Brian Hastings Blasts ACR Over Yet Another Failure!

Retired high-stakes crusher Brian Hastings is the latest big name in poker to slam Americas Card Room for their appalling customer service. The ACR brand appears to be dying before our very eyes as one controversy after another hits the headlines.

Sloppy Service

Brian Hastings, no stranger to controversy himself, was disgusted at the slapdash way ACR cancelled what was apparently a duplicate tournament, after letting it run for more than three hours.

Two $88 MTTs, both with a $30,000 guarantee, were posted in the tournament lobby. After three and a half hours play ACR decided to cancel one and just refunded the buy-ins to all players regardless of their tournament status. How can they even slightly justify this action? What difference does it make whether or not the tournament was a mistake?

One Twitter user gave the answer most of us were thinking.

On the Way Down

After weeks of cheating allegations coupled with bot farms out of control on the site, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how they can survive. As if they didn’t already have their hands full with Joey Ingram shouting from the rooftops, now they have fallen foul of the dreaded TwoPlusTwomanagement.

Site owner Mason Malmuth sent a strongly worded email to ACR CEO Phil Nagy, which was flat out ignored, even though the company actually advertises their services on TwoPlusTwo.

“…on Saturday February 24, we sent their CEO Phil Nagy an email letter where we addressed four issues: late tournament registration (which we now understand has been addressed), bots, possible super users, and other possible collusion. We also made some suggestions as to how some of these issues could be addressed.”

Malmuth received no reply after waiting a week, and so began removing the Winning Poker Network advertisements from his website.

Can It Be Fixed?

This whole situation does have some potential to turn out well for all concerned. Mason Malmuth said all he wants is a satisfactory explanation and their relationship can continue.

Certain sites have long had a reputation for not doing enough to remove bots from their games. Maybe now that the problem is being highlighted all over the poker media we will see more of an effort in the future.