I trust you WannaBe, Good stuff! Not one but two owners! Again, thanks for your response. I don't see any email addys, but it is late, tomorrow is another day to check it out, and, at least, I have some real people to try and contact.

There are still 8.8 hours to place your WINNING BetS Round 8 - Liga de Campiones

Check the winners and make your bets!!

Seriously, somebody please fix this mess. As I write this, Round 8 are still live bets!

Tom

_______________________________________

Round #8 // Nov 12th // 16:00

Topalov vs Nisipeanu
Ponomariov vs Karpov
Polgar vs Kasimdzhanov
[Pick 3]

Round #9 // Nov 13th // 16:00

Kasimdzhanov vs Karpov
Nisipeanu vs Polgar
Topalov vs Ponomariov
[Pick 3]
_______________________________________

What gives? <slightly confused> ;-) Best Regards, - Mal

Official results from Round #8 were (are):

______________________________________________

Round #8 // Nov 11th

Topalov vs Nisipeanu // 1-0
Ponomariov vs Karpov // ½-½
Polgar vs Kasimdzhanov // ½-½
______________________________________________

They played Round #8 yesterday on November 11th (Sunday). They do list November 12th (Monday) as the last official 'Rest Day' (of three) now. Round 9 is scheduled to take place on Nov 13th (Tuesday) and the last round #10 on Nov 14th (Wednesday). So, the betting time for Round #9 needs to be adjusted accordingly... :^)

Naturally I was planning to bet a gazillion dollars on Topy to win over Nisi and my super 'Pick 3' was that I was planning to bet BIG (all the c-bucks that I had left) on was - 'Draw-Draw-White' - of course! ~lol~

In all fairness my feeling is that the entire round (Round #8) should be scraped and all c-bucks refunded. Not saying anyone cheated with the actual round #8 results in psychic hand but it would be totally unfair for those of us who played strictly by the rules. :-) Best Regards, - Mal

PS: Oliver Hardy to Stan Laurel - 'That's another fine mess you have gotten us into!' ;-)

PPS: The schedule as originally posted (taken from the original website and also posted on - Liga de Campeones (2007) - page here by yours truly):

Nov 1st // Opening Ceremony and Drawing of Lots
Nov 2nd // Round #1 - 4 PM
Nov 3rd // Round #2 - 4 PM
Nov 4th // Round #3 - 4 PM
Nov 5th // Rest Day! (1)
Nov 6th // Round #4 - 4 PM
Nov 7th // Round #5 - 4 PM
Nov 8th // Rest Day! (2)
Nov 9th // Round #6 - 4 PM
Nov 10th // Round #7 - 4 PM
Nov 11th // Rest Day! (3)
Nov 12th // Round #8 - 4 PM
Nov 13th // Round #9 - 4 PM
Nov 14th // Round #10 - 4 PM
Nov 15th // Closing Ceremony

I've been struggling with this problem for a few hours now, and it turns out to be more complicated than originally thought.

The problem has to do with the way that ChessBookie merges tickets for the sake of convenience. For example, if you make a 100 c$ wager on Karpov, and later another 100 c$ wager on Karpov, you don't end up with two separate tickets--you just have a single ticket, for 200 c$.

The problem I'm facing is that the case where somebody bet 50 on Topalov to win before the game, and then after it was discovered that he won, bet another 150. Ideally we should refund the 150 and pay the person off as if he bet 50. Unfortunately that's impossible as the software is currently setup--you either refund a ticket in full, or you pay it off in full, there is no provision for a partial refund and a partial payment, at least not without a LOT of extra design work.

Therefore, since the ideal solution seems to be out of reach, there are at least three other things we can do:

1. Refund all bets for round 8, whether they would have won or lost, whether they were made before the game started or after the game finished.

2. Refund all tickets IN FULL if any portion of the ticket was made after the actual time of the game start. Then we can pay off all of the people who made bets prior to the actual start of the game, but people who placed bets after the results were known are excluded from participation.

3. Pay off all tickets as if nothing unusual happened. The people who saw that the games already took place, and then cleverly made bets on the winners, will collect their winnings.

Option 1 is certainly is a fair across-the-board sweep of the entire mess, and it's also the easiest from a programming standpoint. (In fact, no extra work is required at all.) But some people will be robbed of what would have been big winnings, especially in the pick-three. This could actually upset the order of the top-10 leaderboard, casting a shadow over the entire leg.

Option 2 is satisfying in a way, if you believe that "the cheaters get locked out while the honest players get to play". But I hasten to explain that the people who made bets after the game finished are not necessarily "cheaters" in any sense of the word. In fact, many bets were made on LOSING results after the games were completed--obviously these people were unaware of what had happened, they were just going by the officially published schedule, as were we. I find it unsettling to deny anybody their winnings knowing that in all likelihood they were acting in good faith.

Option 3 is the least satisfying because it rewards the people who tried to trick the system, and it's obvious that there were several cases of exactly that. A ton of money came in on the Draw-Draw-White ticket in the pick three, after the results were posted. Coincidence? No way.

Putting all this together, we're going with option #2. This means that if you made any bets on round 8 games after November 11 10:00am (USA/Eastern) you will get a full refund for your ticket, but if you got your entire bet in before that time it will be paid off (or not) normally. This may also establish a useful precedent: if this sort of thing ever happens again, it will discourage people from trying to capitalize on the mistake.

I'm sorry that this error happened, but it wasn't our fault, and I'm fairly confident that it's the most fair thing we can do under difficult circumstances.

So what's up?

If I am able talk to an owner, maybe I'll find out what is going on. If not, maybe no one cares, it is just a game, right? If so I apologixe for muddying the waters, if not, is there anyone out there who knows what I am talking about?

Best Regards and good wishes to all,
Tom

ps. I mentioned ICC above, but does it matter? This is one instance of many of a long history of muck-ups (can I use one of the fully public approved everyday expressions here, I expect not, so muck-ups it is) with the CG Bookie games. Is it possible to just get it right? Pleazzze. All of the Chess games site is excellent except the Bookie Game. If this kind of care is going to contimue, please, just let me know.

<1. Refund all bets for round 8, whether they would have won or lost, whether they were made before the game started or after the game finished.>

The problem we have with point #2:

<2. Refund all tickets IN FULL if any portion of the ticket was made after the actual time of the game start. Then we can pay off all of the people who made bets prior to the actual start of the game, but people who placed bets after the results were known are excluded from participation.>

Is that by ending the betting time prematurely (before it was scheduled to officially end as announced) there were some of us (me included that were fully unaware that this round #8 had actually taken place already) that had not finalized all of all bets. Nor, were we given the chance to do so. :-(

The final decision is yours of course but that's how I see it... You have to choose what's fair for the CG.com betting group as a whole. :-) Best Regards, - Mal

But I have done very well on the major tournaments (Mexico, Liga de Campeones etc.) so if I had waited on 7000 and played only on what I know best, I would be well in the lead with 5 figures by now.

The people I feel most sorry for are those who decided to "cap off" a winning bet by adding a little extra money to it, after the results were in. Those people will now get a refund instead of a payoff. A few of these people might have been trying to cheat the system, but I can tell by looking at the logs that some of them were acting in good faith. Again, I'm sorry.

As for everybody who has losing tickets for round 8: you did make bets on losers, did you not? So I can't understand why you should feel cheated. If you bet on winners, we would have paid you, but you didn't, so we won't.

If this was a real gambling site with real money, we'd have to have full time employees dedicated to the job of monitoring these things. We'd probably have liasons for the various tournaments and even fly people to the tournament sites. But ChessBookie is just a side project played by only a small percentage of our users, and we simply can't hire a staff of people to treat it as seriously as we would have to if we were dealing with real money.

There isn't any option here which is going to please everybody. I was forced to make a choice to allow the game to continue and that choice was #2. There's no way that we are going to back out of that decision now--the reversal of the decision is almost impossible.

I assume you'll be adjusting the final betting time for Round #9 in the 'Liga de Campeones' tourney (moving it forward by one full day) once it's clear that today, Monday, Nov 12th, is the last official rest day of three and that rounds #9 and #10 will indeed take place on Tuesday and Wednesday? :-) Regards, - Mal

<I've been struggling with this problem for a few hours now, and it turns out to be more complicated than originally thought>

Mr Freeman, sir, I would like to talk to you.
You are focusing on this problem when the REAL problem is on-going.

I just read your post and I don't think there are any cheaters, re this incident or others. A few days ago someone posted a way to cheat, I hope your programmers have fixed that.

In this case you are focusing on, it just one of many. And it is all disgusting. There are too many problems with your solution to go into; the main problem is that there are always problems.

First, I believed your site, i.e., resolution would be the 12th. But, No....
When the hourly countdown began.... So, first I bet on Polgar (a losing bet, right?) to see what would happen. Guess what? I lost my bet right away,... So, to see what would happen, I bet on the winners (you know, many hours ago winners, but it seems that whoever is in charge is late, very late in this case) .... And, the bet took!! (excuse the two exclams, it was not really that good a move)

So, I tapped the LoanShark, always ready for some action if you know what I mean, and bet on the winners as well as I could (seems like there is a limit on us poor folks down here, ohhh to be where the rain does not fall!) So I bet everything to make a point. But I wonder if the point was made. Somehow, I think not.

Anyway Mr. Freeman,
this bookie game was, for me, just another great feature of CG. I have received what I paid for and more, no problem that way. The user game lists were more than expected, and, to those who created game lists of books, I thank YOU all very, VERY, much. Great stuff! And when I couldn't remember where I saw a game and then found it in the CG option of reviewing games, well, I was very happy! And pleased with whoever thought of that feature. So I expect something from this bookie feature. However it seems like betting chessbux is not in the corporate plan, at least as far as support, so maybe you should not have started it in the first place. I haven't seen much user support, so maybe I am alone and wrong, and should stay with the chess part of this wonderful site. On the other hand, I find, or would find, this bookie thing rather diverting in a good way. Whatever my complaints, the bookie site is well thought out, the web pages attractive, and all in all, worth, from my pov, making better.

All the best and Best Regards
Tom

<Micawbr> <A few days ago someone posted a way to cheat, I hope your programmers have fixed that.> We tried to replicate the situation and couldn't. We did discover that you can go in a loop where it continually reports that you receive an endless stream of 100 chessbuck loans, but at the end you see that you don't really have all that money. It's more of an error in output than a loophole in the system. Perhaps I'm wrong, and if I am, I'd appreciate a more thorough description of the technique used (preferably emailed to chess@chessgames.com and not spelled out here for all to see.)

About your complaint with round 8, I'm still unclear on what you're saying. Especially confusing is this part <to see what would happen, I bet on the winners (you know, many hours ago winners, but it seems that whoever is in charge is late, very late in this case)> Are you saying that you understood that the results were in, and made bets anyhow? Or that you had no idea the round was completed and were betting in good faith? In either case it doesn't matter, any bets made after Nov 11th 10:00am have to be rejected.

Anyhow, it's my job to program the software but I don't actually run the game--I just clean up the messes. I'll wait for the ChessBookie to check in later today and get back to you, if you still feel it necessary.

Yes 'clear' means exactly that (100% clear). Now with only 2 rounds to play in 3 days we'll all see in just a few more hours that all is crystal clear! ~lol~ :^) - Mal

PS: Right <TIMER> it really sucks... For those of us that play the CG.com betting game honestly (I assume most of us do as I'm always trying to point out any mistakes that I see) it's such a terrible way to lose our precious betting options & opportunities in that fashion. By a schedule posted on the official tourney website which was in error... It's worth saying once again - it just sucks. :-(((