Rattlesnake Open Bites Global Poker Players Hard in New Scandal

On Sunday, May 20, 2018, Global Poker tournament players were eagerly looking forward to jumping into the Main Events of the Rattlesnake Open, a series that had been running since April 30. These Main Events were priced at $22, $110, and $218 to cater to customers with different bankroll levels. Unfortunately, technical difficulties rendered all three events unplayable, and they were canceled to the chagrin of users.

These were the tournaments in question:

3:00 PM - Rattlesnake 26-L Main Event - $22 - $15,000 GTD
4:15 PM - Rattlesnake 26-M Main Event - $110 - $40,000 GTD
5:30 PM - Rattlesnake 26-H Main Event - $218 - $100,000 GTD

What Happened?

In the hours leading up to these three Main Event MTTs, users started reporting glitches and errors. This followed a similar scenario the previous day when one of the Rattlesnake events had to be canceled.

Some were unable to register for any tournament. Others were able to join tourneys but then were unable to open up the lobbies for their games. There were even a few players who were seeing a bunch of old lobbies pop up from previously completed games that had long since ended.

The situation proceeded in this way for hours without any response from Global staff members. The L and M Rattlesnake Main Events had started at their scheduled times, but there were frozen tables and other problems. Global provided users with some guidance as to what was happening:

Unfortunately, this response was a bit light on details while being heavy on vagueness. There was no indication as to whether or not the games would proceed as normal, would be canceled and refunded, or would be paused until further notice. Many posters on Twoplustwo expressed dismay at the fact that they didn't know whether they should wait by their computers or close down Global Poker and find something else to do.

Cash Game Missing Funds

Throughout all these tournament snafus, $weeps Cash ring games were operating without a hitch. However, at about 5:30 p.m., the site's servers were restarted, and everyone was disconnected. When users were able to log back on a few minutes later, cash game players reported that all the $weeps they had at the tables was missing from their account balances!

Also, after the short downtime, all the affected MTTs had been removed from the lobby.

Resolution to the Rattlesnake Open Issues

It wasn't until 6:23 p.m. that “GlobalPoker_Joey” gave information as to what would happen to these tournaments:

Finally, after more than three hours of uncertainty, players were free to go about their lives without worrying about being absent while possibly having live tournament entries.

About an hour later, further clarification on several points was given:

The “normal refund policy” referred to in this post involves first paying back all remaining contestants their tournament fees. Then, the prize pool is distributed 50% evenly to all remaining players and the other 50% divided up based on chip count.

We haven't been able to find solid numbers on how much the room will have to eat in overlays for the L and M Main Events. Anecdotal reports suggest that it may be as much as $9,000 in the L and $30,000 in the M.

ProfRB's Take on the Situation

We're glad that Global Poker is doing the right thing in paying out the entire prize pool for the canceled events, including the overlays. It's also heartening to see that the room is aware of the missing cash game funds and is working to restore users' balances to what they should be. Nevertheless, we feel that this organization dropped the ball when it comes to technical competence and customer support.

Given that similar gameplay interruptions had occurred the day before and that May 20 marked the culmination of a major MTT series, we feel that Global's IT department should have been closely monitoring the games and working to resolve any errors. The fact that tables were unplayable for hours at a time means that someone wasn't doing his or her job.

We're not sure exactly what went wrong at Global. “GlobalPoker_Joey” at one point said “that something is running over and over again that shouldn't,” but this is a pretty uninformative explanation although it does hint at some kind of recursive process gone haywire. Could it be that Global has suffered a DDoS attack, the likes of which we've seen at many online poker organizations over the years?

Regardless of the root causes of the service interruptions, failing to keep customers updated as to what was going on is inexcusable. Many had set aside the entire day to enjoy the Global Poker tournaments, and they then were left hanging for an extended period of time while the site attempted to figure out what was happening.

Player Responses

The response from the player community to the way Global Poker handled this incident was largely negative. Many took to the forums to register their disappointment:

Still, there were a few who decided to give the site another chance:

Many Other Poker Destinations Available

Whether you're fed up altogether with Global or are willing to put up with their occasional mess-ups, it can't hurt to explore your other options for online poker. Global players in the United States may wish to consult our page covering online poker for Americans. Our friends to the north can instead read through our Canadian online poker guide.