UB Losing Interest in Big Multi-Table Tournaments
As you all obviously know, I have been a big supporter of Ultimate Bet. I know for a fact, based on emails I've received, that a bunch of good players were playing MORE often in UB $100 tournaments because they enjoyed the Extreme Tilt $100+ Leader Board and wanted to move up the rankings.
During UB's disastrous upgrade problems, I was supportive as well. They were promising great things for the MTT player, including some sort of super tec system, saving hand histories, and most importantly bigger and better tournaments. And soon they introduced those tournaments, including a nice $30 rebuy, a great $200 Wednesday tournament, nightly 7:40pm $100s, which were later changed to an even better 8pm $100. Plus, then introduced an exciting $500 Sunday tournament.
And now? They are all gone.
The software upgrades never happened and all the big MTTs are gone except for a 11pm $100, which is useless to the East Coast player -- and really to the middle America player as well. I'm sure UB will throw one or two of these back in but it sure looks like they have given up trying to compete for the bigger buy-in MTT players.
I'm not sure what this means for the Extreme Tilt Leader Board. I can never personally play in the 11pm $100. The Leader Board wasn't about me but I liked being part of it, at least. The purpose of the leader board was always simply to see who the hot players were at UB. Now there is so little interest there, should I really bother to keep up the Leader Board with PokerXFactor.com taking up so much time? I'll hang in there for a while and hope things change.
I'll also note that UB hasn't sent me a hand history in months. I'm always polite when I ask for them -- and I make VIDEOS of hand histories ... another nice promotion for the site they will not get. I have two friends who also never get hand histories from UB and PXF members report the problem (they can upload HHs into our Flash HH Viewer), but I know several others that get them in a few minutes. How is that possible?
UB has a bunch of online pros who are part of "Team UB" ... including KrazyKanuck, Leggggggggggy, Debo, and Shawn Rice. All are very strong players and they have been excellent reps for UB -- especially on PocketFives.com, which is one of the top online poker communities now. But what can these reps now do? They hardly have any tournaments at UB that, I would think, they can honestly say are interested in. It's embarrassing what UB has done.
I think UB just sees that nice steady rake from all those players in the $1 cash game and they just can't take it when sometimes there is an overlay on a tournament. But they didn't really give their bigger MTT tournaments a shot because they lost so many players from the upgrade problems. They needed to stay the course and win those players back. But who knows ... they don't communicate well with their users or supporters.
13 Comments:
Amen.
I started playing on UB and loved playing there for a couple years. I even won a trip to Aruba.
My experience there combined with the last six months of UB support and site issues mean that I have played 99% of my time elsewhere.
It is frustrating as hell because I still have a soft spot for UB, but they just don't seem to "get it".
The Ultimate Buddy program, the 1st person seating, the easy on the eyes graphics, the e-crew, the slower structures, the TEC SnGs. These are the great reasons that I have almost exclusively played on UB. However recently they are REALLY TRYING my patience. I'm giving UB another couple of weeks to work their "issues" out and then I am switching. Does anyone have any advice about which site I should switch to. Preferably one that has some of the attributes that I mention above.
THanks,
PSP1
They finally got through the upgrade, and now this. I love the structure and have had success. But, I'm an east coast guy and I couldn't agree more with your comments. The 8pm and 930 are my ideal tourney times. And I'm not nearly as interested in the smaller mtt's. I complained (and I suggest others do the same), but I'm not too optomistic. The form letter email response didn't offer too much hope. Maybe they should just stop the guarantee and then they don't have to worry about the overlay. Is there anyone who can get their ear on this issue?
RagnarPirate
I agree with The timing of the $100 tourney is way to late or early for me.I have been loyal to ub and actual never played any other site.I look at extreme tilt i think everyday maybe 10 x a day. to see whats new and the ranking.The response i got back from ub was there was no interest in 8pm which i found wierd because there was always over 100 player.should have made the pot 10000 instead of 20000 and it still would have got up to 17000 anyways.the $40 tourney just dont do it for me.
Killerbritty
I think the biggest key to your post is the point you made about UB not willing to fork over any money for tournament overlays.
A few months to a year back, Bodog's weekend 100K had upwards of 50K overlays each week! UB can't stand ponying up 10K in the Wednesday $200.
I think that in business as in life, you have to give a little to get a little, and if UB isn't willing to give, they sure aren't going to get any new players.
Good post - well said.
amazingly the 801 10+1 mtt had an overlay of about 1.5k. they would have done better to have either a 10k 100mtt or a non-guarantee 100 mtt. I would be very angry if I was an investor in UB. Loosing large buy-in mtt can not be good for business (just lower or eliminate the guarantees)
RagnarPirate
actually it was 1810 overlay. terrible.
RagnarPirate
pokertracker has a UB Hand History app that auto-saves HHs. you just need to have a bunch of windows open. i don't know if it works for tourneys. i use it for cash games.
Very well said Mindwise. Hopefully the "powers that be" at UB are listening to what all of there loyal customers are saying!!!!!!
I only play the $100 MTT's when I am running hot in the $30 and $40 MTT's. Funny thing is it is hard to run hot in these anymore....the 8am is gone the 3pm is gone and the 11am's guarantee keeps changing.
The biggest tourneys they have on UB are feeders to the WSOP, Aruba, and the $200. These are all great and I hope they keep them. However; A sensible player builds their bankroll up to play in these. It is hard to build a bankroll when all I play is MTT's and sng's ($30-$50 range) and getting one started takes 30 minutes!!
I wonder if UB has figured out that there sng's would get more activity if they had more decent MTT's. My standard play is to play a MTT and a sng at the same time.
Put back the guarantees...This will increase the flow of customers to the site....add more MTT's this will bring back some of the customers you have lost or are in the process of loosing....The two items above will increase your sng traffic and cash game traffic.
The online UB reps have been great to all of us but the "Big Wigs" at UB need to listen to them. UB should put KK, Shawn, H0, or Debo on the board of Directors....better yet fire the current board and make these four the board!!!!
ATT
the complaining must have had some effect. the 801 is back on for tonight. hope to see you guys there.
Ragnar
were it go
ok it back again is it me or didnt disapear twice..
To be honest, I find the interface on UB to be severely lacking as compared with, say, a pokerstars or full tilt. I find the registration for sng's and MTTs is too cumbersome and often takes much longer than it should. And there is much less traffic and seemingly less fishplay there because so many Many more of the fish are playing at stars, party, full tilt, etc. Plus you all are 100% correct that to the big MTT player, UB is just not making an interesting product for us to want to play in. I look forward to playing in the nightly bracelet races on full tilt. I like them so much that I even kinda look forward to playing in the $8 sng's to win the $26 tokens to play in the bracelet races. I try to play the party 40k guaranteed tournament almost every night that I am around at 10:20pm ET. UB has nothing like that. And you can be assured that I have no need to start a tournament at 11pm East Coast time. As you've aptly stated, UB Just. Doesn't. Get. It.
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