Free Entry, 5 Million GTD: Your Guide to ClubWPT Gold’s Biggest Tournament

It’s not very often you can play an online poker tournament with a million chips up top for the winner.

To win that kind of prize, you usually have to put up a big buy-in or travel to a live stop, which won’t be any cheaper.

Now and then, however, the online poker world presents you with an opportunity to stumble out of bed for a shot at the big time.

And right now, ClubWPT Gold is giving you that chance.

In this article, we’ll discuss the format, structure, and strategy of how to take advantage of one of Poker’s biggest opportunities of the year.

You’ll learn:

• What the ClubWPT Gold 5 Million Free Entry Tournament is
• What makes the format particularly interesting
• The strategic adjustments you should be making
• How to give yourself the best chance of building a stack for Day 2

PLAY FOR FREE EVERY DAY FOR A SHOT AT $1 MILLION

ClubWPT Gold is running a $5M guaranteed tournament with $1M for first place. Enter for free in the daily 1 PM or 7 PM PT free-entry tournaments running every day until November 28.

What Is the 5 Million GTD Free Entry Tournament on ClubWPT Gold?

ClubWPT Gold is running a 5 Million Chip Guaranteed tournament throughout November. They’re promising a whopping 1 Million Chips for first place.

Two flights every day. The craziest part?

Your first entry—in every flight—is free.

You can take a shot at the tournament every day throughout November without spending a single Chip.

And unlike most multiday tournaments, where you might only qualify once or simply carry your largest stack forward, ClubWPT Gold is letting players combine their qualifying stacks.

Format Breakdown

The tournament runs from November 1 through November 29, with two regularly scheduled flights each day at 1 PM and 7 PM PST. Note: as of November 12, ClubWPT Gold announced a regular morning flight as well at 9:00AM PST.

Each flight offers the following entry options:

• Free entry: One free initial entry into every flight.
• Re-entry: 100 Chips for 25,000 tournament chips if you’re eliminated during late registration.
• Add-on: 50 Chips for an additional 10,000 tournament chips at the end of late registration.

Now, here’s where things get interesting.

And those who qualify get to take their remaining tournament chips with them.

If you qualify through multiple flights, all those chips are combined into one Day 2 stack.

Day 2 takes place November 29, where the remaining players compete for the rest of the massive guarantee.

It’s quite unique.

We have elements of a traditional MTT, a satellite, and something that resembles a phased, accumulator tournament.

PLAY FOR FREE EVERY DAY FOR A SHOT AT $1 MILLION

ClubWPT Gold is running a $5M guaranteed tournament with $1M for first place. Enter for free in the daily 1 PM or 7 PM PT free-entry tournaments running every day until November 28.

How should you play it?

5M GTD Strategy and Adjustments

What Are Your Free 5,000 Chips Worth?

First, let’s try to put a value on the free entry.

A re-entry costs 100 Chips for 25,000 tournament chips. If we use that as our benchmark, your free 5,000-chip starting stack has a purchase equivalent of 20 Chips.

Twice a day, that’s 40 Chips worth of starting stacks being handed out.

Not bad, sir.

That said, we still can’t confidently say that the free entry is worth 20 Chips in EV.

We don’t know how many players will purchase re-entries or add-ons, how much overlay there will be, or what the eventual field size will look like. And, of course, tournament chips don’t translate into Chip equity at a fixed rate.

So the actual EV remains something of a mystery.

Still, we know one thing.

Finish “ITM” four times throughout November and you’ve accumulated 260 Chips without spending a penny.

For someone starting with a small bankroll (or no bankroll at all), that’s very attractive.

And if you happen to qualify for Day 2 along the way, you’ve got an opportunity to turn those free entries into some serious Chips.

How Many Chips Will You Need to Qualify?

Let’s assume 1,000 players enter a flight, each receiving the free 5,000-chip starting stack.

For simplicity, we’ll assume nobody purchases a re-entry or add-on.

That gives us 5 million tournament chips in circulation.

These averages will be higher when players purchase additional chips. But they give us a useful baseline.

There’s also an important distinction between the average stack and the minimum required to qualify.

You don’t need 167,000 chips to advance.

You just need to be among the final 3% of players.

Whether you bag 50,000 or 500,000, you’re through to Day 2.

PLAY FOR FREE EVERY DAY FOR A SHOT AT $1 MILLION

ClubWPT Gold is running a $5M guaranteed tournament with $1M for first place. Enter for free in the daily 1 PM or 7 PM PT free-entry tournaments running every day until November 28.

What Will Your Stack Look Like on Day 2?

Day 2 resumes at the 7k bb level.

Using our simplified average qualifying stack of 167,000, that means you’ll start Day 2 with approximately 24bb.

That’s a very playable stack.

But what happens when we qualify more than once?

Suppose you manage to bag an average stack in three separate flights.

That’s around 500,000 chips (or 100 free starting stacks).

At the 7k bb level, you’re sitting on more than 71bb.

That’s a comfortable stack by any MTT standard.

You can play postflop, apply pressure to shorter stacks, and absorb some lost flips and coolers.

And you didn’t need a monster stack from any individual flight to get there.

Here’s what those different Day 2 stacks would look like:

Of course, these are simplified examples. The actual average per Day 2 player will be influenced by all the purchased chips and players combining multiple bags.

But the concept is important.

And with a first place prize of 1 Million Chips, there’s definitely an incentive to accumulate.

Are Re-Entries and Add-ons Worth It?

This can depend on your goals for the tournament and personal preference. Many top pros use these heavily, but other players prefer a more conservative approach.

A re-entry costs 100 Chips and gives you 25,000 tournament chips.

Using our earlier average of 167,000 chips at qualification, you’d need to increase that stack nearly sevenfold to reach an average Day 2 bag.

Then factor in the Day 1 min-prize.

You spend 100 Chips on the re-entry, but the first payout is only 65.

That’s a loss of 35 Chips despite outlasting 95% of the field.

The add-on isn’t particularly attractive either.

You’re paying 50 Chips for 10,000 tournament chips, making the cost per chip 25% higher than the re-entry.

Mind you, that doesn’t automatically make either purchase -EV.

For one thing, the re-entry provides five times the free starting stack. Having that much more ammunition helps improve your chances of qualifying, and the Day 2 equity you’re playing for is the point of this whole thing.

The same goes for an add-on that materially improves your chances of qualifying with a healthy stack.

There’s also the possibility of considerable overlay: this means the premium you pay for rebuy chips could be softened. Hard to say.

Without more information about the field and payouts, assigning an exact EV to these purchases is just thoughtful guesswork.

How Should You Approach the 5% Bubble?

This is where the tournament starts to resemble a satellite.

In a conventional satellite, everybody who qualifies receives the same prize. Making it past the bubble with one chip pays exactly the same as making it with the chip lead.

Consequently, risk premiums become particularly severe as the field approaches the ITM stage.

The ClubWPT Gold tournament isn’t exactly the same, but there are similarities.

Let’s say you’re in a situation where 55 players remain from an original field of 1,000.

You’re sitting on 12bb, and several players in the lobby have fewer than 10bb.

What Changes Once You’re ITM?

Once the 5% bubble bursts, everyone remaining has secured the 65-Chip payout.

There are no further immediate Day 1 Chip jumps.

However, the top 3% will advance to Day 2, carrying their remaining chips.

This introduces an interesting future-game consideration.

Suppose 32 players remain and 30 will qualify.

You have 20bb, with several shorter stacks still in the field.

The action folds to the Small Blind, who covers you and shoves.

You look down at a strong but non-premium hand.

In a normal MTT, we’d examine the shove range, calculate our equity, and make the appropriate adjustment for ICM.

Here, the calculation is less straightforward.

If we call and win, we’ll have a significantly larger qualifying stack.

But if we lose, we surrender our opportunity to advance.

And if we fold?

We retain a stack that has a high likelihood of qualifying.

There’s no additional immediate Chip payout at the qualification threshold, but securing a place on Day 2 clearly has future value.

How much? That’s difficult to determine without the complete Day 2 payout structure.

We know first place receives 20% of the 5 Million Chip guarantee, suggesting a very top-heavy tournament.

But the distribution of the remaining prizes will determine how strongly we should prioritize chip accumulation over survival.

That makes it difficult to quantify the effective risk premiums approaching qualification.

We can, however, identify another consideration that may influence our decisions:

How many flights do we have left?

Should You Gamble for a Bigger Day 2 Stack?

This is probably the most interesting strategic question the format presents.

Let’s say you’re playing a flight on November 15th.

You’re sitting on 15bb with only a handful of eliminations remaining before qualification.

Do you really want to gamble for a bigger stack when you’ve got two weeks of free flights ahead of you?

You can come back tomorrow and add to whatever you’ve accumulated.

The situation changes as we get closer to November 29.

Imagine the same 15bb stack on November 28.

You haven’t managed to qualify through any previous flights, and you’re running out of opportunities.

Now, there’s a stronger argument for accumulating more chips before Day 2.

With a million going to first place, showing up with a short stack isn’t ideal. You’ll have fewer opportunities to play postflop, less ability to pressure your opponents, less room to absorb variance, and a long day of play before you get to the real opportunities.

In that scenario, taking a marginally profitable spot that improves your chances of building a competitive stack might become more attractive. In fact, you might even want to gamble at the direct bubble just so you can have a real chance.

Even a short qualifying stack has future equity, and the value of those chips depends on the Day 2 payout structure.

But the calendar introduces an additional variable that doesn’t exist in most conventional MTTs.

Your existing Day 2 stack matters too.

Someone who has already bagged 500,000 chips is in a different position from someone attempting to qualify for the first time.

It’s not that additional chips stop being valuable once you’ve accumulated a healthy stack. Rather, the risk and reward of another qualifying attempt need to be considered in the context of what you’ve already secured.

This is closely related to edge-passing: declining a marginally profitable opportunity because preserving your position may create greater value in the future.

And in this tournament, that future can include another free flight.

The challenge is knowing when to take the guaranteed opportunity in front of you and when the potential reward justifies taking additional risk.

Final Thoughts

ClubWPT Gold has created a pretty interesting opportunity.

A million up top, free entries twice a day, and the ability to combine multiple qualifying stacks.

My approach would be to take advantage of as many free flights as possible, avoid unnecessary spending on re-entries, and be mindful of how the incentives change as the month progresses.

Early in the month, I’d be particularly interested in securing bags that I can build on later.

As Day 2 approaches, accumulating a larger stack becomes a more pressing consideration.

And if you can bag heaps?

You might end up playing with a million on the line.

Not bad for a tournament you can enter for free.

PLAY FOR FREE EVERY DAY FOR A SHOT AT $1 MILLION

ClubWPT Gold is running a $5M guaranteed tournament with $1M for first place. Enter for free in the daily 1 PM or 7 PM PT free-entry tournaments running every day until November 28.

No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. ClubWPT Gold is available in all U.S. states except Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Washington, and in all Canadian provinces except Quebec. Players must be located in an approved region and aged 18+ to play.