Enough is Enough

We don't like to say it, but tonight may very well have been the last straw for us with National League of Poker.

We qualified for the Sunday night weekly championship for the second week in a row, and the fourth week in the last six.  When game time came, we were shown in the small blind to start the first hand -- and then the system froze.  Again.  We couldn't even connect to the table after that.

We pulled out of NLOP, and went back in.  The game was seven minutes old when the screen for our table came back up -- but then the server spent 23 minutes "attempting to reconnect" without success.  After 30 minutes, we gave up -- certain we'd already been forfeited, since "ten minutes in post and fold" is all it takes to get tossed.

The NLOP game server can't seem to handle any outside friction.  A McAfee update admittedly began at the 27-minute mark, and we know from experience it beings to take control of our computer about 30 minutes earlier without officially showing it.  An e-mail to us from NLOP several days ago admitted all browsers should be closed for optimum play.

But the poker site's advertising servers don't seem to have any problems.  Ads kept changing and updating during our long wait, like nothing ever happened.  NLOP admits its game and ad servers are separate.

The website clearly needs advertising dollars to offer prizes in a "free play" format.  But poker players are "customers," too.  If the connection quality of the two is obviously different, players are bound to reach the conclusion that they're only a secondary consideration.

I Thessalonians 5:14 advises believers to "be patient with everyone."  But when we're patient to a fault -- to the point where we can't do what we'd like to do -- a limit on patience eventually is reached.

It pains us to write this, because we've won a nice sum of money playing online poker with NLOP.  But at this point, we're looking for alternatives -- preferably outside the Zen gaming group, which includes NLOP and other free poker sites.  Do you have any suggestions, which are legal and financially rewarding?