GENERAL RANT - BLUE SQUARE SOFTWARE

[linziwan]

I know we have to use Blue Square as the sponsors but I do wish they would do something about their damn software. 

I thought I would try a non APAT tournament on Blue Square as I was also trying to get a seat to a GUKPT satellite through a freeroll at the time. Knocked out really early in the satellite, it was a freeroll so you can guess the kind of hands calling and my hands just weren"t holding up. 

But I was doing really well in the other tourney.

3.5hours in I have been having intermittent problems with the connection cutting out for a few seconds but coming back quite quickly so not too concerned.  I am above average in my chipstack and only about 20 players to go to the money. 

When what happens. 

The intermittant connection starts getting worse.  I see KK utg, see it and its gone folded, no chance to act never saw any buttons.  Two hands later I have QQ, seriel reraiser of course reraises me.... I want to reraise all in but immediatley he reraised my hand folded.  The software then loses connection completely with Blue Square and it closes down.  I reconnect and have missed 4 hands including my blinds.  Three hands later same thing happens.... the software shuts down..... and I can"t get it open until i"m through my blinds....  

Couple of hands later I get KK"s again, no messing about this hand - my chips are going all in incase I get cut off again........ great it accepted it, get called by 10 8 o....?  u guessed it 10 10 8 on the flop  .  That took half my stack.  Go all in next hand....... well thought I had, software said I was all in.... but after the hand it said  Folded...!!!! duh and I would have won... grrrrr, would have trebled up now i"m getting a little miffed... to say the least....  

Eventally managed to get my chips all in with another pair of KKs, no idea what happened except i lost the hand and was out of the tournament... never saw the hand get dealt at all..... it again closed the software down.

Try three times during this period to contact 24 hr on-line support..... not a peep from them - nobody would respond.... grrrrr....

I am not happy think I had a very good chance of making it into the later stages of this tournament.  Nearly 4 hours play and nothing to show for it....

BL..DY SOFTWARE....

And yes my I was connected to the internet the whole time and had no problems looking at my emails while I was playing.

Sorry just needed to rant.... something I don"t do very often.... 

Fingers crossed it doesn"t start cutting me off on the APAT tournament tomorrow.  My computer may not survive if it does...

[AMRN]

I don"t think this is just a BSQ issue. I play at Titan which is part of the same iPoker network, and have the same issues. Some nights I can"t play at all, some nights I have no problems, and other nights I play, but miss a bunch of hands every now and then.

I am often multi tablling betweek Titan and PokerStars, and at Stars I never have an issue - so I know the problem isn"t my end.   The thing is though, I make so much money at Titan compared to Stars, that I feel compelled to stay and suffer the poor connectivity.

Frustrated to say the least.

[kinboshi]

There was a problem over the weekend with the iPoker network.

It is annoying when the customer support isn"t good though, and even if they"re having issues it would be nice to be updated.  I guess the individual rooms that are on the iPoker network approach this differently.

[AMRN]

the problem at the weekend was a complete outage of the iPoker network. the problems I refer to are ongoing, although more prevelant at peak time, ie 19:00 to 22:00 GMT

[kinboshi]

That"s interesting, as I play on BlueSQ and blondepoker - both on the iPoker network and I never have a problem (except for this weekend of course).

It is possible that there are reasons why some people can have problems with specific poker rooms and not others to do with routers, MTUs and packet sizes.  Now I don"t understand all this, so I"ll get someone who does to post here...

This is in addition to other considerations - such as: having a fast enough processor (or processors if you"re posh), having enough RAM - 1GB is the absolute minimum I"d recommend for iPoker (especially if you"re using Poker Tracker or similar software at the same time), and making sure you aren"t doing anything else on your computer that will hog the processor, memory or bandwidth.

[GiMac]

It definitely helps if before you log in you clear down your cookies and files caches on your IE or Firefox. I tend to do it daily now, every time I turn my computer on, part of my opening routine is to clear these down. Also if you run Norton Antivirus and its set up to update automatically at certain times of the day, this will have an adverse affect on i-poker software whilst it is updating.

[AMRN]

I understand the thought processes behind PC capability, BUT that wouldn"t explain why I can play perfectly well all day long, but at about 19:00 I start to get intermittent lockups and dropouts causing missed hands... and only on iPoker, never on Stars.  I have also tried from two PCs and laptop when totally desperate, but to no avail.

I"ve checked with my ISP, and have had a trace run on my connection for 24 hours, and it showed no issues with bandwidth throughout the period.

Interestingly, my workaround for evening play is to plug in my slow GPRS modem card and play over dialup..... a little slow to react to mouse clicks, but never have any dropouts or lag....... and that leads me to consider my router. If anyone has any configuration suggestions for an ADSL router, I"m all ears.... (well, and other bits too, but that doesn"t matter here)   [all that said though, why would my router perform perfectly well all day long and only have problems in the evening?]

[Jon MW]

...
It is possible that there are reasons why some people can have problems with specific poker rooms and not others to do with routers, MTUs and packet sizes.  Now I don"t understand all this, so I"ll get someone who does to post here...

This is in addition to other considerations - such as: having a fast enough processor (or processors if you"re posh), having enough RAM - 1GB is the absolute minimum I"d recommend for iPoker (especially if you"re using Poker Tracker or similar software at the same time), and making sure you aren"t doing anything else on your computer that will hog the processor, memory or bandwidth.

That is interesting, but it is clearly indicative of a specific problem with iPoker that so many people have problems (whatever their setup) with them, and not with other networks. There is obviously something that the likes of Pokerstars do, that the iPoker network isn"t doing, which lets them run more smoothly.

... I play on BlueSQ and blondepoker - both on the iPoker network and I never have a problem ...

That"s because you"re special

[swordfish]

Clearly the BlueSquare/iPoker software causes many people problems.  As APAT are under the control now of Grosvenor, the online experience is not what it was with Stars.  Season one online was far better IMO, and most people I know would agree.  Poor stuff.

[HaworthBantam]

... I play on BlueSQ and blondepoker - both on the iPoker network and I never have a problem ...

That"s because you"re special needs

FYP

[GiMac]

It is well known, although  not admitted by the ISP"s involved that they feck about with the ports used for internet poker at high bandwith traffic times.

I had to move about 6 months ago from an ISP I had used for several years because of this. I was able to play on some sites ok and others I couldn"t and was getting the problems that you have described. My original ISP swore blind that they were not doing this and it must be a problem with the Poker Site or my PC, but after a bit of googling etc I found plenty of circumstantial evidence to the contrary, so decided to move ISP. As soon as I moved to another ISP the problem was sorted!

Believe me it happens, and it might not just be i-poker.

[AMRN]

As soon as I moved to another ISP the problem was sorted!

who did you move to? I"ve been considering a move for a while to try and fix this, but don"t want to end up with the tie of 12 month contract elsewhere and suffer the same problem.

[Ken Jude]

I occasionally get terrible lagging on Stars (while others playing on the same table  seem to have no problems at all). If I look at the ping trace that Stars contains within the client it seems to me that this is accompanied by packet loss which seems to be much closer to the Stars end of the route than my provider (ntl). But Starts claim that they have no problem and their standard reply blames either ISP or the user"s router.I find it hard to believe it can be a router problem when it can be behaving perfectly the following day without a reboot.

Could ISPs messing about with ports cause packet loss towards the poker site"s end of the route?

It"s really difficult to get to the bottom of these situations because sites will always blame ISPs and ISPs will blame the sites and you need people at both ends willing and able to work together to solve the problems. Not to mention that the customer services people often don"t IP address information etc to enable you to start try to trace the routes and identify where issues are.

[kinboshi]

... I play on BlueSQ and blondepoker - both on the iPoker network and I never have a problem ...

That"s because you"re special needs

FYP

@~*$#ers

I"ll let you know it"s because I"m on cable, and although not the cheapest, it"s a very stable connection and I never have a problem with it (except when some local yoots vandalised the exchange and I was without an internet connection for 2 hours).

I used to have an issue with some poker rooms until I upgraded my RAM.  Made a huge difference.

Now I just need to learn how to play poker properly.

[GiMac]

As soon as I moved to another ISP the problem was sorted!

who did you move to? I"ve been considering a move for a while to try and fix this, but don"t want to end up with the tie of 12 month contract elsewhere and suffer the same problem.

I"ll PM you the details. I need to check but I think if you get referred by an existing client we both get a discount, but I"ll check it out. However, they are just as cheap as the main "names", they also have a cheap phone product, but I need the sky £5 a month for free international calls, so phone was no good to me, but they are an ISP first and foremost and by that i mean they arent a phone company doing broadband as an add on, it is their core business and they are small enough to get the customer service side of it right.