Empire Poker -- Raked Hands Tracking
The following is a correspondence between Empire Poker and I...
I have a small concern with your bonus tracking, I deposited some money a week ago to take advantage of your match300 promotion, and have been playing quite alot through the past week... I was doing a quick double check of my PokerTracker database which I keep, and I noticed a discrepancy between what it says for Hands Raked during my games and what your bonus account screen says. As of 5:15 AM on October 26th, my PokerTracker database says I should have 3672 raked hands played in the past week, but the bonus account says only 3172... this is a 15% variance. It seemed rather large and I thought I should bring it to your attention, just in case this is a wide spread issue. Would you mind taking a look into this for me? Thank you in advance...
MDStorey
Approximately 4 hours later I received this response...
Dear MDStorey,
Thank you for contacting us.
I understand your concern and would like to inform you that, the 'rake' is a service fee collected from hands played in real money games. A player is considered to have played a raked hand when cards have been dealt and the hand has generated at least $0.01 in rake for that player. There is no rake taken from hands played on tournament tables.
We do not take rake every time. Where rake is taken, the following is taken into consideration:
The amount taken per hand is between $0.05 up to a maximum of $5.00 (depending on the stakes, type of game and number of players). If the pot does not reach the minimum amount required to take the rake, no rake will be taken.
A player is considered to have played a raked hand when cards have been dealt and the hand has generated at least $0.01 in rake for that player. There is no rake taken from hands played on tournament tables.
To accumulate raked hands, just participate in hands (any live game, any limit) where a rake is taken. The house contribution for Tournaments, the 'buy-in', does not contribute to your accumulated raked hands. Furthermore, as there is no rake taken in tournament hands, you cannot obtain raked hands through tournaments. The amount of rake collected appears as a small chip stack next to the dealer tray.
For more information about our rake structure please check out the following URL from our website:
http://www.empirepoker.com/games/rake.html
However, we have a sophisticated software which keeps track of number of raked hands played at the table and also the raked hands played at by the player.
This wasn't really a big concern for me, as I play there quite heavily anyways... but it did irk me a little to seemingly get the brushoff.  Perhaps my email to them just wasn't clear enough, as I do understand their rake structure, and I know PokerTracker does track it properly... Has anyone else noticed this particular issue? If so, what have you done about it?
I have a small concern with your bonus tracking, I deposited some money a week ago to take advantage of your match300 promotion, and have been playing quite alot through the past week... I was doing a quick double check of my PokerTracker database which I keep, and I noticed a discrepancy between what it says for Hands Raked during my games and what your bonus account screen says. As of 5:15 AM on October 26th, my PokerTracker database says I should have 3672 raked hands played in the past week, but the bonus account says only 3172... this is a 15% variance. It seemed rather large and I thought I should bring it to your attention, just in case this is a wide spread issue. Would you mind taking a look into this for me? Thank you in advance...
MDStorey
Approximately 4 hours later I received this response...
Dear MDStorey,
Thank you for contacting us.
I understand your concern and would like to inform you that, the 'rake' is a service fee collected from hands played in real money games. A player is considered to have played a raked hand when cards have been dealt and the hand has generated at least $0.01 in rake for that player. There is no rake taken from hands played on tournament tables.
We do not take rake every time. Where rake is taken, the following is taken into consideration:
The amount taken per hand is between $0.05 up to a maximum of $5.00 (depending on the stakes, type of game and number of players). If the pot does not reach the minimum amount required to take the rake, no rake will be taken.
A player is considered to have played a raked hand when cards have been dealt and the hand has generated at least $0.01 in rake for that player. There is no rake taken from hands played on tournament tables.
To accumulate raked hands, just participate in hands (any live game, any limit) where a rake is taken. The house contribution for Tournaments, the 'buy-in', does not contribute to your accumulated raked hands. Furthermore, as there is no rake taken in tournament hands, you cannot obtain raked hands through tournaments. The amount of rake collected appears as a small chip stack next to the dealer tray.
For more information about our rake structure please check out the following URL from our website:
http://www.empirepoker.com/games/rake.html
However, we have a sophisticated software which keeps track of number of raked hands played at the table and also the raked hands played at by the player.
This wasn't really a big concern for me, as I play there quite heavily anyways... but it did irk me a little to seemingly get the brushoff.  Perhaps my email to them just wasn't clear enough, as I do understand their rake structure, and I know PokerTracker does track it properly... Has anyone else noticed this particular issue? If so, what have you done about it?
Comments
Party/Empire customer service is hardly the best, and often is inadequate, however their raked hand counter has always seemed correct to me.