Is this reasonable? (topic: Stars refund policy)

[Che]

Am I being a jerk or is this worth pointing out?

----Original Message-----
From: PokerStars Support [mailto:support@pokerstars.com]
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 10:17 PM
Subject: PokerStars Tournament 9109850

PokerStars Tournament #9109850, No Limit Hold'em Super Satellite
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
1296 players
Total Prize Pool: $12960.00
Target Tournament #5966962 Buy-In: $10000.00
1 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started - 2005/06/20 - 21:00:00 (ET)

Dear Glorfindel,

Tournament #9109850 has been cancelled due to technical reasons.

When a tournament is cancelled before players are in the money, we refund each player their tournament fee, and then divide up the prize pool based on the following formula:

- 50% of the award pool distributed evenly between remaining players
- 50% of the award pool distributed proportionally according to the chip count

At the time of cancellation there were 418 player remaining, and your chip count was 9,000. Total chips in play were 1,944,000.

Prize pool to be divided equally: $12,960.00/2 = $6,480.00 Prize pool to be divided based on chip count: $12,960.00/2 = $6,480.00

Your share in money equally divided: $6,480.00/418 = $15.50 Your share based on chip count: $6,480.00 x (9,000/1,944,000) = $30.00 Your entry fee refunded: $1.00 Total money refunded to your account: $46.51

We apologize for the inconvenience.

The PokerStars Team

My Reply

I think your system would be reasonable in a standard tourney, but the method outlined [above] is unfair in a shootout.

In a shootout, each table in the early round(s) is effectively a winner-take-all sit-n-go. Thus, having already won my table, I was entitled to $60 plus entry fee refund.

What you have done is distribute money from my table to other tables that had not yet finished play as if the value at stake at those tables was somehow greater because 2+ players were still alive rather than just 1 as was the case at my table.

It's not that big a deal in an $11 buyin, I suppose, but I would be pretty upset if this had been a double shootout OR if we were a couple of rounds into a quad shootout.

Later,
Glorfindel

[Lloyd]

Very reasonable.

[ononimo]

FWIW, i think you are spot on.

[Shorty35]

You are being very reasonable. They should allocate by table; and then allocate again among the players still at the table.

FWIW, I got treated worse (but for less $$). After losing my first DS to a one outer (I coudnt resist that gripe), we had not even started play in the second DS when the tables froze. Nevertheless, the system seated us (with me in the BB). When they refunded, they educted the BB from my chip count. So I lost $.50 [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[TexTiger]

Fully agree. I was thinking the same thing when I got my email.

TT

[Matador225]

I was playing in a freeroll tournament on Stars when it froze with 41 people left. Because there was no actual money in the prize pool, it appears that i will end up getting nothing.

[Matador225]

And your reply was very reasonable in my opinion. Hopefully Pokerstars will take special situations in consideration instead of blindly sticking to their policy.

[Chief911]

While your request is reasonable, from a programming standpoint, it creates problems. I dont think you'll be able to get anywhere, simply because of that.

Nick

[Che]

Hello Lincoln,

Please be aware that you paid according to chips. Having all the chips at the table entitles you to a bigger refund, which you recieved. I scanned the large list of entrants and could not find a single player who received more funds than you did.

418 players were paid out. For an $11 event with 418 players left, the prize you received is in line with your equity. Please let us know if you still disagree.

Regards,

Narinder
PokerStars Support Team

[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

I'm going to drop the issue at this point since $15 isn't worth the time, and policies that aren't 100% fair are a fact of life - at least they are being consistent.

The only thing that worries me is that they (or at least this particular support person who is speaking for them) don't seem to understand that their policy is unfair *in this particular situation* (i.e. the prize I received was not "in line with my equity") apparently due to a lack of understanding of the situation.

Later,
Che

[Shorty35]

Che - I emailed support about my silly $.50 issue and (after one back and forth) they did credit me - so you might not want to give up. Even tho its an inconsequential $$ amount it does show that the rules are not immutable.

I also told them that I believed that the shootout refund process was flawed and I was copied on an email that forwarded that suggestion to ideas@pokerstars.com, for whatever that is worth. At the very least I think we have a good chance to get the policy changed going forward.