Deputy Editor
ClubWPT Gold removed Gold Coins today as promised and provided an answer to the burning question of how the site can continue to operate without the dual currency model now banned in California and elsewhere. Beginning Sept. 24, customers will fund their accounts via the purchase of Hand Analysis Credits, rather than Gold Coins.
Sweeps Coins (SC) are gone too — in name, at least. After each purchase of Hand Analysis Credits, players will be awarded “Chips.” Like the old Sweeps Coins, players will use Chips to participate in poker games and ultimately exchange their winnings for cash prizes. However, the ability to play just for fun with Gold Coins (GC) and no prizes at stake is gone. Instead, the Hand Analysis Credits get spent with every hand the player engages in, offering strategic advice from a game theory solver in return.
The new system replaces the old dual-currency model pioneered by Global Poker and other sweepstakes sites. That model has come under legal scrutiny in recent months, as more and more states have begun passing bans that threaten the existence of the industry.
“In the interest of growing the game of poker, ClubWPT Gold now operates as a cutting-edge poker training and playing site,” the company wrote on a page explaining its new system. “We now offer not only poker games, but educational tools that can help you take your game to the next level.”
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Is ClubWPT Gold Still a Sweepstakes?
Yes. Legally speaking, ClubWPT Gold works very much like the old site, just without two playable currencies. Players can still acquire free Chips by mailing in a postcard request, satisfying the most basic legal requirement of operating as a sweepstakes.
However, the main method of acquiring currency that can be used in what essentially function as real-money poker games has changed. Now, players will purchase Hand Analysis Credits (HAC). In return, ClubWPT Gold will awards their accounts with Chips, which are functionally the same as Sweeps Coins.
It’s not yet clear what the exchange rate will be on HAC to Chips. Previously, players received one SC for every dollar they spent on GCs.
Any SC that players already had in their accounts has been converted to Chips on a one-to-one basis.
How Does ClubWPT Gold Hand Analysis Work?
The poker client will automatically use Hand Analysis Credits to analyze each hand in which the player voluntarily puts chips into the pot. Hands that the player folds without putting any chips in other than the small or big blind will not be recorded.
A “GTO” (game theory optimization) tool will then produce a “hand score” rating the player’s actions against what hypothetically perfect play would entail. The GTO analyzer will rate each action the player took as “solid,” “close,” or “lacking.” Players can click on each action in the analyzer to see its recommendation and how it would score various possible alternatives to what the player did.
In the example given by ClubWPT Gold, a player on the button made the first raise, satisfying the voluntary contribution requirement that triggered the hand analysis. For that and all subsequent actions, the system provides ratings for folding, calling, or a number of differently-sized raises.
The hand analyzer triggers automatically. That is, players can’t decide whether to use their credits on a given hand. If they choose to play the pot and have credits available, the hand will automatically be logged and analyzed, paid for from their credit balance.
The reason is that the analyses are computationally expensive and can’t be performed on demand. Each analysis may take up to two hours to appear in the player’s history, according to the operator’s FAQ page.
For the same reason, players can’t go back to analyze old hands they played when their Credit balance was empty, even if they later top up. The site skips performing the analysis for players who don’t have credits to pay for it.
Where Does ClubWPT Gold Hand Analysis Come From?
The hand analysis itself will almost certainly come via Lucid Poker, a proprietary solver that ClubWPT Gold acquired when it purchased Upswing Poker. It acquired that poker training site at the beginning of August, mere weeks before announcing the removal of Gold Coins. Upswing was founded and previously owned in part by popular content creator and high-stakes pro Doug Polk.
“Game Theory Optimal, or GTO, strategies are developed by computers simulating many, many games of poker and tracking which hands and actions yield the highest profit (expected value) over time,” ClubWPT Gold explained in its FAQ.
However, players should keep in mind that the solver strategies aim at being unexploitable, not maximally profitable. That is, they should never be losing strategies, but typically don’t maximize profits, except against an opponent who is also playing GTO. That is, deviating from solver strategies can be the better play against an opponent who has identifiable and exploitable weaknesses..
Still, the novel new system from ClubWPT Gold may help level the playing field slightly, provided recreational players make use of the hand analysis to improve.
Net-winning players won’t have to fund their account often and should quickly run out of Hand Analysis Credits. Net depositing players, on the other hand, will continue to accrue them, conveniently providing them the opportunity to learn from the GTO analyzer on a continuous basis.
Legal Future of ClubWPT Gold Still Uncertain
Many states have specifically targeted the “dual-currency” model of sweepstakes states in passing bans. ClubWPT Gold arguably no longer uses the dual-currency model, but it remains to be seen how states like California and New Jersey will react. At the end of the day, it still resembles the type of site their laws seek to ban. However, if a legal challenge is forthcoming, a lot will depend on how courts interpret the word “currency.”
ClubWPT Gold still lists California among its legal states, though the bill banning dual-currency sweepstakes needs only the governor’s signature to become law. The site already pulled out of New Jersey following passage of a similar ban.
The space formerly listing Louisiana as a legal state is now blank as well.
Players will find out in the coming months whether ClubWPT Gold can return to some of the states it has vacated and whether the new model will bring clearance in places like California, which has a population that significantly boosts the site’s liquidity.
