[Cy]

How can anyone top this for class?
Pinnacle had betting on Chess. It was a series of matches between Candidates for the World Championship. The betting was seperate on each match -- who will advance to the next round? The dates of play were not fixed yet.
I took +140 for $500 on an American player, Kamsky against the Frenchman, Bacrot.Kamsky, a former top ranked player was making a comeback in a tournament in Bulgaria and was killing everybody, including Bacrot , who came in last . +140 seemed to be an absolute steal.The line started dropping, to +117, Bacrot was down to -127 from -150.
Two weeks later both players went to Rome in the Olympiad. Complete turnaround. Bacrot was sensational, Kamsky mediocre, when they played each other Bacrot crushed him.
My steal was looking very sick.To save myself from blowing $500 I grabbed the scalp, laying $635 to $500 on Bacrot.So I couldnt lose, but would still win $65 if Kamsky won.
Time dragged by, no sponsors were found for the matches, and it became highly unlikely that the matches would ever be played.
Yesterday Pinnacle removed Chess from its wagering menu.I e-mailed them that I had $1135 tied up in the chess and certainly didnt want it tied up indefinitely on matches that may never be played and what did Pinnacle intend to do about the pending wagers? I pointed out my scalp situation and said I would be perfectly willing to give up my advantage, let them grade the bets no action and return the $1135 to my account.
Within 15 minutes the $1135 was back in my account, plus an additional $30 for the value of my "equity" !!

How many books would be that gracious --or generous?

[rolemand]

That is a pretty good story.

[isetcap]

Nobody does it like they do.

[onlooker]

Good story Cy. Thanks for sharing.

Its really hard to beat Pinnacle. They, to me, are the best book out there.

[bigboydan]

thanks for sharing cy.

this is probly gonna sound like im schilling here but i'm not. i too gotta agree that pinny is the best out there today.

[isetcap]

Originally Posted by bigboydan

thanks for sharing cy.

this is probly gonna sound like im schilling here but i'm not. i too gotta agree that pinny is the best out there today.

It's always easy to sell a great product.

[DrSlamm]

pinnacle has great odds but i am actually surprised you got CS.

Pinnacle CS is the WORST of any A rated book i have dealt with. Yes they reply fairly promptly but they never address the actual issue with anything but a stock reply

[isetcap]

Originally Posted by DrSlamm

pinnacle has great odds but i am actually surprised you got CS.

Pinnacle CS is the WORST of any A rated book i have dealt with. Yes they reply fairly promptly but they never address the actual issue with anything but a stock reply

There's no doubt that CS is their "room for improvement" issue. A lot of people say they really value CS, but to me it seems like Pinnacle is just calling their bluff. For the majority of players, I think CS is probably pretty far down the list especially when an organization runs things well enough to generate very few CS needs. They don't treat anybody like a king...they treat everybody exactly the same. So what if you just gave us $10,000; we don't care. So what if you want a $50,000 withdrawal; we don't care. It's just business, and for those of us who make this their business, it's just fine.

[DrSlamm]

well sometimes you DO have CS needs and when you get a response that makes you wonder if they even read your email it can be a little irritating

[isetcap]

Originally Posted by DrSlamm

well sometimes you DO have CS needs and when you get a response that makes you wonder if they even read your email it can be a little irritating

Absolutely.

But if it causes you to go away...well that's more your loss than theirs I think, and for once I'm not trying to be a smartass at all.

[wrongturn]

Pinnacle's price advantage over other books is so great that it does not really need to offer reload bonus or good CS to keep customers.

[JoshW]

Pretty surprising for any book to do that, given the event may never even occur. Nice.

[kiwi]

Hi, this thread is interesting for me as I placed a bet at Betandwin that Bacrot will win the match with odds of 2.00 (stake 250 Euro) and another bet at Pinnacle that Kamsky will win with odds of 2.19 (stake 228 Euro). That would be a nice win in any case but now I have no information when/if this match will take place? Thanks a lot in case anybody has any information about that!

[isetcap]

Sounds like all you need to do is sponsor the match, kiwi!

[Dark Horse]

Hard to say something negative about Pinnacle. I don't like a lot of their halftime lines.

To me they're just a bit too 'IBM'. Many strong points, but if you have a balanced collection of other books, you can find those elsewhere as well (and better). For the most part I try to play around them. Must be the contrarian in me.