PokerPlasm.com

Background
Code Poker is the newest addition to the Prima Network that includes a myriad of lesser-known poker rooms such as River Belle Poker, Royal Vegas Poker and Purple Lounge. In fact, what you will find at Code is people playing from virtually any corner of the globe; such is the diversity of the player mix and the network from which the players come.

Service
Having personally enlisted the assistance of Code’s customer service “team” I can report that the address of the person that handled my enquiry was teleassist.com. Given the nature of their network this does not surprise me. In addition, the marketing and operational management is handled by wckcapital.com. My enquiry was thoroughly handled and I hold no immediate concerns in regards to service, though it may be a little slow in the early stages.

Promotions
Being a new site, Code has had to sharpen its pencil and offer attractive deals to lure new players. They have a $50 welcome bonus but the conditions to secure this bonus are quite stringent. In order to gain the bonus you need to earn 1000 “welcome points.” These are earned as follows:

Welcome Points are accrued through playing raked hands at the bet levels described in the offer. A raked hand is defined as a hand in which a rake of at least 25c is taken. Hands where the rake is less than this (or in which there is no rake taken) will not count towards this offer and will not earn Welcome Points. Hands raked on tables with blinds less than $0.25/$0.50 and any play on Single or Multi Table tournaments will not earn Welcome Points and will therefore not count towards this offer. Points are accrued at the rate indicated in this table.

Table Limits Welcome Points earned per raked hand
$0.25/$0.50 1
$0.50/$1.00 2
$1/$2 3
$2/$4 and higher 4

To my mind the conditions to secure this bonus are quite tough. Roughly 1000 raked hands at 0.25/0.50 for such a small bonus is not what I would consider easy.

The other ongoing promotion pertains to Gold Members. To achieve and maintain Gold Member status you will need to play 1500 raked hands per month. A raked hand is defined as any hand for which 0.25 or more is paid. This bonus can be earned at lower levels than 0.25/0.50 as distinct from the welcome bonus. The full terms and conditions are listed below:

1) To qualify for the Gold Membership level 1, a minimum of 1500 raked hands must be played during the current month. The Gold Membership level 2 needs a minimum of 2500 raked hands and level 3 a minimum of 4500 raked hands. A raked hand is defined as a hand in which a rake of at least 25c is taken. Players’ current number of raked hands is viewable at any time in the poker room.
2) The amount that CodePoker will credit on top of your profits is the Gold Bonus (hereinafter referred to as the “Gold Bonus”.
3) The Gold Bonus level 1 is limited to a maximum of $300, level 2 to a maximum of $600 and level 3 to a maximum of $1000 (deposit bonus included).
4) The Gold Bonus represents the amount found by multiplying by 0.5 the Profit (as referred to below under point 6) at the end of the current month at 12 am GMT.
5) The Gold Bonus will be automatically credited to your CodePoker account within the two days immediately following the end of the current month.
6) The profit, if any, is determined by substracting the account balance at the end of the previous month and any deposit as well as any other bonus (i.e. deposit bonus and Refer-a-Friend bonus) credited to the account from the account balance at the end of the current month at 12 am GMT (the amount found by such calculation shall be referred to as the “Profit?”). From this amount shall also be deducted any winnings derived from team play, collusion and any other way as determined by the sole discretion of CodePoker. In particular, winnings derived from 1 on 1 tables and tables where the amount of players is less than 3 as well as any Sit & Go tables shall be strongly monitored and may be totally deducted from the Profit at the sole discretion of CodePoker if deemed by the latter that the winnings have been obtained in an unfair manner or for any other reason whatsoever.

Now I need to stress here that this relates to PROFIT, so if you do not secure a profit you get squat. Not an easy task at all for mine.

However, Pokerplasm currently has a Special Deal for people who achieve the 1500 raked hand level which is as follows:
If you reach 1500 raked hands but do not make profit you will still get a rake back of 35%. If you achieve the requirements for Gold with a profit in tow you will also get a 10% rake back in addition to the 50%. This is definitely an offer worth considering.

Game Play
Code poker offers 6 and 10 player tables for Hold ‘Em. There are no avatars and the table design is very simple. You have a choice of 3 table views via the menu button on the left of the table view, from large view, which offers the chat on the right, normal view and mini view which displays only a green square with a square player window overlayed. Selection of bet sizes must be done via the slider since you cannot currently input a particular bet amount. There is a drop down arrow that allows you to bet 1-4 x the blind or all in. This is not overly useful in my opinion. The slider is sensitive enough so choosing a specific bet size is not difficult. However, for multi tabling this is quite cumbersome and could cause some issues with time outs. Wager sizes are not clearly displayed unless you are in the pot and required to call so this is a downside. The chips are large and easy to distinguish so it is not a major issue. The software appears to run smoothly and efficiently and this could be a function of its simplicity. The cards are easy to read but I have personally found some initial difficulty with suit confusion. Hearts and diamonds and spades and clubs are easy to mix up at a glance and you have to be paying attention. The site RNG has been independently reviewed by Price Waterhouse Coopers and confirmed to give an equal chance of any card being dealt at any stage of a hand, so any suggestions of rigging would need to be backed by a significant quantity of evidence. The player notes section is really good with lots of space for in depth notes. There is also a colour coding option for player rankings. Nice one!

Games
Code poker is one of the few sites that offers 5 Stud which is available in addition to NL and Limit Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Omaha H/L and 7 Stud. Table stakes vary from $0.05/0.10 up to $100/200. At the current moment the number of players varies from as low as 1500 to as high as 8000 at any given time. This represents the entire player base of the Prima network and not Code’s clientele which is still quite limited. You can usually find a game going at your chosen stake level, however.

Players
So far the game play I have witnessed at Code Poker is quite loose and guppie rich. Because of the mixed origins of the clientele there appears to be quite a lot of fish on which to feast. Many of them are euro fish so as long as you are willing to ride out some bad beats along the way you can derive some profit from the more normal times. I have witnessed some pretty tricky types at the lower levels so by all means be cautious until you get a feel for matters.

Overall
This site has a fair way to go in terms of generating a real client base but I suspect that their current incentive schemes, unique in the industry will see them do quite well in the short term at least. The welcome bonus is only for people willing to play cash games at 0.25/0.50 and above and I think that is a mistake because small fish are sweet and Code appears to be neglecting that market to some degree. There is ample opportunity for improvement with this site and everything appears to work as it should, though it is very simple at this early stage. If you are confident of turning a regular monthly profit across substantially more than 1500 hands this site could definitely reward you more than most. The Pokerplasm deal significantly sweetens the prospect of playing at Code Poker and I am very keen to explore this more. The site has enough different features for me to recommend you add it to your stable.