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Server Time: 3/15/2010 8:27:27 AM PACIFIC |
 A little venting, and a question @ UB., Chad, 5. May 2003 10:19 | ||
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| As many of you know I have been a large proponent of UltimateBet.com, especially since the airing of the WPT event that UB sponsored. For almost the whole month of April the tables were loaded with fish, and I made a ton of money. (This article has no particular order of reasoning, I am simply spreading some happenings, and semi-venting.) I like UB and I want to keep liking them but it seems as if they are now trying their best to keep me from it. One thing that I am starting to really get pissed off about is the time it takes for them to send out checks! I am now at almost a month from the time I requested a check in early April, and after receiving an email stating that UB's bank had issued the check on the 23rd, I am still waiting here it is now, May 5th. What is so frustrating is that another check I had requested about a week later, that was supposedly sent a week later, has already reached me. You would think that maybe this check was lost in the mail, but I have learned through UB that it is not the case. You see this is the 3rd time in my dealings with UB that they have held up a check like this. I don't know what exactly happens but they seem to always hold up your first check request of any given month. They will email you saying when the check was issued, then when you start emailing them back wondering why the check hasn't arrived 10 days later, they usually come back with "The bank held up checks for a week so your check wasn't issued until the following week from the date stated in our email to you." Maybe this is my fault for not setting up a NetTeller account, but if a site is going to claim that all withdrawal requests will be received within 10-14 business days then that is what they should do. This 25-30 day layover is not right! Also I have noticed that the UB tourney shuffling system seems very "dog" friendly. I don't need a bunch of replies stating that "online poker is fair" and "you are just venting because you lost", that is not the case here. In fact I turned a 200 dollar deposit into over 4000 in April alone playing mainly 5-10. But I am a tourney lover, and have had and seen some unbelievable tourney hands in the UB Aruba SuperSatellites. For example I have been either the chip leader or in the top 5 going into the first break 3 out of the last SuperSatellites that they had, and all three times I lose to some very "questionable all in calls". I.E. There are approx. 30 players left with blinds at 150-300, I am in top 5 in MP with Aces wired (8000 chips), Guy with about 5000 in chips open raises for 600, I playing to not get drawn out on go all in, all fold, and the guy calls off the rest of his chips with 88's wired? Flop comes KJ8 and I lose to a set, and never recover. Saturday night I saw a guy call allin with 10's wired against an absolute rock who def had Kings or Aces, and flop brings the guy a 10 to win with a set. I know that things like this happen but I see it in UB's tourneys, especially their Aruba Supers all the time. I had a guy call me the other day all in and he was in like 3rd place with only 25 people left, he had a pair of pocket threes against my flopped set of 66's and he caught runner runner for a straight, using one of his 3's. I just am kinda wondering if maybe, just maybe, they are having a few "shills" win their Super's so as to build up the prize pool and pay them a little cheese on the side, at 109 per entry and usually between 100-180 people per Super, they could build themselves a nice little kitty if they "manipulated" a couple of Supers, let's say they "manipulated" 6 Supers at an average of 140 people per tourney that would be 140 x 6= 840 people x's 109 entry fee= $91,560 bucks! I am not saying that this is happening but you can see how this would help them with some extra money however they saw fit to use it. I mean who is going to supervise to see that every Aruba SuperSatellite winner is accounted for when the tourney starts in October anyway? Maybe it is just me, who knows, I mean sure I am tired of getting to the final table and not making it, but honest to God I see much more "longshots" hit in those tourneys then in their real money games. Sorry for being so scatter brained but occasionally I like to just kinda let you all know what I have been experiencing and see if any of you have experienced the same, when it comes to cashouts or card shuffling questions? GL 2 U ALL | ||
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| Re: A little venting, and a question @ UB., JLenart, 5. May 2003 11:15 | ||
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| Set up a net teller account. I've gotten payouts within 5 business days consistently. As to the bad flops, these things happen espescially online where people tend to play like idiots. Good Luck, John | ||
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| Customs and border problems..., stdioh, 5. May 2003 11:27 | ||
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| The border is really tightening up between Canada and the US right now, what with American hegemony and the resultant anti-americanism spreading around the world. As a result, it takes a long time for mail to cross the border now and UB cheques are sent from Canada. So what is probably the case is that the first cheque you ordered got flagged for random scrutiny and is taking time. This happened to my copy of Amarillo Slim's book with was sent to me about a month before I got it in parcel post. You'll ofen find mail with corners torn on it and flagged with international mail codes. Yup, they are allowed to snoop into any of your mail that comes across the border and with anything the governments of either country do, they have a backlog and these things take time. So I wouldn't be too quick to accuse UB of anything...it is most probably US Customs. | ||
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| Re: Customs and border problems..., Chad, 5. May 2003 12:12 | ||
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| The checks don't come from Canada! They are issued from a bank in NY. | ||
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| Re: Customs and border problems..., stdioh, 6. May 2003 08:11 | ||
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| If I am not mistaken (and I may be) UB has a Florida bank from which the cheques are draughted, but they are mailed out from Canada, so as to avoid concerns about internet gambling legality. | ||
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| Re: A little venting, and a question @ UB., Daniel Horowitz, 5. May 2003 13:18 | ||
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| Well actually if you cash out over 2000 (more than was deposited) then the check is fedexed to you. I have never had a problem with this. In fact it used to come from Brazil. Anyways their tourneys are not rigged and in fact there used to only be about 40-50 people in each satelleite with the prize worth over 6000 so they were effectively losing money by running them. Cheers Daniel | ||
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| Re: A little venting, and a question @ UB., Giocatore, 6. May 2003 04:07 | ||
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| Hey Chad. Very interesting post. I completely agree with you on your questioning of some of the play on UB, especially in tournaments. In fact, I myself used to play on UB quite often until some absolutely ridiculous play, coupled with management's poor customer service, led me to close my account and uninstall the UB software from my computer. Allow me to elaborate. After a little over a year of frequent play on UB, I decided to close my account after several sessions during which I encountered some absolutely absurd play. The "straw that broke the camel's back" was in a 5/10 HE game, I'm in middle position with 9-9. The guy before me raised and I made it 3 bets to which both blinds folded and the original raiser called. Flop came A-K-3 rainbow. He checked, I bet, he called. Turn was a rag, I don't remember exactly. He checked, I bet again, he called. River was a 10. He checked, I bet, he called. He had 8-10o and his 10s beat my wired 9s. How could he possibly call me down with such garbage? I remember that hand like it was yesterday, for it was at that moment that I realized that I had had enough of UB. I actually thought to myself that perhaps he either (a) knew what I was holding or (b) knew what the river would bring, though I know this sounds ludicrous. I then proceeded to e-mail UB management, cashing out the $1700 or so I had remaining in my account via Neteller and citing this and other examples of questionable albeit absurd play. I did get a personal e-mail reply from one of the managers expressing concern over my beliefs and telling me how I was a "valued" player. This happened in late January 2003. Now the story gets even stranger. I was waiting to sit in 10/20 game on Poker Stars and was scouting the table in the meantime. Incidentally, several of the players at that table were chatting about UB and some alleged "shady" incidents. I immediately joined in and as it turns out, one of the players at that 10/20 table used to be a UB host and remembered me when I told him my former UB screen name. We began e-mailing one another, and he told me that as a host, UB would ask him to sit at the 15/30 HE table in hopes of starting up a game. This was when UB first increased their table limits (remember when 10/20 was the highest HE game?). When this particular person began to win in these 15/30 games, UB told him he could not play in these 15/30 games anymore and made it so that he could not sit at these tables. Meanwhile, he told me about another host, I will only mention his screen name if you ask me to, was allowed to sit in up to 10 games at a time, regularly beat the 15/30 game but unlike the original host, was able to continue playing in the 15/30 game. Now the best part - As we were all chatting at that 10/20 table on Poker Stars, I received an e-mail from UB offering me a 20% deposit bonus up to $120 and increasing my purchase limits, actually, doubling them! This was in early March. Now wait a second here. I had closed my UB account in late January, had not received a single e-mail from them since, but all of a sudden, on a day when UB came up as a chat subject, I receive a kiss-up e-mail from them when my account is supposed to be closed and they're not supposed to be sending me any promotional e-mails because I had removed my address from their list? It really makes you wonder. I have never encountered such questionable customer service on any of the other sites that I frequent as I have on UB, all of which I enjoy and with whom I do not have any problems. There is no doubt that UB was monitoring that 10/20 game on Poker Stars for whatever reason, or maybe a UB host was participating in that particular game. Who knows? Either way that day in March definitely raised my eyebrows, and I know for sure that no matter how many deposit bonuses UB offers me or no matter no high they raise my purchase limits, I will never again play on their site. I can assure all of you who read this that it is 100% true. I have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing this story and I just spent about 20 minutes of my time this morning before work composing it because I enjoy this forum and the people who post here, and I don't want to see someone experience what I did. My purpose is not to convince you to avoid UB, just to inform you of what I encountered and hopefully make you aware of what can happen. If there is anyone else with a similar story, I encourage you to share it here, because as I said, as an avid online poker player, I have never experienced anything of the likes what I experienced on UB. Thank you for taking the time to read this and good luck in your games. | ||
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| Re: A little venting, and a question @ UB., Guru, 6. May 2003 08:15 | ||
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| The only thing that I can say, as I have no actual experience with UB, is that players tend to get looser and much more aggressive towards the end of a tourney, especially if they are short-stacked. They start looking at the blinds getting bigger and taking big chunks out of their stack and feel that they have to make a move with the first recognizable hand they see. It makes sense that it would happen to you when there are thirty or fewer people left. You notice that you didn't say it happened to you early in the tourney when people are concentrating more on survival than making a winning play to double-up. | ||
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| Re: A little venting, and a question @ UB., Guru, 6. May 2003 08:19 | ||
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| The only thing that I can say, as I have no actual experience with UB, is that players tend to get looser and much more aggressive towards the end of a tourney, especially if they are short-stacked. They start looking at the blinds getting bigger and taking big chunks out of their stack and feel that they have to make a move with the first recognizable hand they see. It makes sense that it would happen to you when there are thirty or fewer people left. You notice that you didn't say it happened to you early in the tourney when people are concentrating more on survival than making a winning play to double-up. | ||
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