Introduction to BitCoin poker

Hey everybody, I've been trying out bitcoin poker. Bitcoins are a topic all themselves but they can be converted into dollars.

OK, so there is a nice site called SealsWithClubs.org. You deposit 1 bitcoin, and you get 1000 chips. A bitcoin is about $5 right now (the value fluctuates. Check out mtgox.com to see how much it is right now). So 1 chip is worth about a half a cent.

You can freeroll some bitcoins on SealsWithClubs.org if you don't want to buy some. They have a 50 chip winner take all freeroll every hour, with a maximum of 20 players. Also they have a 31 chip buyin with 50 chips added every 2 hours which hardly ever gets 5 people.

Obviously you are playing for small stakes; but it is real money. There are ring games and the rake is pretty low, like 2.5% I think. Also there are SNGS with buyins of 20+1 and 50+2; so the fees for the SNGS are very low. You won't get rakeback or anything like that, but there is a rake race going on right now.

Also every now and then the owner puts up bigger freerolls which have prizepools of 1 or 0.5 BTC (BTC is the abbreviation for bitcoin).
He also posts games with buyins of 0.1BTC with 1 BTC added (guaranteed overlay).

The software is kind of quirky and takes some getting used to (the lobby is kind of strange), but it is fully functional. The card graphics look like they were taken directly from Poker Stars. So it kind of makes me feel at home playing it.

Wouldn't you know it. Just when you think you've found something cool and new something ruins it for you. Well in this case their website has been down and / or laggy for a few days, making it almost unplayable. Thanks again DOJ!

I have checked them out, but the software is so bad, it is really tough to play more than a single table. They all open within one window, you cannot launch as separate, which is just dumb.

Also the other concern is that this type of room seems only for serious poker players, therefore no fish.

Good observation; yes, it is possible to multitable, but all windows appear within one firefox window! I've played up to 3 games at a time there. The person who wrote that client wrote it in Flash, and he is pokermavens.com. A new client is coming out which will support Omaha - not sure what else it will do though.

However as far as professionals and fish goes; yes there are some pros there but there are some fish there that are really, really bad. They can't play heads up or 3 handed very well. A lot of computer nerds are into bitcoins but they aren't so much into poker, and they are just kind of gambling with their bitcoins that they mined and / or bought.

Today the lag is gone. Looks like they might have fixed it.

Nah, the lag keeps coming back. I think the site is being DDOS attacked by some nerdy hacker. They might even be trying to extort money from them. Anyways, there is lag with 20 players; they'll never be able to fix their problems if they were to get 2000 players. So unless you're really bored, i have to DErecommend bitcoin poker for you now.

I tried it and I didn't like it so much!

I would be willing to put any amount of money down saying that there isn't a player on there that is an actual professional poker player that is truly playing.

absoluthamm, you are not quite right. If you are willing to bet money - let me know. I know at least one guy who sits often at 10-20 and 20-40 (these are chips. 1 bitcoin = 100 chips) tables during evenings. If you are interested - I might help to organize game for you both

But overall - you are probably on a right side. Bitcoin poker is more about bitcoin then poker yet.

sounds so fishy
and these days why would anybody play
on a new site with all the unknowns

What makes you feel "fishy"? My project is more then one year old already. And we encourage players to not keep balances on site ('cos there are no problems to deposit bitcoins when needed - no waitings or fees).

As for why - many reasons. For usa players - it might become legal option to play poker, for libertians - it is another way to support free currency, for nerds - just new interesting technology

I think you mean libertarians

Ugh...I know I was pretty negative so far. I must sound like a Schizophrenic. But in the past few days SealsWithClubs seems to be doing a lot better - I haven't seen any lag for a day now. I guess I just can't quit bitcoins. There haven't been many people online lately; it makes it a lot easier to win the freeroll.

Out of boredom and curiosity pretty much. I freerolled a bankroll of about 2000 chips on there (that's 2 BTC, currently worth about $4 each, its gone down unfortunately), so all I have wasted is my time. But it's pretty fun since it's such a small room, feels like a community just like CardsChat.

I can also vouch for the owner of the site - he let me do a cashout of 0.1 BTC after I won my first 100 chips just to test out how moving bitcoins around works; it only took a few minutes to withdraw the Bitcoins into my Bitcoin Wallet (that's a program you'll need to download to use BTC). Also other members on there vouch for the speed of the withdrawals - usually hours, at most a day.

Turning bitcoins into dollars on the other hand does take time, I'm not an expert on that yet! Perhaps our new member can explain that process?

Actually 1 bitcoin is equal to 1000 chips on SealsWithClubs.

Just wanted to update the thread, I'm the resident bitcoin poker expert now.

Seals with clubs the withdrawal happened in < 5 minutes. That's the one nice thing about bitcoins - you can move them around very fast.

Tomorrow, Monday 11/7/2011 8PM EST there will be a 525 chip buyin (that's 0.525 BTC) with 15000 chips guaranteed (that's 15 BTC). If you need 525 chips they will have 7 freerolls from noon to 7PM EST where the winner takes 600 chips (0.6BTC). Those will probably get 10-20 people, but the big game will probably only get less than 10 people playing. So far only me and one other guy are registered.

So his lag problems are gone as far as I can tell; perhaps I was too negative, maybe the software can scale up. Anyways, I think it's nice to play at a site where there's only 20 people who play, you get to know them and their play.

Besides this promo he runs promos like this all the time; big guaranteeds with great overlays. So check in there from time to time.

How's it going now that BitCoins are worth 1/10000th of what they used to be?

Seems like a new poker site pops up every month. lol.

It isn't a real poker site. More like playing on Facebook but worse software.

It's a close call between Bitcoins, Full Tilt and that guy who kept saying the world was going to end for best scam of 2011.

looking forward to how this payment/cashout option develops in the future

I never bought any BTC, I only freerolled and then MTT"d my way up to 30 BTC. They are holding at around $3/btc now. I can't say I'm happy with how they go up and down like a rollercoaster. I've seen people sell them on Ebay for more than you can get for them on the Exchanges. It's just a fun thing for me , yeah , kind of like Zynga, but with some potential for money.

Payments/cashouts are almost instant btw into your bitcoin wallet which just runs on your pc; ok, a cashout takes a day to get to your wallet. But u have to have a secure computer in order to use bitcoins, plus they recommend that you use secure your wallet with a password, and you can even back them up to flash drives & such in case your hard drive ever got wiped (which would be a problem, you'd lose your bitcoins)

Bitcoins are up to $7 each now. Pretty crazy! Why don't you check out sealswithclubs - its pretty easy to win some fr's there and they have a 100 added tourney now which can help you get to a few bitcoins real quick

You can sell / buy BTC on ebay (not sure what their official policy on this is)

and on MTGOX

never done MTGOX yet, will report back when I do

Hi guys, it's Bryan Micon here.

I have been working with Sealswithclubs.org in a marketing capacity and can explain bitcoin further if anyone would like to read:

Here is a quick guide on how you buy bitcoins without talking to me or SealsWithClubs:

1) open a Dwolla account. It's the new paypal that only charges exactly $.25 for every transaction, never higher. http://www.dwolla.com - also google news Dwolla to read about how it is an internet darling type startup and very legit. You fund your Dwolla acct. from your checking account, similar to an echeck to Paypal.

2) open an MTGox account - http://www.mtgox.com - this is where 80% of Bitcoins are traded for USD. you do need to log into the site for the latest price. The spread is very low, usually .01 BTC so just use whatever the last accepted bid was as the current price. You can 'bird the last 24 hrs as a guest, or go to http://www.bitcoincharts.com for the latest prices and to see a lifetime graph of BTC.

here is the last 24 hrs for MTGox:

Last Price: 4.55
High:4.88
Low: 4.39
Volume: 124,441

~ $600k USD worth of BTC are traded each 24 hrs as of recent. The data above means that 124,441 bitcoins were traded in the last 24 hrs on Gox. a trade means both a buy and a sell, obv, but just keep that in mind when looking at volume. Remember these are rolling 24-hr numbers.

Once you buy BTC on MTGox, you type in your bitcoin address to withdraw the coins. Don't have one yet? www.bitcoin.org to download the client. Once you install the Bitcoin client, your coins are held in a wallet.dat file. if you lose that file for any reason, those BTC evaporate and are never available again. that file can also get hacked. it is reasonable to keep that file on a thumb drive with 2 backups and only insert to xfer BTC.

Ok so you got BTC to the client. Now you drop ship them easily and instantly to SealsWithClubs. Then you obv pwn the noobs, and it's time to cash out.

When you win off SealsWithClubs, you go the other way - Cash out form SealsWithClubs to your Bitcoin client on your computer, a process which Seals does a "sanity check" on your cashout, i.e. a human takes a quick look, sees that you won and didn't cheat, and ships it in a few hours.

Now you send BTC --> MtGox, sell at the current price --> withdraw USD from MTGox --> Dwolla, then Dwolla --> checking acct.

It should be noted that you can Dwolla USD --> MtGox and just keep the balance as USD until you are ready to play Seals, withdraw only the coins you need, and when you are done playing ship them back, sell them for USD, and hold zero BTC each night when you sleep. this can minimize but never eliminate your exposure to the wild swings in BTC price - currently, with BTC, you are gambling while you are gambling.

It's a very interesting concept that appears to be growing not shrinking, and will likely piss off the USA government soon enough, but for now it's a viable world-wide online poker solution.

TY for reading Cardschat users, I'll answer a few questions if anyone would like.

BTC sales on eBay are now illegal. I sold them for a while on there before they changed their policy

How long does it take to get the funds from Dwolla to your bank acct?

USD checking --> dwolla and vice versa is the standard echeck 2-4 days.

also of note is a company called BitInstant (and there are a few like them) where you take cash to a bank, deposit into their account, and after a small fee is deducted you get the bitcoins almost instantly.

Check out a video I made about the process and showing you the sites:

Yeah you know I've won 65 bitcoins there thats about $325 so it's no joke. You should check out the latest promos. The rake is only 2.5% on the cash tables and if it's 2-3 handed you get 50% rakeback for that. So check it out again.

Who are you on there Corey? It's obvious who I am.

I made a small deposit and ran it up a little. I cashed out and had my money in 3 days.