Per request, My Experience with PokerTek ePoker Tables as per request

[tastim]

note from TT - PokerPro is the brand name of the PokerTek ePoker dealerless tables

I posted this on my poker clubs private message board, so in the interest of time, I'm going to just cut and paste it here. To the guy that said he would forward it to Dan, go right ahead. Unless his floormen make it a habit of keeping him in the dark, I'm sure he has already heard about this. He even started posting on our clubs forum trying to get us to come in and play a month or so ago.

Without further ado:

So... I just finished working nearly 100 hours in the past 2 weeks and decided I needed to get away for a few hours and distract my mind from work and play some poker.... hey, what the hell, I'll give Folsom Lake Bowl a fair shot... so about 7pm I arrive and sit down at the 1/2 table.

Nothing eventful at 1/2.... after an hour or so, I'm down about 30 bucks, and cash out to play a Sit-N-Go. Anyway, on to the point:

After I bust out of the "Antonio Sit-N-Go", I take a seat at the 2/3 NL game. Buy in for $200 and play my normal roller coaster poker style.... anyway, after about 3 hours, I'm finally up and sitting with over $500 in front of me (big stack at the time).... then this hand happened.

Folded around to the small blind who calls $1 to match my Big Blind. I have Q8 suited, and decided that if I was going to play the hand (in position against the SB, hell yeah) I wanted a pot going, so I raised it to $8. Small Blind calls.

Flop: 10c 8c 7c

Sb checks.
I bet $10
SB Calls

Turn: 8s

SB checks
I bet $25
SB calls

River: 2s

SB bets $15
This bet was nearly transparent in most situations, but the small blind happened to be a rather tricky/trapper player from my past oberservation, so I decide to just flat call the $15 just in case he flopped the straight.

His hand: Ac Js (Ace high)
My hand: 888Q

The machine shows his hand, and awards him the pot.

Fine, a malfunction, fixable right?

Apparently not.

See, the problem is, I didn't even realize that the machine had awarded him the pot until about 3 hands later when I realized my $500 stack was now down to $430ish, rather than nearly $600. I start looking around at everyone's "stack" and hey, what do you know, there was my money over on the Small Blinds stack. I immediately ask the guy,

"How did you get all that money?"
He says "That big hand with you bro"
Me, "Uhhhhh..... I won that hand"
Him, "No you didn't, I had Ace high and it was good."
Me, "I had three 8's that hand man."
Him, "No you didn't, the machine mucked your hand after you called my river bet"

At this point someone else at the table says I should call the floor, so I look around for the floorperson.... nowhere to be found.... (I didn't know you could call a floorperson with the machine, or pause the game, for that matter). So at this point, maybe 10 or so hands have been played since that hand. Once the floorman gets there (didnt catch his name, heavyset youngish guy with thinning hair), I explain the situation. The first response I get is,

"I can pretty much guarantee you that didn't happen. These machines have underwent thousands and thousands of testings and nothing like that has ever happened."

My response,

"I'm telling you right now that it DID happen. It was over a $100 pot and you think I'm flat calling a river bet when I can't beat Ace high? I had 3 8s on a scary board."

His response,

"Well, unfortunately we have no way to go through the hand history to see what really happened."

Anyway, eventually he just said "Do you remember how long ago it was? I'll see what I can do"

He gets his computer and pulls up something that lets him backtrack hands that played on our machine for everyone to watch (only shows the board cards and any exposed hands) and after about 5 minutes, he finds the hand... the exact board, the exact action I described. At showdown, on our screen on the table (he's looking at his little tablet PC thingy controlling the playback, as far as I can tell) it shows the Ace High hand being shown and sent the pot, while my hand never got revealed. At the point when both hands should have been flipped up, he got really quiet and called the other floorperson over quietly as we were all looking at the screen on our table. After the awkward silence between the two floorpersons, I had a pretty good idea that their tablet PC had actually shown them my hand, but they were covering up so as not to make it public to all the other people putting their money in these machines.

NOTE: Even if he did NOT see my hand, inside the "Rules" screen on the game, the last sentence, built right into the machine's software, says "A machine malfunction negates all bets and action" or something along those lines.

He says he will go call Carolina (where the PokerPro support people are I guess) and see what they can do (without actually saying "I saw your hand, I will get this fixed", but basically doing exactly that.

Sooooo.... 2 hours later, after asking several times, he still has no response for me, saying the haven't called him back the first time... then saying that he gave the PokerPro people the information and the said they were going to analyze it and get back to him.... then ultimately, after I decided enough is enough and I'm ready to leave (probably what they were waiting for all along) he tells me he will be right back, since I'm now standing right next to him looking at him quietly.

Another minute or so (and after speaking with "management" I assume) he comes back and tells me that there is nothing he can really do for me in this situation, tell me that next time if anything like that happens, I should Pause the game and call the floor immediately.

Uhhhh... so since I just ASSUMED the machine I was putting my money into was going to abide by the rules of poker and award me the pot when I show down the winning hand, and didn't immediately notice that it in fact hadn't, I'm screwed?

Apparently, Yes.

He says the best he can do is offer to buy me a drink next time I come in and hands me a coupon for $20 extra when I Buy-In for $80. I tell him there won't be a next time, that this was my first time here since the Poker Pro "Upgrade" and that if this was "the experience", I wasn't coming back.

So, there it is. Folsom Lake Bowl and PokerPro electronic poker. I know I will never go back, and I caution you guys now, to stay away also.


My response to someone in my club that posted a reply.... I think this possibly clarified a few things, so I'm including it.


This type of game is brand new. You're going to run into tons of people that don't know everything about controlling the machine. If you're heavily promoting what a great product something is, when that product malfunctions, there should be failsafes in place when something like this occurs.

On top of that, the floorperson LIED to me and danced around the subject, rather than being straightforward with me. Said he can't pull up any kind of hand history, yet 5 minutes later did exactly that. Denied the possibility that this type of thing could even happen, then when proven wrong, wasn't willing to do anything about it.

THE GAME ITSELF has this statement written right into the software, "Malfunction voids all pays and plays", yet when a malfunction was proven, this was not enforced. Even if they could not verify my actual hand (which if they can provide an actual replay of the hand, they should certainly be able to see my cards, just like in the "Hand History" that each player can see after every hand), the very fact that they could not is a malfunction in and of itself since the hand went to showdown.

Do you honestly think he actually called "Carolina" and they told him there was nothing that could be done? I guarantee you that if they had actually heard about something like this, they would have done everything in their power to resolve the issue to prevent bad press about the product they are trying place in casinos nationwide.

And, I was strung along for several hours, until I made it clear that I was not going to just let it go. I could have been a real [censored] and made a huge scene out of the fact that the machine ripped me off, and left a sour taste in people's mouth, but I didn't. I was calm, patient, and understanding, and in the end, got screwed because of it.

The product malfunctioned, and it was very easy to not pick up on the fact that it did. It's not like we're dealing with chips being pushed to the wrong player.... just numbers changing on a monitor. To hold the player responible for something so easy to miss is unfair. That would be like holding the consumer responsible when a gas pump fails dispense all the gas that was purchased because it was miscalibrated. If that were the case, every person buying gas would have to make sure they bring a calculator with them to fill up their tank. It's just something that the consumer should not have to worry about.

If this kind of thing happened on-line, what do you think would happen?

If this kind of thing happened in a live game, and a player made a big enough of a stink, what do you think would happen? Cameras would be reviewed and the situation would be resolved.

[Jimbo]

[ QUOTE ]
If this kind of thing happened in a live game, and a player made a big enough of a stink, what do you think would happen? Cameras would be reviewed and the situation would be resolved.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not if your hand was mucked without ever being tabled.

Jimbo

[tastim]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If this kind of thing happened in a live game, and a player made a big enough of a stink, what do you think would happen? Cameras would be reviewed and the situation would be resolved.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not if your hand was mucked without ever being tabled.

Jimbo

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, but in a live game, if I call a river bet, it is MY responsibility to turn my hand over.

[crashjr]

I would very much like to see Dan's response to this. As I said in the other thread, I have played there without incident for a few years, but problems like this with new technology are not unheard of, and need to be addressed.

[AngusThermopyle]

A. Send a copy of this to PokerTek.
B. Send a copy of this to the casino.
C. Send a copy of this to the relevant department in the City of Folsom.

[Rottersod]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If this kind of thing happened in a live game, and a player made a big enough of a stink, what do you think would happen? Cameras would be reviewed and the situation would be resolved.


[/ QUOTE ]

Not if your hand was mucked without ever being tabled.

Jimbo

[/ QUOTE ]

In my experience with the ePoker tables at HP if you call with the winning hand then the system shows the hand. You have no choice.

To OP: I hope you got the hand number from the floor. With that you can open up a case with whichever agency governs poker in California.

[tastim]

[ QUOTE ]

In my experience with the ePoker tables at HP if you call with the winning hand then the system shows the hand. You have no choice.

To OP: I hope you got the hand number from the floor. With that you can open up a case with whichever agency governs poker in California.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct. Showdown always shows both hands.

And no, I did not get a hand number. All I have is a date, approximate time, and an image of the floormen involved. As I said, they replayed the hand though, so they were able to find it. Someone else told me that they actually have hand histories on every player saved in their eAccount system. Not sure how true that is.

[Rottersod]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

In my experience with the ePoker tables at HP if you call with the winning hand then the system shows the hand. You have no choice.

To OP: I hope you got the hand number from the floor. With that you can open up a case with whichever agency governs poker in California.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct. Showdown always shows both hands.

And no, I did not get a hand number. All I have is a date, approximate time, and an image of the floormen involved. As I said, they replayed the hand though, so they were able to find it. Someone else told me that they actually have hand histories on every player saved in their eAccount system. Not sure how true that is.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be willing to bet that they keep every hand in their system. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that eventually they will sell that aggregate data to companies who want to use it for statistical purposes. You really should have insisted on getting a hand number.

[tastim]

[ QUOTE ]

I'd be willing to bet that they keep every hand in their system. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that eventually they will sell that aggregate data to companies who want to use it for statistical purposes. You really should have insisted on getting a hand number.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I realized the next day all the mistakes I made in how I handled this. I should have been more persistent, and I should have insisted on more details.... I should have demanded to speak to the owner, etc. etc.... but that night, I had been around so long, by the end of the whole ordeal, I was exhausted and not thinking clearly anymore, which is why I was so passive as I left.

[juanez]

[ QUOTE ]
I was strung along for several hours, until I made it clear that I was not going to just let it go. I could have been a real [censored] and made a huge scene out of the fact that the machine ripped me off, and left a sour taste in people's mouth, but I didn't. I was calm, patient, and understanding, and in the end, got screwed because of it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, but you don't have to tip the dealers. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]