Declaring Stacks Poker Dead
I’m unofficially declaring Stacks Poker Dead. Their website claimed that they were, “the next generation in online poker” with their, “Revolutionary 3d software”. They also set set up a corny animation with motivating techno music on their website to make it look like they really were unique. They offered generious promotions and promised everything without even having beta software released.
I never had faith in this room because their was nothing revolutionary about their software, support, or website. True poker made a better looking 3d poker room 6 years ago, and they get no action now. If people prefered 3d poker sites then all the major rooms would be 3d by now.
Their support team is terrible. I think customer support is one of the most important qualities for an online poker room. At first they were all enthusiastic, visiting forums, offering WSOP giveaways, and promosing beta testing deadlines. But gradually their support stopped visiting forums and responding to emails. Today they completely ignore people who they used to keep in touch with often. You’ll sometimes find a member of their staff lurking in forums but never posting or giving updates.
They also kept giving false information! Maybe if Stacks Poker didn’t start promoting and promosing deadlines, before they even built their poker room software, they would have had a chance. But when you tell everyone that beta testing begins in october 05, and then when october comes push it back to november, and then when dissapear from till january 06, and announce beta will begin February, and then dissapear again, people will never play at your room! Step 1 > finish poker room. step 2 > Promote. - not, step 1 > promote unfinished poker room. step 3 > ?
I was surprised that they actually did get a following in the beginning. Two different poker forums I visit was actually pretty excited about this room. Maybe the techno intro video worked? But now everyone seems to agree that Stacks Poker sucks. So I’m declaring stacks poker dead.
I’m curious to what they’ll do now though. They definitely spent a lot of time and money. And they’ve got an email list of well over 10,000 online poker players… I think the smart thing to do is start a whole new poker room or skin, without any references to stacks, and use the email list to start a buzz.
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Well written article. Couldn’t agree with you more. I am an avid online poker player and do not care about 3D poker. I just want to play cards!
Having said this, Have you seen pjpoker.com? They are another 3D site but also offer a 2D look and feel. It looks very sharp and is also very clean. I downloaded it the other day. It was awesome!!!They are in the Beta stage and seem to have their act together (unlike stacks). I heard that they will be live next month as well….let’s see
Anyway..you should check it out!
Thanks
Brian Campbell
Comment by Paul — May 4, 2006 #
hey brian (paul?)
anyway…I was curious and went to pjpoker.com…wow….this site looks crazy….VERY nice site..I downloaded it..It took quite a while to download but boy was it worth it..I CANNOT wait for this to go live..I wonder how long the’ve been around?
Steve M.
Comment by Steve — May 4, 2006 #
*smacks head* You know… I can see that both of your replies are coming from the same computer.
Comment by dbirider — May 5, 2006 #
I used to work for Stacks. In case you’re interested to know what really happened…
The two guys that started the company Darryl and Tom were great to work for and really had a vision for what Stacks could be. They had an investor who I wont name, who made life extremely difficult for them from the get go. As a result of this investor their gaming license wasn’t granted in the fall of ‘05 as expected, and they didn’t receive approval until late January ‘06. They were forced to delay the beta testing because of the license delay from the gaming commission.
Once early beta began in February, Stacks started to let players in slowly, as they worked out relatively small bugs, and continued optimizing the 3D client. All of this coincided with a round of financing that had been promised by the main investor. The day came to close the financing, and the investor decided to try and steal the company away from the two guys that had slaved away for nearly 1 full year to build this awesome product.
Darryl and Tom have both moved on to great jobs, and are destined for great things, while their investor, who is a socially retarded, manic depressive jackass (only 28 years old) is back in the States somewhere, and apparently still thinks he can launch the site… proof of just what an idiot this guy is.
Apparently Darryl and Tom tried to work with another group in the early summer of ‘06 to refinance the company and buy out the investor. The investor apparently messed the whole deal up, and Darryl and Tom revoked their offer and willingness to work out any further deal. Both decided to move on with their professional lives.
I had a great time working with both Darryl and Tom, and will remain friends with these guys for a long time to come. I would jump at the opportunity to work with either of them again.
Comment by x-stacks employee — December 21, 2006 #
[...] While this was happening, nobody really knew what was going on. Some people even thought Stacks never planned to go live, and was using the site to build a huge email list of poker poker players. I made a post with my oppinion on stacks here. [...]
Pingback by The Poker Bus » What Really Happened to Stacks Poker — December 22, 2006 #
Thanks for the reply x-stacks employee. To bad it couldn’t have went better. I know a few affiliates who referred a lot of players and had high hopes for stacks.
I posted this to the front page - I hope you don’t mind.
Comment by dbirider — December 22, 2006 #