Zero tolerance
Grosvenor Poker has announced that poker pro Thomas Clack has been dropped as a sponsored player after he was suspended by the site’s platform, the iPoker Network.
In a Facebook post, Grosvenor Poker was as vague as could be about the decision, not even naming Clack as the person it was talking about:
“After the conclusion of the 2025 National Poker League (NPL), we were informed by the iPoker network that one of our players had been suspended from their online platform,” the statement reads. “As a result, the player, who had qualified as a leader in the National Poker League 2025 promotion, no longer met the criteria outlined in clause 46 of the National Poker League 2025 Terms and Conditions and therefore could not be awarded the full prize, including the sponsored player pro package. Upon conclusion of our investigations, we will proceed with the payment of any remaining prizes in due course.”
In a series of videos on Instagram, Clack confirmed that he was the player referenced. He has since made his Instagram account private, so only people who follow him can see them.
Clack explained that he was playing in an online tournament and had input a previous (not live) hand into GTO Wizard to see what the software thought about his decision making.
“I was just studying with GTO out whilst I was playing,” he said, emphasizing that the hand was one that had already come and gone.
“I wasn’t trying to use it to cheat. I wasn’t using it to gain an advantage,” he added. “It was a really stupid way to study.”
Deserves further investigation?
In some instances of poker pros being accused of using real-time assistance (RTA) software to cheat, poker rooms or even other poker pros have analyzed their play, comparing their hands as played to what the RTA software says would have been the optimal line. When the analysis shows that they played suboptimally (as really any human would), and did not mirror the RTA, they are typically let off the hook.
While he understands why iPoker and Grosvenor made the decisions they did and agrees that what he did was “silly,” Clack also questions why they were so quick to judge.
“Plenty of sites use what’s known as fair play checks. And plenty of the hands I played, I didn’t play to the best of theory. You’d think they would see that and be like, ‘Oh, that’s fine.’”
Image credit: World Poker Tour