems random. It may have been a mistake earlier that disadvantaged most of the earlier finalists or it could have been randomly chosen, but no explanation has been given.
GameMasterOnline seems biased in favour of advertisers (gives higher ratings to them) and doesn't seem very professional at times. My posts above were deleted for some unknown reason. I think GM was hasty in his initial reply and wanted to forget the whole thing. There was also a different thread on his message board about possible rigging of software (maybe about Global-Player) but nothing was revealed in the end. Someone named CORE posted it but the thread seemed to end prematurely which left me wondering if there was any intervention from GM.
Global-Player casino uses proprietary software which is more risky for players than licensed software (proprietary is more likely to be rigged). GameMasterOnline.com is almost a direct link to Global-Player casino at the moment. Global-Player has quite a good reputation in general but is blacklisted at FairCasinos.com (see appropriate thread for the reasons). |
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