WSOP Online Bracelet Series Events #32 and #33 on GGPoker were postponed mid-tournament due to a “critical bug,” according to site operators. Many poker players expressed frustration for the inconvenient incident, but the poker site apologized and explained on Twitter what caused the crash.
Sunday’s $100 Opener and $1,111 COVID Relief Charity bracelet events were both postponed as a result. The 2020 online World Series of Poker, a replacement for the live series in Las Vegas that was postponed due to COVID-19, began on July 1 on WSOP.com in New Jersey and Nevada.
GGPoker is hosting a 54-bracelet event series for rest-of-world players that kicked off on July 16 with the $100 Opener, a $1 million guaranteed tournament. During Day 2 on Sunday, technical difficulties put a temporary stop to the event, along with the COVID charity event, both of which are bracelet events. Both will resume July 26, and players will return to action with the same chip stacks they had when play ended before the glitch.
What Happened to the GGPoker Site?
At 11:45 am PT, GGPoker announced on social media that they were having technical issues during the Opener. Per the initial tweet the site, represented by Daniel Negreanu, anticipated a later-than-expected restart. Site officials then determined that wouldn’t be possible.
We are currently planning comprehensive compensation for the discomfort and inconvenience today.
Please check back on our feeds for updates, as well as in app, and/or client messages.
We apologize again, and promise to make this right for all our players.
— GGPoker (@GGPoker) July 19, 2020
GGPoker later explained what caused the “bug.”
“The bug was caused by an overwhelming number of players joining The Opener and other side events. The tournament servers were unable to resume due to high loads. We will increase more capacity (we just doubled it) to make sure future events run smoothly,” the poker site wrote in a tweet.
Customers Dissatisfied
GGPoker also informed customers that affected players will be refunded the $100 buy-in for the Opener, and the poker site vows to donate all of the $177,378 in rake collected from the COVID-19 relief charity event. But that didn’t stop some players on social media from verbally trashing the company.
“Postponing a week is going to cause more problems IMO. Some people will have other plans next Sunday and god forbid another bug,” poker author Barry Carter wrote.
High-stakes poker pro Daniel Dvoress isn’t buying the GGPoker explanation, and he isn’t the only one.
“This really doesn’t sound like a bug, and more like servers crashing because of an amount of volume that was… …entirely predictable given the guarantees you guys made yourselves,” Dvoress (@DDvoress) tweeted.
Ian Drake (@IDrakeIOM) called out GGPoker for being unprepared for a major poker series such as the World Series of Poker. He writes: “And let me get this straight, no one in your whole organization could foresee a drastic increase in volume which you could have prepared for?”
“You didn’t prep for this we are in 2020 you know? For someone who hosts the WSOP that’s pretty laughable, The fact your given out a $100 tournament money in your words as a “Reward” is also laughable. I wouldn’t want to touch your site after this,” Simon Jenvey (@SJenvey89) said.
Multiple poker players on Twitter called for Negreanu to step up and comment on this issue due to his role as the face of GGPoker. On Sunday afternoon, he apologized to the poker community in a brief Twitter video.
Apologize for the issues today on @GGPokerOfficial I totally feel your pain. Nothing more aggravating than software issues!
Be sure to follow @GGPokerOfficial for the compensation plan for those of you who were affected.
Really brutal. Sorry everyone! https://t.co/PQpIZvoeQQ pic.twitter.com/Zmtt58my0X
— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) July 19, 2020
“I feel your pain. Nothing tilts me more than software crashing while you’re playing,” Negreanu said.
“Kid Poker” recently expressed his frustration toward WSOP.com during a live-stream online bracelet series session.
