WRGPT11 Protest Policy

If you think that either:

  1. The dealer software made a mistake - or -
  2. Another player has gained an unfair advantage through a mistake or cheating

you should probably PROTEST to stop the action and get a resolution.

Having typed that, you should probably know that almost all PROTESTS are rejected and in almost all of the rejections the protester agrees with the decision after thinking about it and having the facts spelled out to them.

How to Protest:

You protest by sending a message to the dealer@warmfuzzies.com, the same as the regular play, with the ID=xxxxxx in the subject, the same as the regular play, with the command PROTEST in the body as the command. After the command type why you are protesting and add any evidence that backs your position. The entire message is forwarded to the floorman. The rest of the world only knows that you protested and does not see the reason or comments.

For example:

Subject: Holdem ID=tester message

PROTEST

The pot was incorrectly split in hand 15 and I should have received $2500 instead of $500 while my opponent should have received $2500 instead of $2,500,000.

This is how a protest message should be made. The message contains enough data that the floorman knows the problem, has a reference to see for himself, and has a suggested remedy in hand. This type of protest gets the floorman to want to help you out of your jam.

If the floorman has to ask you why you are protesting, which happens in most protests, you are already a step behind.

The Protest Policy for WRGPT15 (same since WRGPT11)

Protests will be upheld IF all of these conditions are met:

  1. They are due to a software error or player cheating or player gaining an unfair advantage due to no fault of the affected player
  2. The reason, evidence and arguments for the protest is delivered with the protest or within TWO HOURS of the protest.
  3. If the protest reason is a timeout that the player considers incorrect the reason must include the player's START time, the time it became the player's turn to act, the time the player believes they should have timed out and the time that the player actually timed out.

Protests will be denied automatically if any of the following applies:

  1. No reason for protest comes within TWO HOURS of the protest.
  2. The protest is a re-protest to something already ruled upon and no significant evidence is added.
  3. The protest is because a mail message was sent in time but not received in time. Email does not travel in zero time. It can take an hour for email to leave your server sometimes. Exceptions allowed for the poker server's connectivity going down or the server itself going down. No exceptions will be made for the player's connectivity going down as the whole table should not be made to suffer just because one player is suffering.

Probably about 95% of the protests have been about timeouts and almost every one of them has been denied. In each case the player did not understand the office hours and timeout calculations (see Timeouts and You). If I remember correctly the only protests upheld for WRGPT10 were in cases where the poker server was having serious problems. There were a couple of bugs involving split pots that were valid protests in years past but I think that bug has been squashed.

Most of the rest of the protests were being seated incorrectly during a live redraw. The intent of the live redraw is to keep you the same number of hands from the blinds that you were on the old table. This is not always possible for all players entering the table. This is only an intent and not a guarantee. There is some randomness in table assignments so by the luck of the draw you may end up in a more or less advantageous blind relative position. Sorry. Thems the breaks. Your protest for this reason will be rejected.