A savage "technological" bad beat?

Is this a "tough s--t" story or am I right in being upset?


I was in a poker tournament online last night. There were fifty-two contenders, it paid three seats, and I had reached fifth place. Out of NOWHERE, my connection to the software starts dropping every other hand. I go from a strong contender for the money to watching the "Connecting" box as my stake is blinded out of the game.


My first thought is "Sheesh, what a time for my connection to screw up." But my connection is fine! I have a cable modem, and a live audio stream going in the background that hasn't missed a packet for hours.


I check the log that the poker software keeps and see the following message over 16 times:


"Error in SimpleReader stream: Error reading from socket: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host. (10054=0x2746)"


I emailed the company and they insist it can't be their server, because a "server" problem would have happened to everyone. I agree, but I've done socket development in the past, and the message above tells me the problem was a socket problem (not a server problem) and WAS on the host.


I've played in eight tournaments on this site, and placed exactly one seat from the money five (yes, five of eight) times. These weren't single-table shootouts either, they were 30 to 100 person games. I've never lost due to connection problems before this, but the only times I have had connection problems was at the final table.


My question is, what does that mean when a socket is "forcibly" closed in such a borderline situation? At any other point in the tournament, I wouldn't have even bothered to complain or check the log. To me, the word "forcibly" and the fact that only one connection was affected suggests human intervention. Am I just steaming because of the savage "technological bad beat" I took? How would you respond in the same situation? I've played hundreds of hours of online poker and never had anything like that happen.


Incidentally, their customer service was very congenial in dealing with my complaint, and if I finally decide I'm not concerned about losing out on another couple hundred bucks due to software or connection problems, I will go back and play in a heartbeat.

I don't know anything about socket programming, but keep us updated on what you find out eventually!


- Tony

Unfortunately, I'll probably never know for sure. I DO know that people won't get any sympathy from me with THEIR bad beat stories anymore, though. /images/smile.gif

I also play Paradise using a cable modem connection and have experienced these "untimely" connection problems (once in a limit game where I hit quads on the river with 5 other players in but was disconnected and could not bet). The connection problems seem to come in spurts with no apparent rhyme or reason. So far I have chalked up the ones that have come at very inopportune times as mere coinky dink mostly because as yet I'm unable to see a pattern to them (such as being in a game with the same player when getting disconnected more than once). When I played IRC poker I know of hackers who knew enough about IRC channels to flood a player at an opportune moment and take over their account or block them from acting but I'm not aware of this occurring in any real money games. Does anybody know differently?

It does sound like foul play.

The internet connection was being disconnected by someone.Although it looks like it was coming from the poker sites server,it could be that it was being sent by someone else and masquerading

as the site.It would take a determined and patient hacker to do this.It's easier for the poker site.The company says a "server" problem would have happened to everyone.That's only true

if it's some kind of general failure,not foul play

from the company or from a third party.

I am playing in a satellite right now and having the exact same problem...my connection is fine to everyone and everything else (twoplustwo.com is fine) pings are are normal but im getting disconnected and reconnected to pokerstars. I'm still playing but im afraid to bet anything now because of the all-in limit (first time i got disconnected i had just flopped a set of 7's in the big blind and there was all kinds of action to be had...just now i had AJs in the small blind and raised the pot and before the software on my side even registered the raise I found myself disconnected...waited...waited...waited...came back and of course the software had receieved my raise but my hand was folded. ). Now here is what is interesting : I have a cable modem but after the first connection problems i disconnected my ethernet connection and then dialed into AOL. Same fishy stuff. Everything else was fine. But my connection to pokerstars disconnecting at every possible convenient (for someone else) moment. I'm not a computer expert, so if anyone else can explain, that would be cool. Just checked...i went from chip leader to 4th place out of 5. Tourney still going. Wish me luck guys.

finished 4th...good for $135

Interesting... When did your disconnects start happening? Was it before the final table?

Yes they had been going on for a while actually.

Let me guess, was this True Poker? The same thing happened to me in a $90 buy-in event. I finished 1 out of the money.


For this reason I am staying away from online tournaments. I have a cable modem as well and I am constantly losing my connection to True Poker.