Down for a Month

I apologize for waiting so long to post again.  I got involved in a huge mess and didn't think about anything else.  That was not fair to my readers.



My previous post, on May 20, was entitled Down for a Week, so it's only fitting that this one is Down for a Month.

Everything possible has gone wrong for the last month.  As mentioned in my previous post, I had a lot of computer problems.  Things aren't any better since then.

The computer lag was so bad that I didn't play for a few days.  I tried to solve the problem but decided that it was above my pay grade.

It took me about three weeks to solve the password problem with Juicy Stakes Poker.

I ordered a new computer.  I spent several days trying to figure out how to transfer everything from my old computer to the new one.  When I couldn't figure it out, I decided to take it to my computer tech and have them do it.

My tech told me that it would take 2-5 days.  It took 5.

When I got the computer home I had trouble figuring out how to use the new machine.  There were two issues.  First, I couldn't figure out the new operating system (Windows 10 instead of 8) but I thought it best to figure out how to use Windows 10.  I still haven't really done that.

On the old computer my wife and I had separate "sides" and we logged in with separate passwords.  I would only see my files and she would only see hers.  It's not that way any more.  Today when I looked at my Open Office "Recent Documents" to open my spreadsheets, the entire list was documents from her job.  I had to hunt for what I needed.  Our files and folders are no longer separated (even though my tech said that he could do that) so that's really awkward.

When I used Holdem Manager on the new computer for the first time, most of my database was either gone or inaccessible.  I started to play a tournament and all of my numbers started from zero, After playing a few hands in a tournaments, the "Hands" statistic for every player was in the single digits.  I previously had statistics covering hundreds of hands, thousands in a few cases, for the regulars in that tournament.

I wrote to Holdem Manager support on the twoplustwo.com poker forums and asked what I should do.  Here is the response:

You can't just copy files from the old PC to the new PC. You have to backup your database/settings and then restore them after you have installed HM2 on the new machine.
Please see this FAQ to transfer/backup data. This will ensure that you have your hand histories and HUD saved to import into a new computer, and as a backup to restore in case of an emergency. I recommend you do this at least once a month and keep the last 2 or 3 most recent backups (and your \HM2Archive folder) stored on an external drive and/or cloud storage site like dropbox or google drive.

I looked at the FAQ and it's too late to do all of the things that I was supposed to do.  I messed everything up and I don't think that there is a way to fix my database issue any more.

My wife and I talked it over.  She has dealt with information lost in system changes and she thought that I should just start over with a clean database  I hated the idea that I was going to lose so much (I have over 5,000 hands on one player who I regularly meet at final tables) but starting over did seem to be my only option.

I started over.  I used Revo Uninstaller to delete both the HUD and the database and I downloaded new ones.  I still have problems.

I was tracking statistics on two sites, Juicy Stakes Poker and Americas Cardroom.  Now the dropdown menu on the upper left doesn't show any sites and I can't figure out how to get the two sites back in.  I was in fact tracking on Juicy Stakes Poker, or at least I think that I was.  When I played a few hands I don't know if that information was saved or not, and I have no idea if Americas Cardroom stats will be saved.

My wife asked me if I could play without a HUD, and the short answer is yes--but it would be a very bad idea.  I have a poker rule: Never bring a knife to a gunfight.  I never go to a tournament unprepared.  If I don't have a bankroll of 100 buy-ins for that level, I don't play.  If it's a rebuy tournament I won't play if I can't afford at least three rebuys.  If I haven't had enough sleep, I won't play.

If I play without a HUD, I'll have the knife and the players with a HUD will have the guns.  I can't do that.  I've been plowing through some of the videos (there are hundreds of them)* on how to use the Holdem Manager 2 HUD, but for some reason I haven't been able to make it work, even though I've set up HUDs in the past.

To top everything off, I'm now seeing this message on my one-week-old computer:

"You are running out of disk space on drive E:"

This could all be solved quickly of course.  I could farm the problem out.  All I would need to do is find a local online professional poker player, who is also a HUD expert and a computer technician and would want the job, to set everything up.  Then I could get two new computers, one for me and one for my wife, find the money to pay cash for all of that (we don't do debt) and I'm all set.

Short of that, I don't see a solution, but I have to find one.

As always, your questions or comments are welcome in the box below.

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*https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=holdem+manager+2+hud&FORM=HDRSC3

A Big Mess

My previous post talked about my time in a jury pool and how that messed up my schedule.  I'm sure that some of you who understand online poker were wondering why I didn't just play after I got home.  I said in that post that I was going to talk about that, and indeed there are so many things going on that I could make several posts explaining it all.  I've decided to describe the entire big mess in this post, and perhaps come back later when something changes.  Here is the short version:

1. I have no yet posted my April results because of all the other things that are going on.  I hope to get to it tomorrow.

2. Jury duty completely blew up my sleep schedule.  I work mostly late at night, sometime until 0430.  I often don't go to bed until 0800 or later.  That had to change while I was in the jury pool and, as you know already, I don't play tournaments when I'm tired.  Nothing good can come of that.

3. My computer is effectively down.  I ordered a new one yesterday.  Poker tournaments are not affected, but I can't type or keep up my records for more than an hour at a time, which messes up the study and administrative portions of my poker time.

The good news is that I ordered a new computer that has more storage, more USB ports and a few other goodies that my current machine does not have.  The price, including shipping is only $290.42, which is a deductible business expense.  The expected delivery date is 5/15.  I hope that the other problems are solved by then.

4. Americas Cardroom and Juicy Stakes Poker are both effectively down for me.

Juicy Stakes Poker has me locked out over a password issue.  The last time I wrote to them they referred me to the parent company, Interops.  After two days Intertops has have not responded.

Americas Cardroom has had horrible lagging and freezing for at least a week.  It is sometimes playable and sometimes not, but all aspects of tournament and cash games have not been consistently working at the same time for a while.

Here is what I posted on that thread a few days ago.  I am going to take the steps that I listed in this post later today. There is so much going on that I didn't get to it until now:

I have played on this site since 2007. I love playing deepstacked tournaments, and if it takes me 10 hours to make a big cash, I'm a full-time player, I'll take the time. I have played on here for a long time and I've seen a lot of lagging and crashing over the years. That said, my patience is not unlimited.

If this isn't resolved, or demonstrably on the way to being resolved, in a short period of time, I'm done and I'll do everything that I can to warn others away from this site.

This site is a bad joke. Running games when the problems aren't fixed? That's crazy. I want to give WPN a few more days to fix this, but poker is my job and this site is screwing with me, and many others, while we are playing poker to make a living.

I'm prepared to write to every organization that I know of that reviews or rates poker sites. I will ask the 2+2 Pokercast to discuss this. No one, now or in the future, should have to go through anything like this. A lot of companies survive a DDOS attack and are up and running in just a few days. There is no excuse for this. Absolutely none.

I will send this directly to WPN/ACR and put it in my poker blog today. If the poker community is going to be treated this way, people have to know about it, especially those who are deciding on which site(s) to play.

If you want to defend what's going on I won't debate you. This is my stand and I'm not going to change my mind.

I will be very generous and wait exactly one week from today before I starting writing to all of the places already mentioned and anyone else that I can think of. Fix it or find someone that can!

What I wrote can't being to explain how angry so many of the players are, so they can tell you themselves:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/ex-official-winning-poker-network-acr-bcp-true-discussion-thread-1112097/index470.html

As always, your questions and comments are welcome (see box below.)

Murder Trial

I apologize for not posting in a while. I haven't posted my April results.  I haven't played for a while either.  Two things happened that badly messed with my schedule.  One was both of the sites on which I play being unavailable.  The second was that I was called to jury duty for a murder trial.

This was a big deal in the state of Michigan.  It was all over the news for months before the trial.  So many people knew about it that 200 people were called in for jury duty, so that those who were too invested, or otherwise unsuited for the trial, could be eliminated, leaving enough people to produce 12 jurors plus two alternates.

It was a long process that unfolded over five days.  Most of that time was spent sitting and waiting.  We spent hours with as many as 50 people in a room, some of us standing due to lack of space.  There were several steps in the process, which took five days before we were down to 60 prospective jurors.

Once we were down to 60, we were called for questioning by the lawyers in a random order chosen by a computer, then more waiting.  We were down to about 40, then 20, still no jury and I was still waiting, until finally there were only five of us left.  Then, after consulting with the lawyers and the defense, the judge said, "We have a jury."  Just like that.  All that waiting going down from 200 people to five, and it was over.  I wasn't rejected, they just never got to me because I was one of the last computer picks.  The trial starts tomorrow.

When that was over I was ready to get back to playing poker, but the two sites on which I play were down, and several days later, they still are.  Unless something unusual happens, my next post will be about that.

As always, your questions and comments are welcome (see box below.)