I'm fairly certain this is what is happening. Google dug this up from earlier this year:
[ QUOTE ]
Dear XXXXXXX,
You are probably aware that PartyPoker.com experienced network problems recently (February 9th and 10th) that had caused disruptions in play.
We experienced a DOS (Denial Of Service) attack. A DOS attack is designed to bring a network down by flooding it with useless traffic. It is performed by sending extremely large volumes of requests over a network, or Internet resulting in an obvious slowdown of the performance of the attacked server(s).
Although the DOS attack slowed down / brought down the site a few times, it did not in any way affect the integrity of the games or the information stored on our databases.
We are working hard to fend off these attacks. Our sophisticated network infrastructure had warded of many DOS attacks in the past without any problems, but the recent attacks were elaborate.
We apologize for the inconvenience that the down time may have caused to you. We have received a large amount of emails and messages from our customers in the last 2 days and our customer care team is currently backlogged. You may therefore have to wait for a couple of days for a response if you have sent us an email.
We have refunded all the games and tournaments that were cancelled because of the network disturbances. If you were involved in any tournament that was cancelled, you will find a confirmation email of the refund in your email box.
If you have any further queries apart from the ones you have already sent, please send us an email at info@PartyPoker.com.
Sincerely,
Customer Care Team
www.PartyPoker.com
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