PlayNow.com Poker Review (Positives and Negatives)
Hi all,
I am a new user and I though this would be a good topic to start as a forum post.
Anyone here using PlayNow. Since Full-Tilt shutdown and tilted me I have switched over and started using it. However, I have started to notice glitches with the software. I thought I would lay out my thoughts on the site both good and bad:
Negatives:bs:
- BB/SB when STG or tourney's or cash go Heads Up from 3 to 2 it almost always misses the small blind and only one blind is posted.???
- Sit Out/Time Out feature, if you get timed out you automatically miss the next hand. SUPER FRUSTRATING especially if this is BB and then you miss your small. Wonder what happens when the Bad Beat is won at the table and your sitting out because of this?
- Needs more players, would like to see this site expanded across ALL the provinces
- Has no Rakeback, unless you count the Poker Experience Points. I like the concept very similar to Stars but you can only use them for very small tourney buy-ins (Sucks, total crapshoot for only a few bucks.. What a waste of time)
- Needs more selection. (Needs more game selection, would love to see more mixed games)
- Once an hour you get the "You have been playing for an hour thing come up and you have to click it off", once I click you off stay the F"OFF".:arghh:
- Depositing was slow, what a pain in the a$$ (took me forever to do this)
- $ bankroll refreshing, I believe that the site uses multiple servers so when you reg for a tourney and say you were just in a tourney and cashed, you may have to wait for your payout to play.
- STG's, say I want to play 4 of the same type, this site doesn't quite offer it. You can play one but have to wait, it doesn't have multiple ones of the same type waiting.
- Multi-tabling, isn't the best, seems like the speed is off (You get timed out a lot and have to sit out, frustrates me)
Positives:)
- Decent enough interface, HEM works on it. Yay!
- It's legal and your money is safe, nuff said!
- Has poker experience points (kind of like small rakeback, see above needs to be expanded)
- Decent games (NLH, PLO, Stud, etc.) for the size of the site/players, this is good for now.
- Good Sunday Tourneys (Decent buy-ins for Sunday NLH MTT's)
- You can chat in French and English, good in the sense that you know fairly well if you playing against BC or Quebec players
- You can multi-table on the site
- Deposit is safe (took a while but it takes from visa):)
- Quick payouts, wow what a feature
:):)
- Help is 24 hrs, haven't used it so I don't know if this is good or not but it has it listed.
- Bad Beat, it gets huge..
- Oh did I say it was legal and you money is SAFE.;)
So having posted this and having been burnt by Full-Tilt, I think it's good enough for part of the bankroll to play the Sunday tourneys and the low stakes cash, the rest on another larger, global site (Stars/Party).:cute:
Anyone else out there got anything to add?
I am a new user and I though this would be a good topic to start as a forum post.
Anyone here using PlayNow. Since Full-Tilt shutdown and tilted me I have switched over and started using it. However, I have started to notice glitches with the software. I thought I would lay out my thoughts on the site both good and bad:
Negatives:bs:
- BB/SB when STG or tourney's or cash go Heads Up from 3 to 2 it almost always misses the small blind and only one blind is posted.???
- Sit Out/Time Out feature, if you get timed out you automatically miss the next hand. SUPER FRUSTRATING especially if this is BB and then you miss your small. Wonder what happens when the Bad Beat is won at the table and your sitting out because of this?
- Needs more players, would like to see this site expanded across ALL the provinces
- Has no Rakeback, unless you count the Poker Experience Points. I like the concept very similar to Stars but you can only use them for very small tourney buy-ins (Sucks, total crapshoot for only a few bucks.. What a waste of time)
- Needs more selection. (Needs more game selection, would love to see more mixed games)
- Once an hour you get the "You have been playing for an hour thing come up and you have to click it off", once I click you off stay the F"OFF".:arghh:
- Depositing was slow, what a pain in the a$$ (took me forever to do this)
- $ bankroll refreshing, I believe that the site uses multiple servers so when you reg for a tourney and say you were just in a tourney and cashed, you may have to wait for your payout to play.
- STG's, say I want to play 4 of the same type, this site doesn't quite offer it. You can play one but have to wait, it doesn't have multiple ones of the same type waiting.
- Multi-tabling, isn't the best, seems like the speed is off (You get timed out a lot and have to sit out, frustrates me)
Positives:)
- Decent enough interface, HEM works on it. Yay!
- It's legal and your money is safe, nuff said!
- Has poker experience points (kind of like small rakeback, see above needs to be expanded)
- Decent games (NLH, PLO, Stud, etc.) for the size of the site/players, this is good for now.
- Good Sunday Tourneys (Decent buy-ins for Sunday NLH MTT's)
- You can chat in French and English, good in the sense that you know fairly well if you playing against BC or Quebec players
- You can multi-table on the site
- Deposit is safe (took a while but it takes from visa):)
- Quick payouts, wow what a feature
:):)- Help is 24 hrs, haven't used it so I don't know if this is good or not but it has it listed.
- Bad Beat, it gets huge..
- Oh did I say it was legal and you money is SAFE.;)
So having posted this and having been burnt by Full-Tilt, I think it's good enough for part of the bankroll to play the Sunday tourneys and the low stakes cash, the rest on another larger, global site (Stars/Party).:cute:
Anyone else out there got anything to add?
Comments
Welcome to forum!
Has anybody heard any updates about Ontario joining next year?
Hopefully they come here, tweeted it out link on a few accounts with tag, so sure they will at least read thread since twitter is giving mention notification now.
One thing that looks very sweet is interact deposit withdrawals, supposed to be instant.
Those deposits are only good if you use one of 3? banks..forget which ones, *(RBC, TD, ??) but my credit union isn't one..lol So yeah, 2 days to deposit.
The whole missing the hand after you sit out really pisses me off too..
The site is good in the sense that there is a lot of poor play, a real mine field, if you will...but yeah, the lack of players and tourneys worth playing is annoying. Everything happens between 5pm and 8 pm pst it seems..nothing afterwards...While this is usually good, it isn't when you have a life to deal with as well..lol. I used to HATE late registration...but I really wish this site had it as the only tournies are right on the hour and half hour..big wait when you just miss one.
BBJ is usually huge, yep!
Give it time..it will be good. Lots of bugs to work out and players to join! Hope to help that aspect out sooon!!!! We are working on a partnership with Playnow/BCLC and Big Slick Poker Tour..
I agree it will improve with time.. I forgot about the half hour registration thing, it drives me crazy too... Glad to see I am not the only person who hates the sit out thing. PS.. I enjoy the fish on the site too.;)
Thanks! I think I will tweet at them too..:)
PS.. I hate how poker sites or casino's always say well "that's how we do it", my view is that it should be "Is it what they want". I think an open forum where anyone can list what they like or don't will ultimately get the site to where the community at large wants it.
I agree they should know what they are doing well and what they need to improve on.
Glad you posted it here, because these kind of topics are good for the community as they are relevant to OUR poker scene. I think it will get more attention here as opposed to quickly feeding out the page/category and our players and members will learn what this provincial sites are all about, since a lot of us can't see for ourselves.
For instance, I did not realize that espace jouer and Play now are skins on same network till you posted. Asked an affiliate and indeed they are. Makes sense, but I had kinda assumed since they were in different jurisdictions each would be segregated. Also reading that in the US if online does get regulated it would most likely be intrastate and not interconnected, so I guess I kinda assumed that it would be how things are done here.
Didn't really think about population...
Positive - Show's the actual number of players, not made up (population is critical to success).
Great promo's (Gave away WSOP ME seat, tickets to Canucks, Whitecaps, Scott Ian concert in NY) This is solid marketing.
Negative - Can't make deals with the table in tourneys (during)
Need colouring on players for notes, notes are OK but could be clearer
Would really like to see HORSE, 10 game, 8 game, 2-7 draw games, mixed tourney's. Heck, develop Big Two, Chinese, and the Pineapples. I realize the player base is low, but I think there is a demand for HORSE at the very least.
Hwy 401 to Hwy400
Hwy400 to Hwy 69
Hwy 69 to Hwy 17
Hwy 17 ...
Promotions:
WSOP 10K seat: A great offer but all someone had to do was register without having to deposit and no guarantee they would contribute financially to the site.
Canucks tickets: Pretty awesome promotion, tons of tickets given away and I was lucky enough to win a couple myself to a playoff game.$1 and $10 tourneys, players had to deposit so they may have spent some extra money in cash games.
Scott Ian: This looks to be disappointing and barely any action in these tournies, yesterdays 60+6 final for a $2500 valued prize saw only 14 entries. I think it caters to a very limited market.
15K/50K/Other tourneys: Not bad in general, quite a lot of guaranteed tourneys with some having 150-200 taking part.
Cash games:
There are more tables running now compared with before, in the mornings the action was sparse but it is picking up now, and at nights I have seen 15 .50/1 tables running (many multitablers though). There is action at 1/2 but not all the time. 1/2 10man runs every so often.
XP points earned in cash games are virtually worthless, you can buy into 5, 15 or 50XP tournies but the payouts are so miniscule that it is not worth it. I have 35000+ points now (over $8000 in rake paid), and there is no way to change that into cash or tourney fees. I really hope this can change.
The bad beat jackpot is HARD to win. It has only paid out once in 6 months and it made it to 480k (loser got 240k). This is good for the site since they can advertise that the jackpot is so high and players will play only play to try to win it. Personally I would have made it slightly easier to win. Putting in 50 cents for every pot you win is mega high varience investment...hehe
Espacejeux (Quebec site):
They seem to have better promotions and offers than playnow.com.
You can:
-trade 1000XP increments into $10 tourney money
-earn up to $750 in bonus money (just by earning XP points) over the summer months (works out to 40% rakeback if you earn exactly the right amount and include tourney exchange)
They also have hired a couple of poker pros to play on the site and provide tips to players. RockyC and ladyluck are a couple of them I think.
Final thoughts:
I'd like to see playnow.com step it up and do something about the XP points. It is the exact same software used on playnow.com so there is no reason they could not do a XP point exchange or have bonuses available.
I've seen bonuses for sports action, casino, bingo etc but none yet for poker. It could even be something low like the equivalent of 10-15% rakeback, a $100 or $200 bonus. It would bring many new players to the site. It is great they are advertising that is is a legal poker site, but all of the other sites offer deposit bonuses which playnow.com doesn't offer for poker.
I thought I would do a cross post, friend of mine sent me a link: BCLC Playnow Rants / Raves News - WeakTight.com
Adding the two plus two link as well: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/bclc-playnow-poker-site-up-986022/
Definitely a good alternative after FTP ate my money!
I just need to deposit enough to get out of the 0.02/0.04 rakefest!
Still waiting for the timeout and rakeback to be fixed or improved.
Negative= lost the 1100 seat hu.
I thought the timeout was fixed? I am not missing the extra hand anymore.
whats your alias on Playnow? wonder if I played with you?
Timeout's are still an issue in cash, not sure about tourney's. I was playing the other night and had the issue.:bs:
I played cash the other day..but didn't time out or sit out..so I don't know..but tourney definitely isn't an issue now. (not here anyway?)
Excerpts:
- A possible Ponzi scheme involving one of the world's largest online poker sites could be an ace in the hole for Canadian government-run online gaming, according to a spokesman for the Ontario Lottery & Gaming corporation.
If online gaming is run by the government, "people know they're going to get paid," said Tony Bitonti, spokesman for OLG, which plans to launch online games, including poker, in 2012.
- Bitonti estimates 400 to 500 thousand Ontarians have accounts with online gaming companies, which "have no mandate to serve the Ontario public interest and are largely located offshore with virtually no government oversight.
"Ontarians are spending $400 million per year online, none of which goes back into Ontario communities."
- The Financial Action Task Force, the global anti-money laundering force for G20 nations, has told Canada repeatedly to either legalize and regulate online gambling as it is now, or to enforce Canadian laws and shut down these sites, said Duhaime.