Partypoker Postpones PokerFest in Wake of Technical Issues

September 28th, 2015 | by Greg Shaun

partypoker’s Golan Shaked was forced to delay the start of Pokerfest 2015 due to technical issues. (Image: yogonet.com)

It was supposed to be the jewel in partypoker’s annual tournament calendar for players outside of the US, but Pokerfest Online 2015 has had to be postponed due to technical issues.

Following a series of technical glitches arising from the latest software update, partypoker has decided to use its proverbial time bank and put the series on hold while the tech team addresses the reliability issues.

$2.5 Million Put on Ice

Pokerfest was originally set to run from September 27 until October 11 and offer players a total of 80 events and at least $2.5 million in prize money.

However, with the risk of delays threatening to derail the event, the decision was made to postpone the action until October 25.

In a statement to the community, bwin.party’s director of games, Golan Shaked, apologized to players and explained why the decision was made.

“I apologize to our loyal players for having to delay this highly anticipated event. With a total prize pool of $2.5m up for grabs, we are not willing to take even the slightest risk with our players’ experience during the 80 events that make up Pokerfest,” said Shaked.

After the news was made public, a number of players signaled their discontent via social media with one Twitter user calling it a “disgrace.” The UK’s Mathew Frankland, another established pro, also joked that if Pokerfest has been delayed because of technical issues then it would be “postponed indefinitely.”

A Case of History Repeating

Unfortunately, these sorts of issues are not uncommon at partypoker. Back in 2014 the operator was forced to cancel two of its Pokerfest events after connection issues plagued the site.

Despite a number of players anteing for Event #38 and Event #39, partypoker made the decision to remove the events from the schedule due to issues with its Gibraltar ISP.

Following rumblings of issues in the weeks preceding the 2014 Pokerfest event, partypoker moved to tackle the issues.

However, despite posting a statement on 2+2 that it had rectified the connection problems, the issues continued and that forced partypoker to cancel a handful of events in order to preserve the integrity of each player’s gaming experience.

Not wanting to run into the same issues this time around, partypoker is now waiting until its system is completely free of glitches and errors before it launches its flagship tournament series.

All players that registered for events should have had their buy-ins refunded and, by way of compensation for any inconvenience caused, partypoker will be adding a $50,000 freeroll to the Pokerfest schedule when it runs in late October.