Sure Win Cup CANCELLED less than 1 hour before it was due to be completed. WTF?

[mcgameboy]

This time, the turnament zeroed the timer for everybody that reached the 3rd round, forcing more than 1000 people to buy a rebuy in order to play this round!! Nice way to earn money MG

That's not the case. I have several entries in the 3rd round. And only one of them has been affected in this way. I don't know if it is a coincidence,
but the account that was affected was my top scoring account in Round 2 (559th place). My next highest scoring account was 694th place and was not affected.

I did go to live chat (it was one of my Casino Rewards accounts) to raise the issue yesterday afternoon. They promised to get in touch
with MG about it. Whether the matter gets fixed or not is not certain. Although I would think it is in their interests to get it sorted, given that
the serious money will be spent in Round 4.

And surely a continue could be used instead of a rebuy?

 

[nikantw]

That's not the case. I have several entries in the 3rd round. And only one of them has been affected in this way. I don't know if it is a coincidence,
but the account that was affected was my top scoring account in Round 2 (559th place). My next highest scoring account was 694th place and was not affected.

I did go to live chat (it was one of my Casino Rewards accounts) to raise the issue yesterday afternoon. They promised to get in touch
with MG about it. Whether the matter gets fixed or not is not certain. Although I would think it is in their interests to get it sorted, given that
the serious money will be spent in Round 4.

And surely a continue could be used instead of a rebuy?

You are right, but I am sure more than 1/3 was affected, but it didnt happen the first day so some were fast enough to play. Also right for the continue, but you are probably going ti miss that on the next round 4! One extra continue in the final round can make the difference (if you dont know this, the continues are not reloaded when you get to next round)

 

[mcgameboy]

You are right, but I am sure more than 1/3 was affected, but it didnt happen the first day so some were fast enough to play. Also right for the continue, but you are probably going ti miss that on the next round 4! One extra continue in the final round can make the difference (if you dont know this, the continues are not reloaded when you get to next round)

Well I can only tell you based on my play this week.

I played the first third of my entries on Tuesday. No problems.

Then the second third of my entries on Wednesday. Again, no problems.

Then I went to play the final third of my entries yesterday. The affected account happened to be the first one among that final third.
Played the remaining entries, then went back to my affected account. Raised the query with live chat and asked them to speak
to MG about it in the hope of a fix before Sunday.

All but one of my slot tourny IDs are very similar, in that they begin with the same first two letters.

So I am quite puzzled as to why only one of them was affected.

The only thing I can think of is that the top 600 finishers were affected. Because my only affected entry was my only finisher in the Top 600 in round 2.
My next best was within the Top 700 and my worst finisher in Round 2 was 3504th.

But I'd admit that is quite a stretch. So god knows how this issue occurred.

And yes I was aware that using a continue in an earlier round means you lose it for the final round. Hence why I raised the query.

 

[nikantw]

Thanks to MG, everything is good now. Actually, one casino group wanted to be fair and decided to pay for one continue.


Yeap.... none of the above is true, and with MG I don't mean MicroGamming

 

[nikantw]

from 32red:

"Thank you for your recent contact with us.
Please accept our sincere apologies that you were unable to enter the Sure Win 10K tournament for April. Our software providers have reassured us that you will be able to enter the one in May without any problem.
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention."


So there will be another one this month! I want to believe..... but I don't see it. Maybe it will be there after this one ends.

 

[mcgameboy]

Thanks to MG, everything is good now. Actually, one casino group wanted to be fair and decided to pay for one continue.


Yeap.... none of the above is true, and with MG I don't mean MicroGamming

In my case, I actually got refunded the cost of a rebuy plus a continue, even though I was 1. only forced to use one extra continue and 2.
the coins I had not used due to the bug were still available for use once I had paid for the extra continue.

I accept that using a continue unnecessarily before Round 4 can impact your final score in Round 4, as you will have one less continue to help
build your score. However, I had already planned on rebuying once on the affected account, because I had used a continue in Round 1 to qualify for Round 2. So in the end, I wasn't really affected at all.

Although, if I had finished somewhere around 110th on the affected account, I might have felt differently, given the very small gaps in final Round 4 scores between 80th and 110th (less than 8000 points I think?).

from 32red:

"Thank you for your recent contact with us.
Please accept our sincere apologies that you were unable to enter the Sure Win 10K tournament for April. Our software providers have reassured us that you will be able to enter the one in May without any problem.
Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention."


So there will be another one this month! I want to believe..... but I don't see it. Maybe it will be there after this one ends.

I think they have made a mistake there. The next one is in July, as it is a quarterly tournament. Perhaps they mistook the Sure Win Cup for the monthly ACCUMULATOR tournament? But what they said about being able to enter without any problem "the next time"...that bit is true. I was told the same thing by Casino Rewards support after I had raised my own query with them.

 

[nikantw]

I think they have made a mistake there. The next one is in July, as it is a quarterly tournament.

Yes, the golden rule with any live chat (even 32red) is : "Question everything, believe nothing"

 

[09237653]

Nice of MG to let us into their ongoing beta testing of their software.

Also have never even made the 3rd round in this stupid tournament, the guys that made prizes you using many addons and rebuys? Is it profitable?

 

[PaaskeDenmark]

Great most tournaments gone at all 32Red brands. Also 20K fortnightly shows error in status but loads up??

Other avalon $250 is not showing at all only completed one yesterday....Thanks microgaming really getting tired of your crap. Think its time to abandon microgaming sorry 32Red at least this is out of your hands and not your fault. Think it is time 32Red starts thinking about a multiplatform like everyone else.

 

[mcgameboy]

Nice of MG to let us into their ongoing beta testing of their software.

Also have never even made the 3rd round in this stupid tournament, the guys that made prizes you using many addons and rebuys? Is it profitable?

It can be. It certainly has been for me. But there is a fair amount of risk involved. Well, there is given the strategy that I use for playing it.

There is a fair amount of details I have to go into though. I will revisit this thread tomorrow to give a full explanation.

 

[mcgameboy]

Nice of MG to let us into their ongoing beta testing of their software.

Also have never even made the 3rd round in this stupid tournament, the guys that made prizes you using many addons and rebuys? Is it profitable?

OK here's my stats for the Sure Win Cup since July 2014, which is when I started to take this tournament "seriously".

July 2014:

Number of participating accounts (Round 1): 37 (tournament not available at Lucky Emperor and Virtual City, Luxury Casino account closed)
Round 2: 27
Round 3: 26
Round 4: 24

Total number of continues used (costing 1 euro each): 45 (3, 0 , 8 and 34 in Rounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively).
Total rebuys (costing 3 euros each): NONE
Prizes: ONE - 175 euro (23rd place)
Total profit: 130 euro (Prizes: 175 euro, Spend: 45 euro)

October 2014: This is when I decided to really go all out on this.

Number of participating accounts (Round 1): 40 (tournament now available to play at Lucky Emperor and Virtual City, Luxury Casino account re-opened)
Round 2: 40
Round 3: 40
Round 4: 40 (but only got to play 32 of them due to the rather unfortunate timing of Fortune Lounge and Digimedia pulling out of the UK market).
Thankfully, only 2 of my continue plays were "wasted" as a result of this.

Total number of continues used (costing 1 euro each): 161 (15, 4 , 13 and 129 in Rounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively).
Total rebuys (costing 3 euros each): 21 (all in Round 4)
Prizes: THREE - 250 euro (8th place), 200 euro (16th place) and 50 euro (64th place)
Total profit: 276 euro (Prizes: 500 euro, Spend: 224 euro)

January 2015: NB. Number of continue plays increased from 3 to 4, starting coins increased from 15,000 to 17,500 and continue coins increased
from 7,500 to 10,000.

Number of participating accounts (Round 1): 33 (My 8 Fortune Lounge and Digimedia accounts all migrated to Spin Casino)
Round 2: 24
Round 3: 24
Round 4: 24

Total number of continues used (costing 1 euro each): 152 (7, 1 , 11 and 133 in Rounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively).
Total rebuys (costing 3 euros each): 14 (all in Round 4)
Prizes: THREE - 300 euro (3rd place), 225 euro (15th place) and 100 euro (36th place)
Total profit: 431 euro (Prizes: 625 euro, Spend: 194 euro)

NB. Unlike October, when I chose to get all of my runners to Round 4, I chose not to save my other 9 runners in Round 1. If I had
done though, my total spend would have increased from 194 euro to 293 euro.

April 2015: NB. Number of continue plays increased from 4 to 5.

Number of participating accounts (Round 1): 33
Round 2: 33
Round 3: 33
Round 4: 33 (four of my entries were not completed as the tournament ended before I could play them - but they were four entries where I had zero spend as they qualified for Round 4 without the aid of continues)

Total number of continues used (costing 1 euro each): 245 (18, 2 , 7 and 218 in Rounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively).
Total rebuys (costing 3 euros each): 20 (all in Round 4)
Prizes: FOUR - 90 euro (43rd place), 70 euro x 3 (53rd, 54th and 55th place)
Total loss: 5 euro (Prizes: 300 euro, Spend: 305 euro)

NB. I could have stood pat after clinching my fourth prize (after 19 entries played) with what would have been a profit of 66 euro.
And left my remaining 14 entries alone. But I chose to plough on, knowing that in a worst case scenario, my losses would have been
no greater than 25 euro. Given my successes in previous tournaments, I felt it was worth the risk.

Total profit from those four tournaments in total: 832 euro (roughly £625) (Prizes: 1600 euro, Spend: 768 euro)

 

[nikantw]

Total profit from those four tournaments in total: 832 euro (roughly £625) (Prizes: 1600 euro, Spend: 768 euro)

You are good!!! Congrads!! My guess is that tournament is profitable for casinos (you win but thousands of others lose). Why don’t they make it a monthly thing? Because of all the technical problems?

 

[mcgameboy]

You are good!!! Congrads!! My guess is that tournament is profitable for casinos (you win but thousands of others lose). Why don’t they make it a monthly thing? Because of all the technical problems?

It's hard to say if this tournament is profitable for casinos or not. I'd certainly wonder if it is profitable for MG, because from October 2013 (that was the first time I remember playing it) up to and including October 2014, the number of continue plays remained unchanged at 3. Now they have increased the number of continue plays in consecutive tournaments (to 4 in January, then 5 in April). Why has such a step been necessary? If it's not to reduce losses, then it must be to boost profits. Thing is, they don't want to be increasing the number of continue plays every tournament, otherwise it could end up putting off a portion of the paying players from participating at all.

I think the reason they don't make it a monthly tournament is because of the format, rather than technical issues. Unlike the monthly ACCUMULATOR tournament which runs from the first day to the last day of the calendar month, the Sure Win Cup runs strictly from the 1st Monday of the calendar month to the 4th Sunday that occurs after that 1st Monday.

If you were to hold it monthly (while keeping the start date as being the 1st Monday of the calendar month) then the tournaments
would start in the following week numbers (according to 2015 calendar)....

2, 6, 10, 15, 19, 23, 28, 32, 37, 41, 45, 50 (a mixture of 4 and 5 week gaps IE not uniform gaps)

Hold it quarterly and the tournaments start in weeks 2, 15, 28 and 41....all exact gaps of 13 weeks. That looks tidier.

I personally like it that they have it every quarter. Helps to make it more of a novelty and something to look forward to.

 

[nikantw]

Here we go again.....
Nowhere to be found just as we enter week 4.
Before it disappeared it said "cancelled".

 

[mcgameboy]

Here we go again.....
Nowhere to be found just as we enter week 4.
Before it disappeared it said "cancelled".

It did the same thing heading into Week 2. Hence why the round started at around 1.30pm UK time instead of the normal 12pm.

This is the one tournament I look forward to playing, because it only happens once per quarter (the fact that I have fared quite well on it helps too).
But if MG is going to start this multiple cancellation bullcrap, I'll be completely put off from playing it when it comes round again in January.

I'm a tad concerned that if they have already "cancelled" it twice, what are they going to do once players have pumped whatever money they intend to pump into the tournament? Cancel it again, not pay out any prizes and then force players into chasing after refunds?

No one who enters this tournament with the intention of playing in Week 4 signed up for that crap.

 

[vinylweatherman]

MG should understand that they are no longer the only software hosting this kind of tournament structure, so if they carry on the way they are they may find players vote with the wallets and switch to other tournament providers, ones who don't cancel mid way or near the end, nor have constant bugs and other issues.

This may also be another this for our new friends the CMA. Is it treating players fairly to run a tournament through to the final round where players have spent money building their positions, only to cancel it without warning and not pay the final prizes. This is essentially another form of one aspect of their investigation, where players have a "reasonable expectation of being paid winnings (prizes in the case of tournaments)", only to have all their play cancelled and only get their deposits returned (buy-ins and continues in the case of tournaments).

Under the UK rules, software providers also have to be licenced, so MGS can't wriggle out of it by saying they merely provide the platform. If MGS are operating the tournament, they are responsible for treating the UK players fairly in how the tournaments are managed, which has a useful by product in that non UK players in the same tournament also benefit from any changes forced onto MGS by the CMA in how tournaments are run, managed, and cancelled.

 

[nikantw]

Game is up again, we will see if it is working properly in 6h and 35m
I don't think the new format with double the cost for continues and 100 getting 100 will work for them.
No reason to try to buy your luck for just 100 when it costs 13 each time and you need like 50 times to make sure.