Beating the freeroll password thieves and the new password release system

This post only replies to the PokerDIY members who play in our very own PokerDIY Freeroll Leagues. – it does not affect anyone else and is only in use on our freeroll games – this functionality is not needed in home poker league management.

As many of you will know, freeroll password thieves have been a big problem in the past at PokerDIY for our PokerDIY Freeroll Leagues. Whole sites exist (won’t mention names, this post is not about that) to spread lastminute freeroll passwords from other sites. This defeats the whole purpose of the freeroll and ruins it for the regular site members.

The only effective way to combat this was to release the pw a couple of minutes before the freeroll started. Unfortunately this also led to a few problems – some of our regular league members did not get in and idiots on other freeroll sites somehow managed to register, spread the pw (don’t get me started!) and still have their mates join, all in 5 minutes. The number of leachers definitely dropped by about 100 when the time was reduced to 5 minutes, but having upset PokerDIY regulars is a great concern for me, and I wanted to think of an alternative way to solve this problem.

There’s one other problem with this method – I had to physically be around to release the pw 5 minutes before. What happens if my connection dropped or I was partying at Glastonbury with 176 000 other people on the 24th of June during the CelebPoker Freeroll 6 game (unless I can get to a internet cafe at the festival 😉 I had to find a way to be able to release passwords to active PokerDIY community members safely.

Introducing the new automated password release system for the PokerDIY Freeroll leagues (it helps to be a programmer!)

Anyway, the good news is that with our new automatic password release system this problem should be greatly reduced! Basically I have always asked that participants in the PokerDIY League poker games meet a few simple requirements – the most common be to make a couple of meaningful (note, I said meaningful in case you missed it) forum posts to be involved in the community. I don’t think this is too much to ask and the majority of the players do this anyway, so there will be no change for the majority of our usual players. A lot of people did not do these, and simple grabbed the pw (these freerolls are not really “free” for me you know – I do expect a little help in return 😉

So – from now on, for all PokerDIY Freeroll Poker League games, the password will be automatically released x minutes before the game starts to all of those people who have met the simple requirements. I want to stress that regular and active PokerDIY community members will automatically meet these requirements and need not worry – this is the great thing about it – the leachers will not be able to swoop in and grab the pw – they’ll have to work for it!

Please let me know on the Forums if you have any questions about the new pw release system. It really is simple- just follow the checklist on the righthand side of the event (take a look at tomorrow’s CD Poker Freeroll game as an example). This should cut down the number of unwanted password leachers and improve the quality of the game for our active/loyal community members. Please take a moment to ensure you pass all the requirements BEFORE the game.

If you are not yet a part of this community – we want to meet you! Come and say hello on the forums and play in our freerolls…