WRGPT Web log

Server outage / table corruption

2010-02-01T20:01:00Z

The WRGPT server is a virtual private server. The hardware running the server went down without warning early Sunday morning (1/31/2010).

It appears that several tables were corrupted by the sudden outage. The tables found are being corrected. The rest are being checked.

During this time timeouts will be disabled in case your table had an issue.

Please continue to play normally if your table allows and protest if your table does not allow so that the problem will be noticed.

We hope to have everything back to normal by the end of the day Monday.

Thanks for your understanding. Good luck in the remainder of WRGPT19.

Slow email to yahoo.com

2010-01-29T20:57:00Z

Email is being temporarily deferred to yahoo.com, most likely due to someone reporting email from the dealer as spam. When you are eliminated and no longer wish to receive email, please send the command READ NONE to the dealer to stop receiving email. If you do nothing, you will stop receiving email when your table is part of a redraw or the round ends.

For those that have only one email address at yahoo.com, you can add another email address with the ADDR command.

e.g.:

ADDR email1@domain1.com,email2@domain2.com

Changing Your E-MAIL Address

Second round starting issues

2010-01-09T07:30:00Z

There were two problems found in starting the second round of WRGPT19.

First, the automated redraw did not kick off due to an error in the automated checking script. This meant that the round "c" started a few hours later than it otherwise would have.

Second, the railbird email address was incorrect due to a change made in testing the new server. This caused the first day and a half of hands to not be sent to the railbird list. These hands are online and can be seen via the hands.wrgpt.org site.

Both of these issues have been corrected and will function correctly for the end of the second round.

First round of WRGPT19 ending

2010-01-04T18:18:00Z

The first round of WRGPT19 is coming to a close. All tables will finish their current hand then wait for the rest of the tables to finish. Once all tables have finished then all the remaining players will be redrawn randomly onto new tables.

Removing players that never showed up

2009-12-18T19:28:00Z

About 30 players signed up for WRGPT19 and did now show up.

Most of these have been removed from the tourney with the rest to be removed over the next few days.

Because of the high number of No Shows we extended the live redraw window for the first round so that the removal of these non-players does not cause the complete, full redraw that would normally occur after 30 days of a round.

Server was down tonight

2009-11-24T06:32:00Z

The WRGPT server was down earlier tonight from 18:39 to 20:54.

Timeouts have been disabled to allow mail that may have been incoming and stuck on the sending server to catch up.

WRGPT19 Starting NOW!

2009-11-16T08:23:00Z

The 19th annual World Rec.Gambling Poker Tourney is starting NOW!

If you have registered correctly you should be receiving your initial message and new ID within the next hour or so. You will need to reply BACK to that message to come off of vacation.

Once everyone on your table comes back from vacation OR 24 hours pass your table will start the first hand.

Good luck.

Remember to read the friendly manual (RTFM) at:

http://www.wrgpt.org/manual.html

Notes on the start of the real tournament

2009-11-15T21:04:00Z

When the real tournament starts, you will receive a new ID. Reply BACK to the "Start of Game" message to play. "No Shows" will be removed after 30 days. Your practice round ID, which starts with a "p", will no longer be valid so do not use it in the real tournament.

Please remember that changes made to email addresses and start times during the practice round will not carry over to the real tournament. You can change them with the ADDR and START commands after the tournament starts. Your current settings can be viewed with the WHAT command.

Good luck.

Practice Round almost over, Real tourney starts in a week

2009-11-09T23:35:00Z

We are planning on ending the practice round this Saturday or Sunday in preparation for the real tourney starting on Monday, November 16, 2009.

During the practice round we made several small bug fixes and added formatted email processing. This processor has been tweaked a few times to handle various email formats that we have been receiving. If you are still having problems you should send the floorman an email about the issue and/or check your email application settings to send text only email to the dealer. We don't want to keep changing it once the tourney starts.

Formatted email now accepted

2009-10-29T20:12:00Z

Floorman David Widder has written a mail massager that takes formatted email and removes the formatting so that the dealer will receive the unformatted, text-only email it likes.

It was just installed last night and has been tuned up today from a problem noticed this morning.

Go ahead and send email that is formatted now and see how it works. We would really like to ring any issues out during the practice round.

This is particularly interesting for Blackberry users. It appears that there was a change in the past year for Blackberry's email so that it is sent in base64 by default now. This is total gibberish for the dealer (and email readers that don't handle base64).

Let us know if there are problems.

Remember, the floorman email changes every year to slow spammers and is floorman19 this year instead of floorman18 at the usual address on wrgpt.org.

(Hey, Spammers! No floorman has ever purchased anything from that email you seem to snag each year despite the 100+ emails per day it gets. So, save your bandwidth.)

The answer to many email questions/issues with commands the during practice round

2009-10-28T08:48:00Z

Please see this posting:
http://blog.wrgpt.org/2007/10/09/email-faq.aspx

WRGPT FAQ:
http://wrgpt.org/wrgptfaq.html

Email for Floorman for WRGPT19

2009-10-26T22:01:00Z

Since many people have asked, each year the floorman email address changes as SPAMmers catch up to it.

For WRGPT19 it is floorman19@wrgpt.org.

That is an alias to the real floorman addresses so don't be surprised when the reply comes from another address I won't publish here.

WRGPT19 Practice round is starting

2009-10-26T07:06:00Z

The WRGPT19 practice round is starting. If all goes well it will continue for three weeks then stop for the real tourney.

This is a good time to try out those advance commands and figure out how the ID works, get your email into text only mode and generally figure it all out.

The rounds will only last 2 days rather than the 14 of the regular tourney so we have more action.

There is a chance the practice round will start and stop as problems are found and fixed on our new server. Hopefully everything will go well.

Good luck.

WRGPT on Twitter

2009-10-26T07:04:00Z

This blog is also being posted on Twitter thanks to Stephen Rushe. Check out twitter.com/wrgpt and follow if you want instead of following the blog.

WRGPT19 Practice Round Start Delayed

2009-10-20T07:01:00Z

I was planning on starting the practice round yesterday (Monday, October 19) but have decided to test a couple more days.

The practice round will likely start next Monday if not sooner.

WRGPT19 Registration is Open

2009-10-06T05:49:00Z

Registration for WRGPT19 is open.

http://www.wrgpt.org/registration

Update on WRGPT19 status

2009-09-17T07:34:00Z

The server is up and running for WRGPT19.

I am going through many tests to make sure everything is going fine and working.

I will send email to all the WRGPT18 entrants when we are ready for a live practice run.

It is likely that we will do TWO practice rounds this year. The first will be to shake out any issues with the server. The second will be to allow the users to make sure they know all the commands, etc. I hope to give you an option to sign up and opt out of one or both of the practice rounds if you do not want to participate.

If everyone goes well we will start WRGPT19 in late October.

WRGPT server status and WRGPT19 status

2009-08-13T23:28:00Z

Players in WRGPT18 (and interested others),

The server that was host to WRGPT18 and many before has been retired.

I have obtained a new virtual private server that will be configured and used for WRGPT19.

I hope to have it configured by the end of August and have a trial run in September. If all goes well WRGPT19 should start in October or maybe sooner.

I will send the usual email invitation to all of the WRGPT18 entrants when registration is open.

WRGPT18 is over - James Scharf is the champion

2009-08-13T23:26:00Z

Congratulations to James Scharf for winning WRGPT18.

He won on July 9 when his pocket jacks held up vs. J9 by bushman.

DDOS again

2009-06-25T20:06:00Z

The WRGPT server is the victim of another DDOS attack. This one may mean the end of WRGPT18 as the ISP is not just threatening but promising to shut down my internet connection if the attack continues.

The tourney is on hold with seven players until such a time as this can be resolved.

If you are the person or persons orchestrating the DDOS attack you have given up a large number of your zombies for this trivial exercise. Please stop the attack and do not resume if/when the tourney continues.