I may have been a little unfair and overly harsh in my criticism of SwC poker. There are a lot of things that really need to be improved: hand history logs being the most critical. Of course some of the recent cutbacks really sucked for the players most affected by them. However, even on SwC Poker 2.0, with new management and all, I've never had any issues with depositing/withdrawing and I've always been paid promptly and accurately. I guess it speaks more to the sad state of online poker these days, but SwC is probably the only poker site where cashing in and out is a fast, smooth process. During my recent nomadic wanderings around different poker sites, I've noticed that a lot of them have really confusing terms for collecting bonuses or qualifying for X promotion. (E.g. In my recent trip to site XXXXX, 2 different live chat support staff didn't fully understand how their own site's tables starter promos actually worked or how the TS table lists were generated.) Moreover, SwC doesn't stonewall, delay, or discourage players from withdrawing their balances under hidden-TOS pretenses. If there's nothing else that can be said about SwC, at the very least, they are pretty clear about how things work and player expectations are generally in line with site actions.
I will still hold SwC management to all the promises of bug fixes, software updates, and new clients that they've made over the past 1.5 years. (Second plea for hand history fix.) The ridiculous delays are still unacceptable to me. I am going to soften my stance on the return of the krillrolls or any new promos, because I do understand that as it stands now, these promos are simply not financially sustainable. I hope that management realizes that the site has lost a lot of formerly loyal players in a large part because they haven't rolled out any improvements or kept any of their promises since 2.0 rolled out. I am still pessimistic about their track record of making changes, but I do sincerely hope they make some positive ones, and do so very soon.
SealsWithClubs was hands down the best poker site I have ever been a part of. Everything that I hoped a poker site would get right, version 1.0 did. Because of the history, I had really high expectations for SwC 2.0, and admittedly am disappointed thus far. However, even if the current SwC doesn't meet my somewhat lofty standards, it still holds the same respect for player funds as the previous version did (something that sadly cannot be said for many other poker sites). Although the steady departure of players make me nervous, nothing that I've witnessed suggests that the site wouldn't be able to pay out all player balances at a moment's notice.
I hope the players and management can work together to turn the fortunes of this site around. The BTC world still needs a SwC, and there's nothing about the site that is fundamentally unfixable.
This is the statement from Razzle that we at SwC have been waiting for. He has several legitimate complaints, and we are well aware of what needs to be done, and frankly, needed to be done long ago. The hand history saga is too frustrating and boring to get into details, which no one would care about anyway. It would just sound like excuse making, and the time for excuses is long past.
However, he is generous and fair in the above post, and more importantly, recognizes that our track record of financial integrity is beyond reproach and will remain so. Let me state again...customer funds are 100 percent segregated from any other operating, marketing, staffing or other cash we hold. In fact, we keep a reserve beyond the total of customer deposits, in case of some unforeseen catastrophe where everyone wanted their funds at once.
We've noticed that Razzle has come back to SwC over the past few days, and we were very happy to see that. Despite his famous temper, he is someone who will start games, play anyone, help keep games going and who cares about the site. A true online pro, in other words.
His last sentence bears repeating: "I hope the players and management can work together to turn the fortunes of this site around. The BTC world still needs a SwC, and there's nothing about the site that is fundamentally unfixable."
We'd like to add that it takes courage to admit that you might have been unfair and too harsh, and we thank you for doing so.