UB playing conditions

[yocalif]

I am concerned about UB playing conditions.
I have real money accounts at the 3 largest poker sites.
My favorite is UB, but the conditions are for playing are getting worse.

I mainly play 3-6 and 2-4 some 5-10. It is getting hard even during best playing hours 3pm-2am EST to find ideal table conditions. Example:
3-6, only during peak hours 7-11pm EST will you find on avg. more than 2-3 full tables. Usually 1 may have fair conditions. During the wee hours 4am+ 1 full table is hard to find.

*Note on Fridays, Saturdays, things are better, but even these normally peak days are slipping a bit.

ADD the server problesm. UB says it is because of growth, I don't see any growth, June and July it was growing, and after the servers were changed in early June speed was great on UB. Now there are fewer players and the servers are lagging bad. What is worse, is I might be in the only 3-6 game, and due to server problems all the players start dropping, killing the only 3-6 game.

I have been a loyal UB player, but now I have resorted to playing a game at PP and keeping the UB table manager open waiting for ideal conditions. I'm building a bankroll at PP, until I increase the BR to a decent level I can't take full advantage of the excellent playing conditions at limits 3-6 and above.

Some might ask why am I staying at UB? I like UB, I like the support staff, I get great responses from support and Emma has always been helpful and response.

Anyway, any other UB fans out there might want to send an email to UB. UB needs more players, and needs to solve the server issues.

I was in a hand as I typed this 3-6 with JJ UTG+2 I raise preflop, and while the hand was being dealt 3 players drop, I'm left with 5 players, 2 more players drop, the lag is so awful it took over 1 min. to display a call to my bet. I finally drop connection. I'm on a fast DSL connection and everything is fine on my end.

[twistedbeats]

it's getting absurd. they should have fixed the problem by now. i hope the site doesn't lose too many players

[BillE]

you'd have to be insane to even think about playing a tourney there during evening hours..

[MrDannimal]

*shrug* I don't have any stats on sales, but with Hellmuth's book coming out and saying "UltimateBet.com" about 100 times in it, I wonder if there's been a surge in new accounts/players of late.

I work in IT, and I know all too well about load spikes and the problems they can cause, and how you can try to fix it in code but more often need to buy new hardware (which takes more then a few days to get up and going in the mix normally), so I'll hang with.

That said, it stinks.

[Cosimo]

I also prefer playing at UB, and I'm getting really pissed at the lag. The fish leave, and go play elsewhere. With new players arriving daily, every day with bad playing conditions drives more fish away, and thereby more of my potential profit.

I work on MMORPGs by day, and as part of that industry I've got experience (as player and as dev) with what happens when more players show up than what you expected. Long story short: my guess is that they have an architecture problem, not just a lack of bandwidth or hardware. Their upstream provider could be having problems, but that's very rare, and for a commercial project like an online casino, I'd expect that they'd multi-host to avoid the risk of single-sourcing their connect. If it was just hardware, I would hope they would have it solved after the first couple of days!

Personally, I don't think it's the load. There were more players on back in July, and nowhere near the problems. Which makes me think it's a software problem. But oh well, all we can do is speculate; it doesn't really matter what the problem is, only how long it goes on.

-cos

[TobDog]

I was one of the early UB members too, and noticed compared to other sites I play at that the games tend to be tighter than other sites, maybe it's the people I end up at the table with but has anyone noticed that the 1-2 level at UB is way tighter thatn comparitively to PArty and PAradise? But I do enjoy more game selection now than before the WPT or whatever has increased the popularity of the site, unfortunately, often all the games are full.

[pokerfunnMyAss]

This is correct. There were more players in July, so capacity is not the issue. Perhaps hardware? I'm tired of it, and it seems like it is the same growing pains that we have to endure still at PartyPoker. I have found myself playing at Paradise again, and I swore i would never go back. When I want a game and both of these sites are down or crawling, then I open the Paradise client and before I know it, I am playing. UB lost my business for the night, and I see other players that are jumping also. Paradise may be number 4, but it sure has the best performance.

[bernie]

Ive been on UB since before they had cash games. That's quite awhile. And i'm fed up with the site.

I've also liked their support staff. They've always been good to me. EXCEPT for the BS reply when inquiring about the delays and stalls. Their reply:

"All of our systems are ready and in working order. Please make sure that you
are using the correct username and/or password. If there is a specific error
message please let us know as soon as possible."

Hey here's an idea...how about watching a game and watching it stall. watch how everyone leaves and the games break down. watch how the games become very tight as everyone is fearful of getting stuck in the delay not wanting to put money in on their normal crap hands since it may take 10 mins to complete play of the hand.

UB has had the delay problem since i've been there. And that includes before the cash games. They have never fixed the problem. Now it seems to be compounded. Of course they used to blame it on user connections.

I have recommended this site many times in the past. Not anymore. The only reason i've stayed this long is because of the mini-screen feature. (Ive also noticed that using full table mode delays more than mini-screen)

But I've about had it.

So I'll ask some others...

Does partypoker have this problem at all? (serious question)
I dont remember this happening, ever at paradise. But when i see 8+ thousand players on party compared to 2000 on UB. 1/2 of which are being bumped off so that cant even get a 2-4 game started, I'm thinking of jumping ship.

Any info on party, and how their software runs, (delay-wise) would be appreciated.

b

[pufferfish]

Hey bernie,

Any info on party, and how their software runs, (delay-wise) would be appreciated.

I don’t have that much experience on Party. I’m playing there right now though and it seems fine with over 8K players.

Come over and play with us! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

TC,
pf

[Inthacup]

Does partypoker have this problem at all? (serious question)
I dont remember this happening, ever at paradise. But when i see 8+ thousand players on party compared to 2000 on UB. 1/2 of which are being bumped off so that cant even get a 2-4 game started, I'm thinking of jumping ship.


For the most part, Party has already gone through their growing pains. I haven't encountered any disconnection problems with them recently. The game play is pretty fast. It's not uncommon to get 60+ hands out an hour at a full table.

They have delays on the lobby menu, and when it says 10 players, 3 waiting, this isn't always the case. If you can look past this, you should have no problems.

Cup