Party Poker is one of the worlds biggest poker sites; tomorrow sees the start of its second Pokerfest - 47 events with both points and cash buy-ins, and big prizes at the end of the rainbow.
Satellites for this festival are already running. The full timetable can currently be found here. The first thing to note is that if you are not inclined to shell out $1,060 for a $450,000 No Limit Hold Em freeze out - in which you might be busted out in one hand - there are also some points tournaments in the 3 week event. This means if you are a regular player on the site, you can get what is effectively a free entry for one of the smaller tournaments, which all the same have fair sized prize pools.
The second thing to note is that although Party Poker are hyping up this event, it has a rather bland flavour: Hold Em and Omaha. All the latter are pot limit, although there is a fair amount of limit Hold Em. What does the site say about this, and other things? Here is Petkana of Support - verbatim - in response to your intrepid correspondent:
AB: Although Party Poker is always busy, it has a rather limited choice of games, especially tournaments. Have you considered introducing other games? Stud hi lo and razz in particular, but also draw poker, 5 card stud and badugi?
I wont name them but there are several sites where you can play stud hi lo tournaments, and one where you can play pot limit razz.
PP:...For now we have available Omaha and 7 Stud tournaments, but not as part of the ongoing promotions indeed, so [your query] has been forwarded....
AB: There is no facility on this site to check the tournaments in which you are registered. Have you considered building that into the software, for forgetful players, or for those who might register a long time in advance?
PP: In regards to the registration notification for tournaments, we have such already in the software, it works with multi-table tournaments that have predetermined start time. To access this calendar based chart with the tournament details, you need to be under the Tournaments tab. There, at the bottom of the area, under the Register Now button there is a link, named My Tournaments.
By clicking on it, you will be taken to a pop up window, which will display all tournament you are registered for and have not yet started, from this you can also set a reminder to be notified via pop up or email at chosen by you time before the tournament start. You can also set this reminder from the Preferences tab, under Tournament Options.
[Hmm, my mistake, but perhaps this facility should be featured a bit more prominently].
AB: Regarding the Black Friday domain seizures, have you given up on American players or do you think that one day Uncle Sam will see sense?
PP:...we are doing our best to cooperate in finding plausible solution for our US customers to again benefiting from our real money games. However, this is long and quite delicate process and we cannot engage with certain timeframe on when possible change might be agreed upon. Yet, we are not the authorities to make the final decision, but the US Government.
We are obliged to follow the rules, but I can assure you that as soon as positive changes take place, we will be glad to return back to our loyal customers in the USA. This will for sure be officially published as it would be a major news for both our US players and us.
In case you have further questions, we will be more than happy to assist you. We are available 24/7.
Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site.
Best regards,
Petkana
Customer Service
To the point, and polite as ever. If you want to enter the Pokerfest, or try your hand at the cash tables, you can sign up with Party Poker here.
The following screengrabs are all from Party Poker.
April 8, 2012: Flopping the nuts in the $50 Limit Hold Em Freeroll saw our hero finish 184th and winning 6c!
April 8, 2012: A shocking bad beat in the $6 Stud tournament. Rolled up jacks against a pair of queens. It may not be clear from this screengrab, but after housing up in 5 cards, the other player hit an overfull. They don t come much worse than this.
April 14, 2012: At Omaha hi lo you can flop quads yet win only half the pot, as I did here.
April 20, 2012: I folded a garbage hand pre-flop and look what I would have made - a straight flush!
[The above article/interview was published originally April 21, 2012. The first link above is not actually to the page with the full timetable. That was originally the Party Poker promotions page, which has now been updated, nor is there a relative archived version, so I have linked instead to an archived version of a page from another site that gives some of the relevant details. I have put the interviewees verbatim responses in green. The screengrabs are in date if not strict chronological order].
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