This is the answer I got back from Customer Support at the WPT:
Hello Lawrence,
Thank you for contacting us.
There is no conflict for US players at ClubWPT. This service was set up specifically with US players in mind.
We don't accept cash deposits.
We are set up to operate under sweepstakes laws. There are a few states where we're not allowed, but rest assured Vermont is a perfectly acceptable state for using this service.
While I don't have specific information about WPT event prizes such as you mentioned, I can tell you that we are currently exploring the possibility and it is likely.
We look forward to seeing you at the Club tables soon.
Best of luck to you!Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions.
Sincerely,Michael
Please visit our online Customer Support center for answers to any questions and concerns.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A New Release from the WPT
The World Poker Tour has recently opened a new feature called ClubWPT. It is a free poker site that is point-based.
It basically works the same as some of the other free play sites. You are given a "bankroll" of points with which to "buy-in" to games and tournaments where you can win cash, prizes, and additional points to afford you entry into bigger events.
It is subscription-based, and the membership is $19.95/mo. You are not paying for poker. The membership gets you access to special features of the club, such as: a subscription to Allin magazine, a guide on the best deals to be found in Las Vegas, a "coupon book" worth (potentially) hundreds of dollars in discounts, and more.
The cash prizes offered range from $10 all the way to $5000 and more and the merchandise prizes are just as impressive. You can view a list here.
All it takes is going to the WPT site and registering your account. The club offers a free 2 week trial, but does require a credit card number to prevent multiple accounts. You can cancel at any time within the trial and be charged nothing. However, if you're like me you'd rather not take too many chances with your personal information. I checked into the rules and found (as I expected) the section concerning alternative means of entry.
You can get a free membership (a month at a time) by submitting a 3"x5" card. I've included a reprint of the section of the rules below. Free memberships do not include any of the above bonuses. I'm gonna give it a shot. I've sent them an email asking if they are planning to offer "free" satellites to WPT Events anytime in the future. I'll post their reply when it comes in. Here's the section of the rules for free entry:
You Do Not Need to Join the Club to participate in tournaments. Alternative means of tournament entry. OFFLINE, NO-PURCHASE-NECESSARY, METHOD OF ENTRY:
As an alternate means of entry into Club Tournaments, a player must:
Register at ClubWPT.com as a free player and download and install the software; and For each period that you want to participate in Club Tournaments, send a 3 inch x 5 inch card on which the player has legibly handwritten their ClubWPT Username, First and Last Name, Complete Mailing Address (e.g. Street, City, State, ZIP code), Email Address, and Date of Birth. The card must be placed in a envelope, and mailed to: PO Box 30488 Las Vegas Nevada 89173.
No photocopies, reproductions or facsimiles of the 3 inch x 5 inch card are allowed.
The usage of a service to provide the production of the 3 inch x 5 inch card will not be allowed.
For each individual registration, the Player will be given a 30-day period of Membership to Club Tournaments. The period will begin on the Monday following the day the mail-in entry is processed.
Approved mail-in entries will receive Tournament Points in accordance with Section 1.4 above or will have access to any tournament points they have accumulated in the past if greater than 500 Tournament Points. Tournament Points accumulated during previous periods will remain with the players account.
ClubWPT.com will post a listing of all upcoming tournaments in the game lobby. The game lobby is viewed by accessing the game software and clicking on the tournament game links.
ClubWPT.com shall not be responsible for late, lost, illegible, incomplete, stolen, misdirected, mutilated or postage-due mail. ClubWPT.com will advise you of your eligibility dates by email.
The odds of winning any prize will be the same by mail in entry as by online membership in the Club.
The odds of qualifying through a qualifying tournament will be the same by mail in entry as by online membership in the Club, and all participants entering through this means will be accorded equal opportunities to participate and win in events held at ClubWPT.com, and will depend on the number of entrants.
It basically works the same as some of the other free play sites. You are given a "bankroll" of points with which to "buy-in" to games and tournaments where you can win cash, prizes, and additional points to afford you entry into bigger events.
It is subscription-based, and the membership is $19.95/mo. You are not paying for poker. The membership gets you access to special features of the club, such as: a subscription to Allin magazine, a guide on the best deals to be found in Las Vegas, a "coupon book" worth (potentially) hundreds of dollars in discounts, and more.
The cash prizes offered range from $10 all the way to $5000 and more and the merchandise prizes are just as impressive. You can view a list here.
All it takes is going to the WPT site and registering your account. The club offers a free 2 week trial, but does require a credit card number to prevent multiple accounts. You can cancel at any time within the trial and be charged nothing. However, if you're like me you'd rather not take too many chances with your personal information. I checked into the rules and found (as I expected) the section concerning alternative means of entry.
You can get a free membership (a month at a time) by submitting a 3"x5" card. I've included a reprint of the section of the rules below. Free memberships do not include any of the above bonuses. I'm gonna give it a shot. I've sent them an email asking if they are planning to offer "free" satellites to WPT Events anytime in the future. I'll post their reply when it comes in. Here's the section of the rules for free entry:
You Do Not Need to Join the Club to participate in tournaments. Alternative means of tournament entry. OFFLINE, NO-PURCHASE-NECESSARY, METHOD OF ENTRY:
As an alternate means of entry into Club Tournaments, a player must:
Register at ClubWPT.com as a free player and download and install the software; and For each period that you want to participate in Club Tournaments, send a 3 inch x 5 inch card on which the player has legibly handwritten their ClubWPT Username, First and Last Name, Complete Mailing Address (e.g. Street, City, State, ZIP code), Email Address, and Date of Birth. The card must be placed in a envelope, and mailed to: PO Box 30488 Las Vegas Nevada 89173.
No photocopies, reproductions or facsimiles of the 3 inch x 5 inch card are allowed.
The usage of a service to provide the production of the 3 inch x 5 inch card will not be allowed.
For each individual registration, the Player will be given a 30-day period of Membership to Club Tournaments. The period will begin on the Monday following the day the mail-in entry is processed.
Approved mail-in entries will receive Tournament Points in accordance with Section 1.4 above or will have access to any tournament points they have accumulated in the past if greater than 500 Tournament Points. Tournament Points accumulated during previous periods will remain with the players account.
ClubWPT.com will post a listing of all upcoming tournaments in the game lobby. The game lobby is viewed by accessing the game software and clicking on the tournament game links.
ClubWPT.com shall not be responsible for late, lost, illegible, incomplete, stolen, misdirected, mutilated or postage-due mail. ClubWPT.com will advise you of your eligibility dates by email.
The odds of winning any prize will be the same by mail in entry as by online membership in the Club.
The odds of qualifying through a qualifying tournament will be the same by mail in entry as by online membership in the Club, and all participants entering through this means will be accorded equal opportunities to participate and win in events held at ClubWPT.com, and will depend on the number of entrants.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Can anything be done?
No poker today. I'm gonna be watching my New England Patriots as they go to 18-0 en route to the Superbowl. My pick is GB vs NE in Arizona.
What I want to bring up is the extreme lack of manners, even basic decency, seen from some of the players online. Case in point: I am a member of a couple forums that have freeroll and low buy-in tournaments sponsored on a few online poker sites. Playing in one just the other day, I get A-10 on the button. I call and the BB makes a standard raise. It's folded back to me. Now, A-10 isn't the kind of hand you would normally call with, but I was getting better than 3:1 on my money to call and I had position.
I hit my 10 on the flop and I "walk the dog" to the river and double up against the pkt 9's in the BB. Of course, he has to start right in with what a "Donkey" I was for calling the raise with A-10 (see above for explanation). I decide to have fun with this kid and we start trading shots. Nothing out of the ordinary. His taunts start to descend into the realm of a 5th grade shouting match on the playground and a lady player (correctly, I think) comments that's time to let it go. Bad beats happen.
That's when this punk goes WAAAY out of line and tells this woman to "get on your knees where you belong".???????? WTF is this sht? I guarantee, if this had been live, there would've been a line waiting to kick this guy's ass. As it was, he was safe behind the keyboard. He not only refused to apologize for his remarks, he (after first trying to justify his crudity) repeated them and added to them. All because a female player dared to ask for some semblance of courtesy at the table.
Of course, both the female player and myself (and others) contacted the administrators of the poker forum we belong to about getting this kid censured. We were both told that, since the conduct took place outside the forum (on another poker website) there was nothing they could do. (!?!) It happened during a forum sponsored event. The forum was for members only, so it wasn't like this was some outsider causing trouble. We both made the case that the forum needed to address this issue, and I made the case that this player be removed from the forum membership and banned. We were told that the matter would have to be addressed by the support staff at the poker site itself.
I don't get it. Can't the players who run this forum (all very good, skilled players and decent people) see what this is going to do to the reputation of their site? Their membership has exploded during the course of this past year, going from less than 10,000 to well over 40,000. Although most of these additions are not very active beyond the minimum to qualify for invitations for the daily sponsored freerolls. It is my belief that they'd be better served by coming down harder on those who are misbehaving and by limiting access to their freerolls to those members showing true interest in the well-being of the site and it's other members. In that way, the reputation of the site as a "family" of true poker players/enthusiasts who are known for their respect of the game and other players, as well as being a community that produces skilled players would grow and be a source of pride to both the members and founders.
As it is, we are losing our best and brightest. Those who could (and, indeed, want to) teach what they know are leaving because they don't want to deal with all the bs, and beginners looking for a place to learn and grow are greatly disillusioned when they run into these kinds of situations.
I want to make clear that I'm not singling out this one forum I belong to. I see it across the board. On almost every site, if you are in the freeroll satellites, or the lower cost buy-in tournaments, you are going to find a large percentage of players who feel the need to compensate for the success of another player over them by being personally offensive. Making racial, sexual, and ethnic comments that have absolutely no place at the poker table, much less in civil conversation.
Please, if you recognize yourself in this post (even if you would never admit it), THINK about what you are saying and doing at the table. RESPECT the other players in the game. It's ok to pick back and forth, and needling is a part of the psychology of the game (to an extent), but you and I both know that you would never act the same way, or say the same things, if you were live in a casino and had to answer for your conduct.
What I want to bring up is the extreme lack of manners, even basic decency, seen from some of the players online. Case in point: I am a member of a couple forums that have freeroll and low buy-in tournaments sponsored on a few online poker sites. Playing in one just the other day, I get A-10 on the button. I call and the BB makes a standard raise. It's folded back to me. Now, A-10 isn't the kind of hand you would normally call with, but I was getting better than 3:1 on my money to call and I had position.
I hit my 10 on the flop and I "walk the dog" to the river and double up against the pkt 9's in the BB. Of course, he has to start right in with what a "Donkey" I was for calling the raise with A-10 (see above for explanation). I decide to have fun with this kid and we start trading shots. Nothing out of the ordinary. His taunts start to descend into the realm of a 5th grade shouting match on the playground and a lady player (correctly, I think) comments that's time to let it go. Bad beats happen.
That's when this punk goes WAAAY out of line and tells this woman to "get on your knees where you belong".???????? WTF is this sht? I guarantee, if this had been live, there would've been a line waiting to kick this guy's ass. As it was, he was safe behind the keyboard. He not only refused to apologize for his remarks, he (after first trying to justify his crudity) repeated them and added to them. All because a female player dared to ask for some semblance of courtesy at the table.
Of course, both the female player and myself (and others) contacted the administrators of the poker forum we belong to about getting this kid censured. We were both told that, since the conduct took place outside the forum (on another poker website) there was nothing they could do. (!?!) It happened during a forum sponsored event. The forum was for members only, so it wasn't like this was some outsider causing trouble. We both made the case that the forum needed to address this issue, and I made the case that this player be removed from the forum membership and banned. We were told that the matter would have to be addressed by the support staff at the poker site itself.
I don't get it. Can't the players who run this forum (all very good, skilled players and decent people) see what this is going to do to the reputation of their site? Their membership has exploded during the course of this past year, going from less than 10,000 to well over 40,000. Although most of these additions are not very active beyond the minimum to qualify for invitations for the daily sponsored freerolls. It is my belief that they'd be better served by coming down harder on those who are misbehaving and by limiting access to their freerolls to those members showing true interest in the well-being of the site and it's other members. In that way, the reputation of the site as a "family" of true poker players/enthusiasts who are known for their respect of the game and other players, as well as being a community that produces skilled players would grow and be a source of pride to both the members and founders.
As it is, we are losing our best and brightest. Those who could (and, indeed, want to) teach what they know are leaving because they don't want to deal with all the bs, and beginners looking for a place to learn and grow are greatly disillusioned when they run into these kinds of situations.
I want to make clear that I'm not singling out this one forum I belong to. I see it across the board. On almost every site, if you are in the freeroll satellites, or the lower cost buy-in tournaments, you are going to find a large percentage of players who feel the need to compensate for the success of another player over them by being personally offensive. Making racial, sexual, and ethnic comments that have absolutely no place at the poker table, much less in civil conversation.
Please, if you recognize yourself in this post (even if you would never admit it), THINK about what you are saying and doing at the table. RESPECT the other players in the game. It's ok to pick back and forth, and needling is a part of the psychology of the game (to an extent), but you and I both know that you would never act the same way, or say the same things, if you were live in a casino and had to answer for your conduct.
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