Merge Network

[Dan Druff]

Can't give any info on the insider, sorry.

I don't know why they didn't just lower the guarantees. Maybe Merge didn't give them that option and just pulled the plug on the series. Perhaps Merge felt that lowering guarantees would look even worse than cancelling the whole thing, as that kind of defeats the purpose of a guarantee. The story I heard was that Merge saw it going in the direction of a large overlay and freaked out. That would also explain their seemingly abrupt decision to cancel it.

Merge definitely deserves a lot of the blame on this one. They approved it, then decided to reverse their decision.

Lock's bad reputation probably didn't help matters, either. It's no coincidence that seemingly every scandal and frustrating situation on Merge seems to revolve around Lock.

Lock is definitely an envelope pusher inside that network, but Merge needs to either reign them in or simply let them push the envelope.. the waffling and pulling the rug out from under their largest skin is making both Lock and the Merge Network look bad. You can't give someone the go-ahead to run a tournament series and then two weeks before say we changed our mind; ditto with the Casino Bonus thing. If you're the Merge Gaming Network you need to do your homework BEFORE you approve these things... it seems like Lock Poker gets Merge drunk, gets them to agree to something, and then they wake up the next day and decide it was a bad mistake.

I agree that with the LockOps, Merge screwed up royally.

However, as far as the Casino Bonus thing goes, I don't think Merge knew about it until it was too late. From what I understand, Lock ran this promotion without Merge's permission (and in direct violation of Merge's rules), got caught (because they stupidly advertised it everywhere), and Merge forced them to either discontinue it or greatly change its terms. Lock then did something really shady by retroactively changing everything to rob players of the bonus they thought they were getting from play already completed. Lock also refused to compensate the affected players for the money they lost, and they blamed it all on Merge, which was totally unfair.

At least Lock actually has some reasonable ground to stand on when they blame Merge this time (which they're already doing, btw.)

Still, this was also Lock's fault, especially given that their prior reputation likely figured into Merge's decision.