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Up to £219.11 profit in cashback through gambling offers with TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh
Up to £219.11 profit in cashback through gambling offers with TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh always have a number of gambling offers available, with the offered amounts often changing daily or weekly. There are currently quite a few offers available on each where the cashback amount is more than the required deposit or wager amount. I've done most of these and always keep an eye out for when the amounts increase, to make sure I can get the most for my money. The offers they have on at the moment are some of the best I've ever seen for them. The first step is to sign up for the cashback sites if you haven't already. If you use a referral link to sign up then you can get an extra bonus once your cashback becomes payable:
Then the next step is to work through the offers. These are all only available for new customers, so if you already have an account with one of the sites then you won't be eligible for the offer from them unfortunately. It's also worth checking the terms as some have specific wagering requirements, for example Betfair Casino must be completed within 3 days of opening your account and low risk roulette bets (covering 25 or more of the 37 outcomes) are excluded from counting towards the wager. Offers
Notes If you complete all these offers then you should make £207.11 cashback in profit through the offers alone. If you are new to the cashback sites and sign up through referral links then this will be £219.11 instead. There's also a chance you can make a profit on any or all the offers and walk away with even more. There's also a final few key points:
Make sure you have all adblockers and tracking protection switched off as otherwise this may lead to issues with the cashback tracking correctly.
I've listed the highest paying in terms of deposit/wager to cashback offers here, but if you have a preference for one cashback site over the other then they often offer very similar amounts if you'd rather go with the other instead.
Similarly, some sites (OhMyDosh in particular) offer a lower cashback amount but also a lower deposit/wager amount, which may be more appealing to some.
Some of the offers may require a premium subscription to receive the mentioned amount. I wrote a guide to maximising cashback that explains these.
I don't like to say the cashback is guaranteed as all the cashback sites say it never is, but I've never had an issue with any of these sites, whether through gambling or other offers.
Please be aware that these all these offers all are gambling, so I'd highly recommend depositing and wagering only the mimimum amount required to get the cashback, then withdrawing any profit you may have made.
Up to £244.55 profit in cashback through gambling offers with TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh
Up to £244.55 profit in cashback through gambling offers with TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh always have a number of gambling offers available, with the offered amounts often changing daily or weekly. There are currently quite a few offers available on each where the cashback amount is more than the required deposit or wager amount. I've done most of these and always keep an eye out for when the amounts increase, to make sure I can get the most for my money. The offers they have on today are some of the best I've ever seen for each of them. The first step is to sign up for the cashback sites if you haven't already. If you use a referral link to sign up then you can get an extra bonus once your cashback becomes payable:
Then the next step is to work through the offers. These are all only available for new customers, so if you already have an account with one of the sites then you won't be eligible for the offer from them unfortunately. It's also worth checking the terms as some have specific wagering requirements, for example Betfair Poker must be completed within 3 days of opening your account and low risk roulette bets (covering 25 or more of the 37 outcomes) are excluded from counting towards the wager. Offers
Notes If you complete all these offers then you should make £232.55 cashback in profit through the offers alone. If you are new to the cashback sites and sign up through referral links then this will be £244.55 instead. There's also a chance you can make a profit on any or all the offers and walk away with even more. There's also a final few key points:
Make sure you have all adblockers and tracking protection switched off as otherwise this may lead to issues with the cashback tracking correctly.
I've listed the highest paying in terms of deposit/wager to cashback offers here, but if you have a preference for one cashback site over the other then they often offer very similar amounts if you'd rather go with the other instead.
Similarly, some sites (OhMyDosh in particular) offer a lower cashback amount but also a lower deposit/wager amount, which may be more appealing to some.
I don't like to say the cashback is guaranteed as all the cashback sites say it never is, but I've never had an issue with any of these sites, whether through gambling or other offers.
Please be aware that these all these offers all are gambling, so I'd highly recommend depositing and wagering only the mimimum amount required to get the cashback, then withdrawing any profit you may have made.
Up to £201.76 profit in cashback through gambling offers with TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh
Up to £201.76 profit in cashback through gambling offers with TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh TopCashback, Quidco and OhMyDosh always have a number of gambling offers available, with the offered amounts often changing daily or weekly. There are currently quite a few offers available on each where the cashback amount is more than the required deposit or wager amount. I've done most of these and always keep an eye out for when the amounts increase, to make sure I can get the most for my money. The first step is to sign up for the cashback sites if you haven't already. If you use a referral link to sign up then you can get an extra bonus once your cashback becomes payable:
Then the next step is to work through the offers. These are all only available for new customers, so if you already have an account with one of the sites then you won't be eligible for the offer from them unfortunately. It's also worth checking the terms as some have specific wagering requirements, for example Betfair Poker must be completed within 3 days of opening your account and low risk roulette bets (covering 25 or more of the 37 outcomes) are excluded from counting towards the wager. Offers
Notes If you complete all these offers then you should make £189.76 cashback in profit through the offers alone. If you are new to the cashback sites and sign up through referral links then this will be £201.76 instead. There's also a chance you can make a profit on any or all the offers and walk away with even more. There's also a final few key points:
Make sure you have all adblockers and tracking protection switched off as otherwise this may lead to issues with the cashback tracking correctly.
I've listed the highest paying in terms of deposit/wager to cashback offers here, but if you have a preference for one cashback site over the other then they often offer very similar amounts if you'd rather go with the other instead.
Similarly, some sites (OhMyDosh in particular) offer a lower cashback amount but also a lower deposit/wager amount, which may be more appealing to some.
I don't like to say the cashback is guaranteed as all the cashback sites say it never is, but I've never had an issue with any of these sites, whether through gambling or other offers.
Please be aware that these all these offers all are gambling, so I'd highly recommend depositing and wagering only the mimimum amount required to get the cashback, then withdrawing any profit you may have made.
Why I left Natural8 (Asia's GG Poker) after 4 days.
I am a recreational but devoted poker player, I recently moved my bankroll to Natural 8 (GG Poker Network) as I am temporarily boycotting Pokerstars until they put their shit together. I left after 4 days, this is why:
Cannot track overall wins or losses of Cash games or BB/100 on their Pokercraft (a provided alternative for HUD and tracking software): Hello, apologies but unfortunately there is no option at the moment for this.So they don't want players to know exactly how they are winning or losing. You can only see this on a session by session basis, which would be a bit of a hassle in the long run.
Software sucks. Really hard to move or resize tables. And you cannot tile 4 tables on most screens, you can only tile two, and the 3rd and 4th table just hide behind. Also, tables don't pop up when it's your turn to act. Their solution provided is to change your resolution when you open their software. But why should I bother to change my resolution to play your software?
They said they have a 200% deposit bonus on their website, which is the only reason I joined: Hello, the 200% first deposit bonus actually expired a few months ago. We do have a new type of first deposit bonus for our new players. (the Honeymoon missions and 1$ ticket freerolls, which I will talk on my next point).
The Honeymoon promotion for first depositors is literally a scam. Like on a Steam game, you are supposed to make one achievement per day and you get $150 after 30 days. They start with simple missions like "Play 50 hands of PLO". On the 4th day, I asked their customer support to send me a list of the missions in order to make sure if I want to invest any more time on them (you have to play them daily): Hello, I'm afraid we do not provide the list of the honeymoon missions.So they don't want to tell you some of the missions are actually "Win 1st place on the Daily Hyper", or "Win the Jackpot on All in or Fold games", otherwise you would know you are not going to get the 150$ dollars and would not waste your time on it. So, they lure you with a 200% deposit bonus... then have you gambling with your bankroll doing "easy missions" (like "Play 70 All in or Fold hands", not knowing you won't get the final prize.
Cannot remove casino games from lobby or table. Also, you cannot self exclude yourself from a certain game, which is a feature some players appreciate: Hello, I'm afraid we do not have the feature for players to exclude them from a certain game.So part of their business goal is to get tilting or bored players getting into gambling games. Put that together with not providing you an option of tracking overall wins and losses.
To protect it's business with CCP companies (Alipay, Wechat, Chinese banks), GG Network does not allow Taiwan players to use their national flag. We were forced to use Chinese communist flag until last week, and after complains, they now force us to use the "Chinese Taipei" flag. I know people from other countries might not care as long as they can get some Chinese money "today", but any company that supports CCP expansionist politics should not be trusted. I was one of the players that complained by email. Their reply basically called me stupid on my face: "Our team has decided that this is the best approach for security purposes", and "as a company we have the wellbeing of all our players as our priority". So I cannot use my own flag for the wellbeing of the other players? I have to pretend I live in a different country for security purposes? Are you implying Chinese players are dangerous for Taiwan players? No other site does this.
So there you have it, Natural8 is basically a Chinese casino with a few poker tournaments, shady promotions and shady practices.
I yell at my Mom to hurry up as she tries to recreate the pokerstars Team Pro patch on my Run It Once hoodie. She flinches and pricks her finger with the needle. lol dumb bitch I think to myself as I dunk my tendies into Chik Fil A sauce. Tonight is my live cash debut. I watched all of Doug's Polker (lol) hands. I read all the UpSwing articles and browse this sub religiously. I would be an online crusher if it weren't rigged and if the rake weren't so high. These live donks won't know what hit them. I finish my dinner and snatch my hoodie from my Mom. "Have fun playing with your friends," she says as she hugs me. I want to tell her there are no friends at the table. There are only Sharks and Fish and I'm a Mother Fucking Great White. Instead I take the opportunity to remove her debit card from the purse sitting at the table. My $400 bankroll might need a little assistance against the live variance. I slip on my RIO hoodie over my UpSwing tank top, then finish with a Favorable hat. I check my backpack and find everything I need for the upcoming grind: granola bars, power bank, sunglasses, wireless headphones, 2 big Monsters, and my preflop charts. I get on the subway (Mom needed the mini van for church) heading to Encore Boston Harbor. I feel all the eyes of the commuters on me. They've never seen a man like me before: 140 LBS all muscle and discipline. I DARE someone try to angle me today at the table. I will fucking delete them from existence. I finally arrive, and walk through the resort towards the Casino doors. A security guard in a Red Jacket stops me. He points at my bag, "You can't bring that inside." Immediately my eyes get hot and I try to quickly blink back the tears. I get ready to explain that I have a medical problem and the items in my bag helps reduce sensory overload and high-stress inducing-- "You can't bring those energy drinks inside sir." "Oh." I take my Monsters out of the side pockets and throw them in the bin. The Security Guard nods, "Welcome to the Encore." Wow, what an asshole. He gets a little authority and goes on a power trip. I scan the casino floor for the poker room and find the sign. I take the escalators up and approach the front desk. "Hi, I'd like to play 3NL." "I'm sorry, do you mean $1/3 No Limit?" the Manager replies. I chuckle. These morons have never played online where the real pros are. "Yeah, that's the same thing as 3NL. It's what we call it online." "Right. Do you have a card?" I hand over my Driver's License. "Uh no, a Red Card. Do you have a Red Card with us?" I can feel the tears forming again. I told my Mom to write down everything I'd need to play and of course she fucks it up. I need a Red Card to play and she didn't make me one. Can't even fucking trust family. The Manager sees my eyes water, "It's okay if you don't. We can have one made for you. What are your initials?" "J. Z." I'm gonna fool this room into thinking Jay Z is here LOL. "You're all set. It shouldn't be too long. You're number 4 on the list." "Thank you." 10 minutes later they call me and I sit down. Everyone is drinking except 1 Asian kid with a face mask. The goofy MAWG with a big stack (about 300BB effective) welcomes me to the table as I sit down to his left. "Look guys we finally got a pro to teach us how to play." I can see through his laughter that he's afraid of me. He realized a human PIO solver just got position next on him. Unfortunately for him, I'm not here to give lessons. I give the Chip Runner $100 (I figured out an unbeatable short stack strategy) and go to the bathroom to go over my preflop charts. When I return, 30 minutes later, my chips are there and I'm ready to play. First hand, I get JdJh UTG+1. MAWG straddled so I'm first to act. I try to go all in but my hands are shaking and I drop $40 in chips before it goes over the line and Asian pro calls string bet. Bet is $60. It folds to MAWG. "Why so much?" he asks. I don't say anything. I close my eyes and curse myself for not taking out my sunglasses earlier. "You have Jacks?" he continues. I make a mental note to protect my cards better because clearly this dickhead is peaking at my cards. MAWG folds. EZ game. I slide a Red bird to the dealer as she moves the pot towards me. Our hands touch. She thanks me for the tip and calls me honey. I'm fucking in. Definitely gonna smash that later. 1 hour later I'm in the BB with 6c6d. It limps to me and I check. Flop is 7s6h5s. Check, I check to trap, checks to CO who bets $10. BINGO. Folds to me, I make it $50, LJ calls, CO jams for $200, I call with my remaining $40, LJ tank calls. LJ covers. Turn Ad. River Ks. I groan. No one wants to show first and floor is called. CO shows 75o. I think my set of Sixes are good. LJ shows 4d3d. What a fucking slow roll. I rebuy, this time to the max $300. These guys clearly don't know how to play, and they'll make even more errors deepstacked. Asian pro opens to $15 from MP. Folds to me on the BU with AdAh. I think about how I'm going to mix. 12.5% raise to $30. 16.8% raise to 45, 25.7% raise to $60, and 52.3% Call. I run an RNG generator in my head and decide on a Call. Flop J43r. Asian pro Cbets $15. I run RNG again and call. Turn 9. Asian pro overbets $75. I tank and wince, pretending this is a tough spot. 5 minutes later I turn to the Dealer, "All In." Asian pro snap calls and shows KsKd. I wait. River 5. I show and Asian pro mucks. Fucking OWNED LOL. Everyone at the table tells me Nice Hand. They ask why I didn't 3bet. I remind them I could have but I have to balance my calling range. "If I had like Ace Five suited I would have 3bet to like $73 so his MDF is really hard. MDF is Minimum Defense Frequency by the way. I figured it out with PIO which is a Solver. I node lock the scripts and run the trees and it gives me a balanced GTO aggregate." The table gets quiet now. No one is talking anymore. I try to think of a way to liven up the table. I see the Player across from me order a sandwich and I yell "LOOSEY GOOSEY. LOOSEY GOOSEY.". Everyone looks at me weird. Fucking normies. Another hour later I'm UTG with AKs and I open to $15. Asian pro calls in CO. MAWG calls in BB. Flop Q98. Check, I CBet $30 to apply pressure. I have a range advantage and this is a great board for me if I have Aces or Queens. Asian pro and MAWG calls. Turn Q. Check, I barrel again for $100. I can have AQ and QQ. Call, Call. River 5. Check. I'm sweating and I feel like I want to throw up. But I have to continue the story. I rip it in. All In $455. Asian pro snap folds. EZ. MAWG tanks... and tanks... I can't stop shaking my feet and my mouth is dry. MAWG flips over his cards. KQs. "Is this good?" I give him absolutely nothing. My phone vibrates and I nearly shit myself. "Fuck it, I call." I don't show my cards and pretend I didn't hear him. "I said I call." I stare at my hands. The Dealer waves to me "He said call." I freeze up. I'm in shock. Asian pro asks for floor, and I sheepishly reveal my cards. AdKd. MAWG gets out of his seat mad as fuck "Fuck you man. You fucking piece of shit. You slow rolling fuck." I don't know what's going on. Dealer moves my card to the middle and announces "Nut Flush." and mucks MAWG's cards. BOARD: Qs9h8d Qd 5d Floor gets security and they remove MAWG from the Casino before I decide to give this fat ass a public beat down. It takes me 30 minutes to stack my chips. My hands are shaking from the adrenaline. I have $1310 in front of me. I want to leave but I don't want it to look like a hit and run. I check my phone and see my Mom's text.
I'm going to bed. Good night Sweetie.
Perfect. "Sorry guys, my girl texted me and she wants me home," I tell the table. No one says anything. I rack up and cash out. I wake up my Mom and tell her to pick me up. On the way home I tell my Mom about how I beat a table full of pro players and the sick hand against the Asian pro and MAWG. I open my wallet and show her all the Hundreds. She asks what her debit card is doing there and I lie and say she gave it to me. Old age is getting to her. All in all, a great session. I got in the streets and mixed it up and came out a Champion. Round 2 is coming soon, and this time I'm coming for the $2/5 shit regs.
Hello everbody :) I'm new to this sub, almost 2 years in GA, but a gambler since i was 12. In meetings, I keep hearing the same thing from people coming back from relapse: I had a few drinks and suddenly going to the casino seemed like a good idea. I'm 4 years sober now, but the opposite is also true: after a hard day of gambling, a drink sounds like a great idea. During the quarrantine, not drinking nor gambling was easy. But now, with casinos opening again, i remember the times I won, the technique to find loose slot machines, even the sweet 900 to 1 odds on sports parleys. I still have millions in play money on pokerstars as well. There's a meeting tomorrow, but I might be wrong about the day. I'm in 4 different recovery programs, but only feel the desire to gamble. I hope this sub brings me and everyone else some peace.
A few people asked for my story so I figured I'd share. Writing it out has been good therapy I think. I first played poker on a camping trip with some friends some 10 years ago when I was 16. We didn't play for money and we used one of those cheapo wallmart sets of chips. None of us had any idea what we were doing. Pretty much every hand was limped family pots and checking down to the river. A year later my dad's boss invited me to a homegame with his staff. This was the first time I played with someone who knew how to play. It was $10 to play, and my dad's boss won all 3 tournaments he ran that night. For me it was pretty embarassing, folding straights face up because I thought I had a high card. Thinking a straight beats a flush. That kind of thing. That night I learned that poker was more than just luck, and that good players could make money. So I became determined to learn how to play and how to win. I started hosting games at my school. I brought my wallmart chip set to school and classmates would play with me on my free periods and during recess. Never for money though. During this time I started reading some articles about poker strategy online. Or at least that was my intention. After reading some articles about bankroll management and leveling I read an article on continuation betting. I didn't need to read any more articles because it only took the cbet to make me a BEAST at the school games. Pratically every player in this game was weak-tight and would limp preflop and check/fold any board that they missed. I started to win most sessions just by cbetting 100% of boards. A couple wins under my belt, combined with my secret weapon (the cbet!), and I knew that I was destined to be a professional. I started to host real home-games for money (none of us were old enough to play at the casino). Every second Friday we'd play a game with a $5-$10 buy-in (None of us had jobs). It took a few weeks to realise we had to increase the blinds to force the game to end at a reasonable hour, and a few more weeks to figure out a structure that actually made sense. I tracked all the results of these tournaments over the year, and by the end it was clear that I was the best. I had the largest ROI, the most first places, the most cashes, the most final tables. Every metric that mattered. And it was all thanks to my trusty cbet. I wanted to go pro. I had no other career aspirations so I stopped paying attention in school and would just day dream about poker. I wanted to play all the time so I signed up to pokerstars under my mum's name because I was still only 17. Because I had no bankroll on stars I played in the freeroll tournaments every day. The field was usually 9,000 players large, and I played in the 6pm game after school ended but before I went to bed. First place payed $6, so I knew I only needed to win 1 to launch my online poker career. I quickly learned that 100% cbet was actually not so good against the stations and maniacs that play in freerolls. I had to change the way I played if I wanted to make it to the money. Eventually, after a few weeks of busting before the first break, I made it to the money and I cashed in at 200th place for 50 cents - which just so happened to be the minimum buy-in for the 1c/2c cash game on stars. I FINALLY HAD AN ONLINE BANKROLL! I immediately sat down at a 9-ring cash game and bought in with my prize winnings. It took less than 5 minutes to completely decimate my bankroll. Much to my dismay, the players sitting at the lowest stakes cash game available in the entire country played like poker GODS! What the hell? Every one of my bluffs was called down. Every time I called down a bluff they had it. It was mental, these players were so good. Unlike anyone I had ever played against before. At this point I knew I'd have to return to my poker studies if I wanted to have any chance at all. So I picked up my very first poker book, "Crushing the Micros", because I was gonna be playing micro stakes of course. One of the early chapters talked about the concept of set-mining and this BLEW. MY. MIND. Needless to say, I didn't feel it was necessary to read the rest of the book. So, a few weeks later when I cashed my next freeroll tournament and returned to the 1c/2c cash game I completely changed my game. I used a new strategy where I only played pocket pairs preflop against opponents with full stacks. If I missed the flop i'd check/fold, but if I hit my set i'd check raise all in if OOP, otherwise i'd triple barrel pot bet every street if I was IP. It only took a few minutes to win my first stack with a flopped set. So I cashed out of the table and bought in to two tables. If you've never multi-tabled before, let me tell you, it's the real deal. Twice the hands means twice the speed and that means twice the winnings. It made sense to me that I could scale this as big as possible. Back then, Pokerstars would let you play 24 tables at once - So as soon as my bankroll allowed it I started playing 24 tables at once using my se-mining strategy. The beautiful thing is, it worked! So, playing 24 tables, only set-mining, I grew my stars bankroll to $1,000. I WAS A POKER GOD and I knew it. I crushed the school games, i crushed the home-game tournaments, and now i was crushing micro-stakes online too. The day I turned 18 I knew it was time to crush all those fish at the casino. So for my 18th birthday I got my school poker friends (the ones who were 18 anyway) to take a trip to the casino with me. We each brought $100 with us. 1/2 was too intimidating so the floor offered to open a 1/1 table just for us. Because it was a new table and 1/1 rarely got up, it was just us at the table for most of the night. Luckily for me though, I knew I could crush these guys with my 100% cbet strategy, and throw in a bit of set-mining and my friends stood no chance. I ended up busting every last one of my friends that night yet I only finished $300 up, which didn't make much sense. If I busted them all then shouldn't I be $800 up? In any case, it didn't matter. I'd just proven to myself I could win at the high stakes casino games. Now I knew beyond a doubt that I could beat any game I played in. Soon I would go pro. The next year I started uni but because I had no career aspirations besides poker, I'd just stay home and play poker online each day. Sometimes i'd go to class but I'd just play poker on my laptop in class At some point I picked up holdem manager and imported my hand histories. Over 1 million hands I had a win-rate of 0.5 bb/100 - Yeha I know, I played a shit-load of poker. It was eye-opening though. I'd played one million hands for pennies, with a win-rate that was hardly even positive. Just imagine if I'd been crushing that whole time instead. If my win rate was 10 bb/100 i'd be up thousands. So once again, I was determined to get better. I bought books. Lots of books. Like, enough to fill an entire shelf of my bookshelf. And I started reading. The theory of poker was first. Every time your opponent makes a mistake, you win. Every time you make a mistake, your opponent wins. Yes, got it, basic stuff. What's next? Professional no limit holdem volume 1. Pot odds, implied odds, stack to pot ratio. This was life-changing stuff. Simple mathemetical concepts I'd never considered before that made so much sense in hindsight. This was it, I didn't need to read any more. Like the cbet and then the set-mine, these concepts were the missing piece I needed to take my game to the next level. Now I know you're thinking: "Yeah ok, this is great and all but can you get to the part where you lose 200k?". And yes. Yes I can. So I started skipping uni completely to go to the casino every day. Obviosuly I realised that the rake on 1/1 and 1/2 was fucked, so I started playing 1/3. Even though I was over 1k up online, the buyins for this stake were still HUGE to me and I played pretty scared money. And honestly, I never ended up beating 1/3. I was break-even AT BEST. (I rationalised my results by blaming the high rake. It was unbeatable, you see) But, I made some friends playing 1/3 at the casino. One guy, Billy, started to invite me to his home game. I LOVED Billy's home game because the rake was lower than the casino's and the buy-in was only $100, which was much more reasonable. Billy had this rule, where you could buy-in for the max stack on the table. This worked well with my set-mining check-raise all-in strategy so of course I would always buy-in for the max. One night i'm playing in this game that's been going for 2 days straight and one palyer's got a 2k stack on the table. He's one of the fishier players so I think to myself, why not? And I buy in for my entire roll. 2k. First hand i get JJ. Flop comes AJ7r. I check, fish bets pot. "Got ya" I think to myself, and I raise all-in. Snap call. Oh shit. He flips over AA. I just lost my entire roll that i'd spent the past year grinding for over 1 million+ hands. I'm tilted. Billy asks me if i'm rebuying. That was my entire roll I say. And then Billy utters the words that you've all been waiting for. "Credit?" And yeah, basically that's it. I've played in Billy's game ever since. And funnily enough, it turns out I'm not some poker god, i'm just a grade-a egomaniac poker fish. Billy has me for 100k on his books and i've tracked another 100k in losses i've been able to repay. So i'm down 200k over my poker lifetime. Also, I flunked out of uni. Got married and subsequently divorced due to financial arguments. If you want to know where the money's come from I can assure you it's not my parents or a trust fund or anything like that. I sell drugs to poker players at Billy's game.
r/Ethereum - I wrote this to explain Ethereum in depth to newbies. Please check for accuracy!
Hello ethereum - I'm currently in Singapore exploring all of the cool blockchain tech that's going on here. I'm also writing a blog that aims to explain blockchain technology simply to anyone whose interested. www.cryptoambit.com If you guys could spot check my Ethereum post for accuracy, I'd appreciate it. If you like it, would also appreciate some subscribers! Thanks By now, most people know Ethereum as the second most valuable cryptocurrency, currently valued at over $60 billion dollars. Well, it turns out that Ethereum isn't actually a cryptocurrency - it's a software platform that let's programmers build applications on top of blockchain technology. Within the ethereum platform, is a cryptocurrency called ether that is used to power applications built on the Ethereum blockchain. From Bitcoin to Ethereum Bitcoin uses a global network of computers that maintain a shared ledger called a blockchain that keeps track of who owns bitcoin. Once blockchain technology was introduced to the world, people realized that blockchains could be used to keep track of anything of value. In 2013, a 19 year old named Vitalik Buterin introduced the Ethereum white paper, which proposed an open source platform that would let programmers build blockchain applications that could facilitate the exchange of money, content, property, shares or anything of value. Much like with Satoshi Nakamoto's paper, Buterin's was met with widespread excitement from software developers around the world who began building toward the vision Buterin laid out. Much like Bitcoin, Ethereum isn't owned or controlled by any one person. Unlike Bitcoin, whose creator remains anonymous, Ethereum has a leader in Vitalik Buterin (pictured below). While Buterin doesn't control Ethereum in the way that a CEO does, his word carries tremendous weight in dictating the direction of the project - something that is considered a strength or a weakness, depending on who you ask. Smart Contracts The basic function that programs built on Ethereum perform are called smart contracts. Smart contracts are digital agreements that execute automatically based on real world data. An easy way to think of them is an "If-then statement." IF condition A exists, THEN perform function B. Let's say for example Grandma wants to make sure she never forgets to give Little Billy birthday money each year. She could write a smart contract that says IF it's Little Billy's birthday, THEN pay him $10 from Grandma's account. Once this contract is broadcast to the Ethereum network, it will execute automatically each year on Little Billy's birthday. Smart contracts have applications far beyond improving the reliability and efficiency of Grandmothers around the world. Another simple application of a smart contract is for rental payments: IF date = 1st of the month, THEN pay landlord rent amount. Processes that currently involve manual interactions between two parties can now be automated and the value can be moved in real time over the blockchain rather than settling days later as with traditional banking. A Real World Example Ethereum and smart contracts are a big deal because they have the ability to usher in what's been dubbed the "smart economy" - one in which slow manual processes prone to human error and deceit are replaced with automated processes that are completely transparent and trustworthy. A real world example that typifies the new "smart economy" is a project being run by a French insurance company called AXA. AXA offers a flight insurance product that pays out a policy holder in the event that a flight is delayed by two hours or more. It currently has a product in trial that will pay out insurance claims using smart contracts and the Ethereum blockchain. The smart contract is simple: IF flight is over two hours late, THEN pay policyholder. The smart contract is connected to a database that monitors flight times. If the database shows that the flight is over two hours late, the smart contract is triggered and the policyholder is paid automatically over the blockchain. Without the smart contract, the policyholder would have to file a claim and wait for the insurance company's claims department to process it, which could take anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks. With the smart contract, neither the insurance company nor the policyholder has to do anything. This also creates trust between the two parties because there are no grey areas - the customer can review the smart contract prior to purchasing the policy and feel comfortable that he will receive his claim in the event of a delay. Ethereum vs Ether As stated in the intro, Ethereum is a platform for building blockchain applications using smart contracts. What you may have just purchased on Coinbase is called Ether, which is the cryptocurrency that fuels the Ethereum network. Ether functions more like a digital commodity than a digital currency. Just like you need gasoline to fuel your car, you need Ether to run applications on the Ethereum blockchain. In the Grandmother example cited above, Grandma would have to purchase small amounts of Ether to fuel her smart contract that pays Little Billy his birthday money. The Ethereum blockchain functions in the same way as the Bitcoin blockchain: a network of computers run software that validates transactions through majority consensus. The people running these computers are called miners. Bitcoin miners are compensated for their resources by being paid in Bitcoin. Ethereum miners are compensated in Ether. On Little Billy's birthday, Grandma's ether transaction fee will go to whichever miner adds the block containing Grandma's transaction to the blockchain. That miner will also receive new Ether in the process. The same supply/demand economics that apply to commodities like oil and gas also apply to Ether. Oil is valuable because it powers many of the things we use in our everyday life - it heats our homes and fuels our engines. The more people and enterprises that rely on Ethereum based applications, the higher the demand will be for Ether which will increase its value. As with all cryptocurrencies, there's plenty of speculation baked into the price - speculation that the demand for Ether will increase in the future. Since Ether is valuable, exchangeable and transferable, certain merchants are also starting to accept it as a currency. dApps - Decentralized Apps Applications that run smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain are called "dApps," or decentralized apps. Just as any app developer can build apps on top of Apple's IOS operating system, developers can build on top of Ethereum's blockchain infrastructure. To the end user of a dApp, it might not look and feel any different than the apps you use today. It's the underlying blockchain infrastructure that make them different. Since dApps function on top of the blockchain, they can be used to transfer value peer-to-peer. To return to our Grandmother example, there could be a dApp that Granny can download that lets her schedule Little Billy's birthday payments without having to code the smart contract herself. dApps are also completely open sourced so other people can access the code and build on top of them. Someone could take the code to the birthday payment dApp and add the ability for Grandma to add a note that says, "Happy Birthday Billy!" Running dApps on the blockchain also offers added security benefits. Since the transactions are distributed and encrypted across the Ethereum blockchain, there is no central place for a hacker to breach and gain access to all of the world's Grandmother to grandson birthday payment data. At this point, I'm really beating the GrandmotheLittle Billy example to death because I think it represents a simple illustration for the kinds of applications that can be built on the Ethereum blockchain. In reality, the dApps that are being built are much more complex. Here are a few examples:
Weifund - blockchain crowdfunding: Users can launch traditional crowdfunding campaigns, but through the use of smart contracts, backers can gain a financial stake in the project. If an indie film gets funded on Weifund, a backer who financed 10% of the project can collect 10% of the film's revenues. Payments will be issued in real time as the film generates revenue.
Ujo Music - Music licensing via the blockchain: An artist can create an original song and register it on Ujo's platform and set their own licensing terms. If a film producer wants to use that song in a movie, they can purchase the rights based on the terms set by the artist who will then get paid directly. This erases the need for industry middlemen like Warner Brothers who end up taking the lion's share of their artist's profits.
Virtue Poker - Online poker secured by the blockchain: At the height of it's popularity, online poker platforms like PokerStars were marred with issues that ranged from deck rigging to the abuse of player funds held by the company. Virtue Poker using Ethereum allows players to fund their bets directly, insuring that no central party can access and misappropriate player money. Their code is open sourced so that users can understand how hands are dealt, insuring that no one can rig the deck. Lastly, players are paid out their winnings in real time over the blockchain so no more waiting weeks for a check to come in the mail.
Ethereum Tokens So now that you understand that Ethereum is a network for building decentralized applications that require a cryptocurrency called Ether to run, I'm going to introduce a confusing concept. Many dApps built on Ethereum have their own cryptocurrencies or "tokens." In order to interact with the dApps, customers need to purchase the dApp's native token. Here's a helpful analogy I came across - when you go to a waterpark, you pay the admission fee and in return, you get a wristband. That wristband gives you the ability to ride the waterslides in the water park. With certain dApps, the token is the wristband, and a user must purchase it to interact with whatever the dApp offers. Let's take a dApp called Golem as an example. Golem lets people rent out their excess computing power to people who need it - kind of like a computer AirBnb. To cite this article from Laura Shin, if I'm a computer graphics artist that wants to render some kind of computationally intense animation, I can purchase Golem tokens that let me tap into the Golem network to generate my animation. I then pay the people who are renting me their computers with the Golem tokens. The Golem token is a form of smart contract and this transaction is recorded on the Ethereum blockchain. Since Golem tokens are also a cryptocurrency, they can be traded on the free market. If I'm a speculator who has no intention of using the Golem network to rent computing power, I can still buy the Golem token on an exchange in hopes that it appreciates in value. Like bitcoin, there is a fixed supply of Golem tokens so if the demand for the service increases, so will the value of the token. If I bought Golem at its original price of around 1 penny and held it to today, I would have made 35X my initial investment since Golem tokens currently trade around 35 cents a piece. ICOs ICO stands for, "Initial Coin Offering" which is a fundraising mechanism for cryptocurrencies which has exploded in popularity this year - the majority of them are held on the Ethereum network. Similar to a kickstarter campaign, they allow entrepreneurs to raise money for projects by giving investors an early opportunity to purchase the cryptocurrency before the final product has been built. If the project is successful, the value of the cryptocurrency will rise in value and early investors can sell it on the open market for a profit. ICOs have stirred up a lot of controversy because they represent a risky proposition with zero investor protection. Let's say I wanted to build a casino and to finance it, I gave investors the opportunity to buy chips that can be used at my roulette tables once the casino opened. If you bought $100K in roulette chips from me and I decide that I no longer want to build the casino, you're stuck holding worthless chips. If investors don't do their due diligence, they may end up buying tokens for a project whose creators never intended on building it in he first place - the creators walk away with the money and the investors have no way of recouping their funds. On the other hand, early investors in projects that go on to be successful have the opportunity to make enormous returns. For example, people who invested $1,000 in the Golem ICO would be sitting on $35,000 at it's current price of $0.35 - if it ever goes to $10, they're all millionaires. Another positive aspect of ICOs is that they let anyone, rich or poor get involved in early stage investing. To invest in a company like Twitter or Facebook pre-IPO (initial public offering), you need to be an accredited investor - this basically means you're already a rich person. With ICOs, all you need is an internet connection and a little bit of money and you have the potential to become wealthy by investing in the right projects. Far From Perfect Ethereum has the potential to change the way humans transact with one another but it is still a very young technology and it hasn't been without its problems. While the blockchain architecture underlying the Ethereum network is secure, not all of the applications built on top of it are. Faulty code can and has made applications vulnerable to hacking and malfunctions. Here are two prime examples: DAO Hack - DAO was a dApp built on Ethereum that enabled crowd based venture capital. DAO token holders were given the right to vote on projects they wanted to support - if projects went on to be successful, DAO token holders would receive financial rewards. The DAO ICO received $168 million in funding. The DAO software was hosted on the Ethereum blockchain and was publically visible by all. A hacker spotted a flaw in the DAO's code that enabled him to route $55M in ether held by the DAO into an account that he controlled. The Ethereum team had do do something called a hard fork (something I won't get into now) to reverse return the stolen funds. Parity Wallet Freeze - Parity is a wallet where people store Ether. A flaw in Parity's code let a user delete a specific line of code that was necessary for accessing funds in a Parity wallet. This led to $280 million dollars worth of ether being frozen - it hasn't been stolen but it can't be accessed either. Parity Technologies has proposed another hard fork to correct the issue - something that is sure to divide the Ethereum community and rattle user confidence. Despite the world changing implications that Ethereum dApps and smart contracts have, the trouble is that any programmer can write them - if they aren't written properly, they can behave in unintended ways and be exploited like in the above listed examples. Ethereum is still a very young network and security issues with dApps and smart contracts will have to be sorted out if its to reach its true aspirations. Leading The Decentralized Revolution “Ethereum aims to take the promise of decentralization, openness and security that is at the core of blockchain technology and brings it to almost anything that can be computed.” - Vitalik Buterin With dApps, smart contracts and blockchain technology, Ethereum is leading the decentralized revolution. Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized currency, that operates on a global network of computers outside of central intermediaries. Ethereum gives programmers a platform to develop a decentralized version of just about anything. Decentralized networks like Ethereum have the power to remove the intermediaries that currently exist between producer and consumer. Let's take a company like Uber. Uber is a platform that brings people who need rides together with people who have cars. To facilitate this interaction, Uber collects 20% of every ride. With Ethereum and blockchain technology, there is nothing to prevent a bunch of software developers from writing a dApp that creates a decentralized Uber. Instead of 20% per ride, transaction fees are paid to the network and the driver takes home the lions share of the transaction. Tokens can be issued that represent ownership in the network. Coders who work on improving the network can get paid for their efforts in ownership tokens. Non-technical people can come up with marketing campaigns that spread awareness for the network and also get compensated in ownership tokens. As the decentralized Uber network grows and improves, the value of its ownership token increases, rewarding the people that built it. The result is whats referred to as a "Decentralized Autonomous Organization" and theres a strong possibility that DAOs replace a lot of the world's biggest corporations. This may sound like a radical concept but blockchain technology enables these kinds of decentralized organizations to exist - Ethereum provides the tools for people to go out and build them.
Is PokerStars a Scam? After winning $6000 - account blocked for no reason and no feedback from Support
On January 19 I created an account on PokerStars.com and deposited $800. After 1 day of playing poker and online casino I won about $6000, shortly after this, my account was blocked. I get the following message: "Your account has been temporarily restricted pending a routine security investigation. We apologize for this delay. These checks are usually completed within minutes, after which time your account will either be re-opened with full functionality, or you will receive an email explaining required next steps." Note that they say it usually takes minutes.... well I'm already waiting since 2 weeks and I get no feedback! I already contacted the support several time and got no justification why my account is blocked, nothing. What the hell is going on with PokerStars? I was thinking they were a serious company, but looks like they don't really care about their customers. Anyone had the same problem before? *UPDATE*: After making this reddit post I emailed the support with the post link. One day after (today, 6 Feb), I received confirmation from them that my account was reopened and everything is in order. In addition to that they credited my account with more $2000 from a previous bet that I had won but they had rejected due to some technical problems. So finally I want to say props for the PokerStars team for this, but still its a shame that I had to come to this point, just a simple clarification would have been enough, Jesus Christ. Next step is to withdraw the money... I hope no more show stoppers. I'll update here if any other issues. Thank you all who supported
Been playing live poker at the casino for a year, won some money, am I doing things right or just getting lucky?
I am an electrical engineer who likes math/statistics and has gotten attracted to the game of poker because I have stumbled on an MIT course about poker accidentally. Ever since I have played with my friends and tourneys. For about a year now, I have played at the local casinos for about a year now playing mostly $1/$3 with a $300 buy in and usually topping off when I am 200ish or less to 100bb, 2 buy ins stop loss (or 1 buy in after a bad beat or even earlier if players are just better than me). I have won about $7000 so far with about 200ish hours of play, however, I realize that this is pretty statistically insignificant so I want to do a sanity check if I am doing things right and I should continue. All feedback is welcome. I study poker for about 10-20 hours per week for the last 3-4 months (where most of my winnings started coming from). I studied from the MIT poker course, splitsuits videos on youtube and Crush Live poker mainly now (I sometimes double check my hands by using flopzilla or couple of my friends that also play at the same stake, I have none that I know that plays larger). So here is my play style, I am what you would call a nit I guess ( I am still not sure why this is bad since it seems to be printing me money at these low stakes). I am not just waiting for pocket aces/kings ace king but pretty snug, on the button, I would have my widest range at it would usually not be above 15%. (my loosest range is something like this: 22+, AKo, AQo, AJo, ATo, A2s-A5s, KQo, KJo, QJs, JTs (only when deep and in position, sometimes QJo and JTo). EP I open premiums and 99 (99-AA) for 5-6X ($15-$20) as well as AKo, AQo, AJs (AJo and ATo I fold). I open limp 77, 88. For low pocket pairs like 66 and lower and everything else, I fold. With premiums QQs+ I will 4 bet if 3 bet (queens I will fold to a 3bet shove or if an opponent is super tight). I prefer not to play jacks or tens OOP but I will call a light 3 bet (of $45 say especially if multiple people called, anything larger that is $60 I fold JJ and lower). MP I increase my range to KQs, KJS and AJ, ATo, but will let go of these to a 3bet. I usually over limp or open limp with KQo, KJo or just fold. LP I overlimp or call with A2s-5s if I am getting 3-4 callers in front of me. I will over limp QJ and J10, I will, however, open raise KJ and KQs almost 100%. I will 3 bet pretty 100% Ace-10/J/Q/K type of hand, suited or offsuit, and will 3 bet with 99s plus. (KQ/J suited I will sometimes, and ONLY if I have a super tight image, if i was card dead or just showed up with monsters, I will 3 bet bluff with). I will set mine if pot odds are good or more likely if implied odds are more than 10X (I know some people are saying it should be 15-20x or even 25x so this may be a leak). If hit a set, I play pretty straight up, if I am OOP and there is a draw heavy/wet board I will not slow play, I will bet large and I will raise OOP on a wet board 3-4x. I will check raise oop if I have a good read on my opponents if I find that they will cbet a lot. On dry boards, I will bet small OOP and Call/check in position and then turn up the heat on the turn. I don’t play suited connectors one gappers lower than JT unless I am on the BB and I check. In limped pots I just try to follow the rule of never going broke in a limped pot and I always try to play mathematically and usually fold second or third pair even if I hit if a bunch of people call in front of me (unless I got a draw and I am getting the pot odds for it). I play pretty ABC post flop, if I hit, I will bet usually around 66-75% of pot, if I miss and I am in a position with hands like A/K I will call one street usually. If I was the original 3bet/raiser with 10s+ and an Ace or a king comes on the board (high cards good for my range) I will usually fire once or twice. Generally, I will C bet only if I hit the flop or if the turn will bring me the nuts/better equity (for example I have Ace 2 of spades and it is 8s/10/s/Kc). I fold TPTK to a 3X raise 90% when the opponent is likely to have a set or two pair, the 10% of the time I call when I do NOT block any draws (say there is an ace high board with two spades and I do NOT have Ace or King of spades it is more likely for my opponent to have a draw; I only do this with players that are higher thinking players like 2/5 players and really good 1/3 players since I noticed they sometimes do this with their draws). Other times I call a raise is when the opponent usually was very short, to begin with, and the SPR was already around 1.5 or less. I don’t fold a set unless I have a read that the opponent has a flush draw and it gets there and even then, it is tough for me to fold, lately I started putting a blocker bet in these scenarios in case they don’t have the nut flush, they may call instead of just shoving. idk if this is correct line of thinking. (usually, I don’t care about straight draws, usually, I focus just on flush draws but this may be a leak). As for bankroll, I am very surprised when people recommend 50 buyins and such, it seems to me that that is waaay to much variance, I cannot see myself losing more than 10buyins or even losing 3-4 buyins with this strat (of course I may be drastically overlooking things) playing 1/3. Now that I have 20buyins plus, would this not be a good enough bankroll to play poker regularly on the weekends and be profitable? I did try online too, but man I feel it is waaaay harder, I could not beat 10NL. Heck, even 5NL at pokerstars zoom 4 tabling I feel like I may be a slightly loosing/breakeven player. Might be doe cuz I am bored and I am not using a tracker. Feels like a much different game, wherein casino people are just sooo impatient to play (I am guessing this is because of the 2hour wait times for poker in my city). I know it is not much info unless you see my hand histories but still, I would like the general feedback to see if I am on the right path and what I need to do to get and keep getting better at the game (how to study more efficiently, books to read)! EDIT: Some more info: I try to never bluff fish and calling stations. I am also aware of other people being aware that I am tight, so if a good player calls and he has seen me fold hands for 2 hours prior, warning bells go off when he check-raises me if it makes sense that he has hit a set (otherwise they fold to a cbet). I usually play "slippery" here and don't mind folding top pair or over pairs like aces (This is usually against players that are good and that are well aware that I am playing tight and ofcourse if we are both deep, if SPR is low enough ill ship it). To counter this, I do 3bet sometimes with King Jack/Queen suited as i mentioned to steal a pot or two if they are folding too much to my aggression and giving me too much respect. If new plays join and they have not seen me fold that much, I can usually get them when i do hit my hand, of course, i won't be trying to 3bet bluff them because they won't have a tight image of me yet. To add to this, this is where I make money. There seems to be alot more volume in 1/3 where players come and go in a session alot more often. I find that 3/4 other guys stay at the table while the rest of the seats are rotated. Here is where I make my money, yes the other 3/4 guys know I am tight and will fold when i 3bet with my aces but the newer ones wont be as likely and will pay me off.
FunFair - An In-Depth Analysis (Updated April 25th)
FunFair has been up to a lot of things, and thus, the post made a few months ago is quite outdated. I’ve written this just to keep the subreddit updated, and to have a nicely formatted post full of information regarding FunFair for both newcomers and “veterans”. This post will be updated more often than not, and when the time comes for a new one again, it shall be written! Cheers.
What is FunFair?
FunFair is a decentralized gaming technology platform which uses the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, and proprietary state channels (Fate Channels) to deliver casino solutions with state of the art games that are fast, fun, and fair. FunFair is not a casino. Instead, FunFair will license its technology out to casino operators. Being a casino carries with it risks and burdens stemming from statutory and regulatory hurdles. Being a licensing entity instead, provides legal safeguards and will enable a more widely used platform.
Why was FunFair created?
There are many costs, headaches, and complications with online casinos. Briefly, they are the fees associated with operations (servers, infrastructure, large employee-base, fraudulent activity investigations, chargebacks) etc. Attracting players and gaining their trust comes afterwards, which is another issue within itself. There is a blatant trust issue with conventional online gaming that FunFair aims to diminish, while creating a seamless experience for both operator and player.
The Market.
Online gambling is a large market: Currently over 47.1 billion dollars in market volume and projected to continue increasing quite exponentially. FunFair is also attempting to capture a new market of casino operators and players that aren’t currently factored into this estimate.
The Team.
The FunFair team consists of 40+ developers, industry executives, and professionals. They have one of the largest teams in cryptocurrency. Feel free to check them out on their website: https://funfair.io/how-it-works/our-team/ Notably, the first five employee profiles presented on the website are: Jez San OBE, Founder, CEO Jez San is a British technology entrepreneur and investor whose pioneering work in the field of real time 3D computer graphics led to being awarded the OBE for services to the computer games industry. Jez founded Argonaut Software in his teens and designed the first chip used to power 3D games including multi-million-selling Star Fox, Harry Potter and Croc. He also founded 3D online poker room PKR and microprocessor developer Arc International. Since 2013 Jez has been an active investor in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector. His investments include Google’s DeepMind and online cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. Jeremy Longley, Founder, CTO Over 15 years’ experience managing technology teams – from the development of advanced video-game software through to the deployment and operation of enterprise-scale infrastructure. Oliver Hopton, Founder, Developer Oliver Hopton is an experience developer and team lead with over 15 years experience building gaming products. He spent 10 years working at online poker room PKR as Software Development Manager working on a huge variety of administration tools and integrations with 3rd party gaming content and providers. Heavily involved in technical compliance for gaming license applications in Guernsey, the UK, France, Italy and Denmark. He then spent 18 months as CTO of EveryFan, responsible for architecting and building a UK facing sports betting product. David Greyling, COO David has more than 20 years’ experience in E-Commerce related organisations. In his role as COO, David is responsible for leading the business development, strategy, operations, finance and corporate functions. With extensive leadership experience in Digital marketing and E-commerce international companies, David specialises in leading business integration and transformation programmes. Prior to his current position David was Director of International for William Hill PLC, reporting to the board on market expansion, regulation and strategic change management programs. Stefan Kovach, Business Strategy and Marketing Consultant Stef is an industry executive with with a wealth of experience, having headed up the marketing functions of both PokerStars and bwin.party - two of the biggest brands in online gambling.
Career Opportunities
Further, FunFair is looking to expand – and fast. They expect to have a team of 50+ people in the not-so-distant future, as they are currently hiring developers, business and marketing professionals, and so forth. So, if you’re looking for an opportunity to showcase your expertise in these fields, try your shot at securing a position within the company! (https://www.funfair.io/careers) The FunFair team’s base of operations is in London, UK. Some of the positions currently offered in the United Kingdom, England, London:
C#/Javascript Developer
C#/Javascript Developer - Domain
C#/Javascript Developer - KYC
Community Manager
Senior Business Analyst
UI Developer
Senior Developer - Typescript
VP Product Owner
When did they start the project?
Technically, FunFair started on June 22nd, 2017, because all FUN tokens that will ever exist were created on this day. However, the idea, technology, and product were being developed before the ICO started.
What have they accomplished to date?
FunFair have accomplished a lot since their inception- consistently updating development, business operations, and hiring many new staff. From Sponsoring DevCon 3, receiving awards from the Malta Gaming Awards, excellent showcase updates, and launching their product to the gaming industry at the International Casino Exhibition which boasted over 30,000 industry attendees, they have been on track to their public release. With the release of the closed beta right around the corner, the future is bright for FunFair.
Ok, so what is the technology? What are they developing?
FunFair is building their decentralized platform and protocol on top of Ethereum’s blockchain. FunFair is developing the game technology, and their proprietary, advanced state channel technology which they call Fate Channels. The platform that FunFair has created and continues to develop, will allow anyone to run a casino in just a few clicks, allow third party developers to distribute and integrate their own games to a new, global audience, while creating the ultimate casino experience for end users. Fate Channels are FunFair’s custom, proprietary version of State Channels. They are superior technology to current State Channels, as they are what support the communication during game sessions between player and casino, while executing entire game logic and random number generation off-chain. They provide a fast, low cost method for RNG, starting game sessions, ending them, and settling with smart contracts on the blockchain. There is only one gas fee needed to start the game session, which solves scalability issues with platforms like Ethereum. For an in-depth explanation that you won’t be disappointed in reading, please refer to the technical white paper here: https://funfair.io/wp-content/uploads/FunFair-Technical-White-Paper.pdf
What really happens in the Fate Channels?
FunFair’s random number generation is executed within the Fate Channel, and is a commit/reveal scheme that makes it provably fair. There are also a hash chain to prove that the overall sequence is indeed fair. A player enters a FunFair-powered casino with some FUN tokens in their wallet, and then both the casino and player send FUN tokens from each of their personal wallets into a smart contract which then holds the FUN in escrow via the Fate Channels (off-chain) until the player cashes out/closes the channel. The player and casino swap random seeds that they have generated locally, and these are then hashed numerous times by both parties in private. The sequence of hashes are stored locally by each party. There could be thousands of hashes, which become the random numbers, and are passed one by one, in reverse order, by the casino to the player and vice versa when the game needs randomness. Since the hashes are in reverse order, a new hash will always hash into the previous one, so that it can be verified that it’s the correct value of the next hash. The first hash is committed in the state channel on the blockchain as it was opened, and this is what will be used later to reveal that the random number generation was correct. The position that a ball lands on in a roulette spin, for example, is computed this way. The two hashes provided by both player and casino are combined into a random number that neither side could have predicted. It’s provably fair because because it can be shown that they come from the same hash chain in the correct sequence, and it can be shown after the game session is over, using the reveal to show the seed was in fact, committed to the blockchain in advance of the games played. The random number generation scheme works extremely fast, and is not dependent and waiting on the blockchain for verification every time, yet it is provably fair in both randomness and sequence. It is easy to detect cheating by either side (for instance, the random number generations would go out of sequence). The security of the hash chain is what makes the randomness unpredictable. If it is possible to reverse a hash, you could predict the random number generation. FunFair uses SHA-3 for hash generation, which has not been reversed yet, and is likely to last in strength for some decades.
The platform.
FunFair presents its casino operators and players with a gaming opportunity never seen before:
Decentralized, essentially serverless
Provably fair, blockchain-based
Trust-less outcomes that can be witnessed on verifiable smart contracts
Instant cashouts - casinos do not hold your funds
Accessible through web browser on desktop or mobile
Fun games with an exciting user interface
Casinos feel safer, with no risk of fraudulent charge-backs from player credit cards
Fast gameplay conducted through Fate Channels – the team’s custom version of State Channels.
FunFair is preparing for mass adoption and has a working solution for Ethereum network congestion.
The games.
FunFair is pursuing a full suite of traditional casino games:
Blackjack
Baccarat
Craps
Roulette
Slot machines (many variations)
Let It Ride
Caribbean Stud
5-card Poker
3-card Poker
Many more to come
You can test all of these games, right now at https://showcase.funfair.io . Some are currently testable on the Ethereum test networks. Regarding mobile functionality: A number of mobile dapp browsers are being built (ciphestatus) – FunFair support these. Their games are built with technology that works in mobile browsers. FunFair is one of the only projects in the cryptocurrency space that has a working product.
FunFair’s vision for the future- an updated roadmap for 2018:
Learn, iterate and improve partner integration process
Drive further product improvements & platform features
Q4 and beyond:
Go live with first 3rd party games content
Continue to build FunFair brand
Some Information Regarding Casino Operators:
Casino operators will save significant money on hardware, chargebacks, and operational headcount. The number of physical servers required is reduced as gameplay executes in immutable smart contracts deployed to the ethereum network. An operator will, at all times, require a reserve of FUN tokens to ensure they are able to accept bets, and cover their liabilities. If, after a period of time, they wish to convert some of their FUN token balance they will have a number of market exchanges which are capable of facilitating this type of transaction. FunFair is working on the many customization options right now and up until release. You will definitely be able to customize the look and feel. You can add your own graphics, logos, colour schemes, etc. You will also be able to choose which kinds of games are offered, and how they will be laid out. FunFair fully supports KYC. They’ve built their own KYC technology that’s crypto-friendly. FunFair’s tech will allow each operator to have their own policies on who they exclude and whether they require KYC/AML etc. A reminder, FunFair isn’t an operator, it’s a technology that operators use, and some will be in countries where they need to do KYC/AML and some will be in countries where they don’t. FunFair’s tech works for all cases and will support the full strength KYC if that operator requires it. Lots of information can also be found on the website. Here are some excellent links:
FunFair has been consistently networking, and the team have been continually attending blockchain conferences and events. From launching their product to the gaming industry at the International Casino Exhibition in early February, launching their product to the Asian market at G2E Asia, and just recently announcing their industry first game development partner; Spike Games, FunFair is advancing very well, on track and ready for industry disruption. For questions that you may have think I've missed, please refer to this updated FAQ on the FunFair website: https://funfair.io/frequently-asked-questions/#the-fun-token TL;DR - Readthewholething
Home online poker games can be very fun, but there are little preparation and planning that makes the night ideal. They must be directed at the ability of the players. There are many free poker leagues, like the All in Poker League that hold special events throughout the state. The tournament will still pass faster, but each jump level will make more sense. Keep away from re-buy tournaments Turn buy-buy tournaments are usually best avoided. Indonesian online poker site Used to be a good deal simpler to move money around. however, it is not as simple as it once was. You've got to learn about losing money isn't a disaster and, like mentioned earlier, you should quit playing whenever you have lost a specific quantity. Additionally, you will eliminate money sooner or later. Even in case you make the money, you have to get pretty near the last table just to recoup your investment. The key isn't to waste money with chips with denominations you won't ever use. Picking the most suitable place to play is essential. There are few places in the country where there are many unique languages in 1 day. Evidently, if you devote any period of time at either casino, after a time you're going to be hungry. It's a routine for many people to take part in all of the time. Not only are you able to re-enter the following day, but now you get your first opportunity to get out and about. So, you are happy to be happy if you are able to turn that $ 10 into $ 11 on your very first day. What's more, your gym might not even be open all the time in the event you need to do a late-night workout. Sites are required by regulations to demonstrate both they can offer a safe gameplay environment and they can securely store your private info. If you're savvy when picking an internet poker site, it's possible to maximize your bankroll drastically once you make your very first deposit. Some sites offer you late registration for so long as five hours on a few of their bigger tournaments, which usually means you're likely to need to play at least six or seven hours simply to receive a min-cash. There are a couple websites, such as Merge and such, which will allow US players but they're relatively low volume in comparison to PokerStars and Full Tilt. No issues whatsoever, PokerStars and all the key internet poker rooms are accessible. Be certain to get in touch with our restaurant in case you have any questions regarding specials, upcoming events, televised games and more! For quite a few reasons, but the brief answer is that lots of banks and organizations are waiting to observe how regulated on-line gambling works out before jumping in. If you choose to charge, we will reach 24 hours every day at the poker room. After the point is established, after that you can get a place to place any number. The number of games and the number of players is different.
Before the trip About 8 weeks ago I was casually scrolling though the EPT/UKIPT schedule. I'd never played a major festival event before, and I wasn't really looking for an event to play, just wanted to see if there were any 2-7 draw games going, unlikely, but that's my thing. As I scrolled past the high rollers and main events something peaked my interest. 9pm, Thursday the 16th of October, a £220 deep stack turbo deuces wild event. At £220 it was within the cheapest band of entry fees and subsequently within my budget. I also considered the fact that 2s wild would appear as "a bit of fun" for a lot of less serious players, making for a weaker player pool. Along with that, the fact that the event was right at the end of the festival and at 9pm made me think that if I could sleep all day and be fresh for the event I'd have another small advantage. The thing with small edges... add them up and they can make a significant advantage. Once I committed to the idea of playing the event, I made my travel and living arrangements and started preparing. Back at uni I played hundreds of hours of home games. About 25% of those games were the later part of 12 hour sessions when things would get less conventional. 8 card omaha, irish, 3 card holdem and most importantly a lot of wild card games. While I'm sure other people have played wild card games, the previous experience let me go in far less nervous, and as I would come to learn, much more prepared than many players in the field. Before I even got to London I was doing all that I could to prepare. Unfortunately 2s wild is a very popular form of video poker, so searching anything out online was slim pickings. This article however gave me a decent idea about what to expect. I reached out to Will, a redditor who cashed the same event at a different stop on the EPT and we discussed his experiences. I also spent a reasonable amount of time just dealing flops with a deck of cards at a desk, counting outs for different hands containing a 2. Anything I could do that my opponents weren't doing was to my benefit and I pushed that edge as much as I could. The day before the event The day before the event I arrived in London. After checking into my room I walked the route from my hostel to The Grand Connaught Rooms, where all the EPT tournaments were held. I took a look inside to familiarise myself with little things. Where is the bar? Where are the bathrooms? Where is the information desk? Little things I didn't want to be worrying about a half hour before the cards are in the air. My next stop was The Hippodrome, the official casino of Pokerstars at Leicester Square. They did have a free shuttle car service from the two venues which was an excellent thing to see, because the cash games only ran at the casino and due to some legal issues they could only accept cash buy ins at the Hippodrome, so anything to assist players in registering was a good thing. I walked however as it was dry and I had a lot of time. I knew from the promo information that I would need a Hippodrome card and a Friends of Pokerstars card in order to play. A quick visit to reception and the players lounge and I had everything I needed. I paid for my entry with cash there and then, receiving a receipt which I was to use to get my seat at the Connaught rooms later. I then went about enjoying the rest of my day in London. I did try and stay up extra late though, in order to sleep in later. The day of the event I woke up around 11am. Got myself up and ready for the day. Before the event that night I had a few more things to prepare. Going into the event I didn't know how long it would last. I had no real idea of what the number of runners would be or how late I could be up. As such, I went out and bought some aspirin, ibuprofen, bottled water, cereal bars and some emergency caffeine. If I felt a headache coming on at midnight I wanted to be prepared. I wandered the city for a while, went a napped a bit in my room, got diner with a friend and then it was time to go to the event. I arrived at Connaught rooms about 40 minutes before cards were due to be in the air. As there were several events still in play, I took the time for find my table and seat among the 3 or 4 rooms which had tables set up. Screens mapping out what was where made this very easy. I found the screen with our tournament info on. 20/20 players it said. "Wow" I thought to myself. Really small field then?! One of the dealers pointed out it hadn't been refreshed in a while, so I moved past the thought. I peaked my head into the other rooms, saw a few faces I recognised from TV/Web casts, although names escape me. Before long at was 8.55pm, so I headed to my seat at Green Table 10, Seat 4. The event I took my seat and the first thing I made sure to do was clarify the unique rules for the event. They were as follows.
Any deuce in the whole cards or on the board can be played as any card in any suit.
If a player is dealt pocket deuces, they must open their hand when the action is on them. They win the Blinds, the Antes and THE BUTTON
5 of a kind is a legitimate hand. It is ranked higher than a straight flush but not a royal flush.
Oh, blinds were 15 minutes and stacks were 15,000. With the rules confirmed and the other players in their seats the game began. At this time most of the tables had 4 or 5 players, which I found odd. However over the next 30 minutes most of the tables gained more players until the field hit 70 players. After the first level, the tournament director also made the decision to play the remainder of the game with 8 handed tables, presumable due to the smaller field size, but I'm not too sure. My opening table consisted of 5 players. A middle eastern guy in seat 3 (I'm in seat 4 remember). I could tell as his phones language wasn't in English. Two women in seats 5 and 7, and a middle ages white guy in seat 9. I was pretty happy to get this table draw. While outside of the poker table I don't discriminate or try to make assumptions, at the tables I will use generalizations and stereotypes until given a reason to think otherwise. Within the first orbit we quickly got a taste of how easy it can be to make a huge mistake. To be brief, the woman in seat 7 raised, and the man in seat 9 called. The action went bet call flop, bet call turn, bet call river. Seat 7 shows 28o with an 8 on board for trips, seat 9 shows AA and lost about 7k of his 15k stack at 25/50 blind level. Pocket pairs really don't have any weight to them. Only on one occasion after that did i play a pocket pair, when the button shoved for 6bb when I had 50+bb and I held KK. He had JJ and I won. Very quickly it was established that most players weren't playing hands without a 2. But I saw many spots where people were over playing weak 2s. It felt a lot like omaha, where the nuts often ran into the second nuts. Case and point was this hand I played at level 2. The UTG player in seat 3 raises to 3x, (50/100 level) I call with 8c2x. All other players fold. Flop comes 6c5c2x. I've flopped a 9 high straight flush. He c bets 500 into 750. I raise to 2000. I could have any number of straights, sets, flushes, quads. Which means he can have these hands too. He makes it 6000 and I shove for 13000. In hindsight a call of the 6000 would likely have been ok as I has the nuts unless 5 of a kind comes in. Regardless he calls and shows 4c2x for the bottom end of the straight flush. I double up and he is crippled. Coming in I knew I didn't want to play big bloated pots without the nuts and this is why. In this case, 7c8c9c with a 2 all beat 4c2x. Very strong hands were everywhere. 4h2x on a 4x2xJx board is quads. And that happened a lot. One observation I made after a couple of levels was the value of holding any AKQJ or T with a 2. This is because these hands can all make a royal so long as the board contains a 2 and any 2 of the other 4 broadway cards in your suit. This happened surprisingly frequently, putting those hands at a much higher value than 92 and 82. By the end of the first hour, our table had gained a couple of player, the field was set at 70 and the prize pool confirmed. 9 places paid. A hair under £4000 up top. At this time our table broke. This is because all EPT events break tables high to low and table 10 was the largest number. I move with around 30k to another table. This table has a lot more young grinder type kids which is no fun, but I have a lot of chips compared to several stacks at the table. Over the next couple of orbits I knocked out 4 players when they shove and I call with a better 2x, (and the kkvjj hand from before). I was up to around 80k, still well over 100bb deep before my next table break. Down to 32 players, average is 33k. My next table has several Norwegians who are drinking and chatting. I made my first 5 of a kind on the river and knocked out a player who made a straight flush which was fun. But then the card dead period began. In 6 or so orbits I saw 1 deuce and managed to steal the blinds a couple of times making use of my evidently nitty image. While I managed to maintain my stack, the blinds were racing up, the antes even more so. Since my initial double up back in level 2, I had simply been avoiding bad spots and pushing my good ones. Cruising my way along watching the field grow smaller. I knew I was getting more tired though. Finding the nuts at showdowns was getting to be trickier. Although this was usually after and all in and call where all 5 cards appear very quickly, rather than me having time to think and act. The dealers and floor staff did and amazing job of making sure pots were awarded fairly and correctly though. Throughout the whole tournament though, I took all the time I needed to correctly assess where I was in the hand and what I held. This was extra important when making thinner value bets on rivers, where a lot of 2s would call with very bad hands and lose to say a straight or flush. Eventually we broke to two tables. And I could feel myself edging towards the money. When we broke to two tables, we redrew seats. The loud/drunk Norwegians moved to table 2 and I was on table one. While I had just above average at this time, most of the chips in play were at table 2, so I had most of my table covered and there were several short stacks. We began to see the first instances of multiple pre flop all ins with 2xXx vs 2xXx. Often they just resulted in chop pots as any 4 to a straight would make a straight for both players with the 2. I maintained my stack and then soon we were hand for hand. We would be going to a 9 handed final table and 9 places paid so this was the moment we had been waiting for. There were a few very large all ins on table 2, which the bigger stacks spent 2 or 3 minutes deliberating a fold or not. This really hurt with the blinds at 5k/10k(1k) with 15 minute blinds. A player from table 2 did eventually bust and we redrew onto table 1. Now I'm at seat 2 on the final table. 1 of the shorter stacks busted pretty quickly. Then a very important hand happened. I don't recall exactly the hands that got me there but I had about 200k. In the BB i pick up Qx2x. Action folds to seat 8 who shoves for 30k. Seat 9 shoves for 55k and I call in the BB. The hands were 42, 72 and Q2. The board runs out and 72 makes a straight. Seat 8 is eliminated leaving 7 players and seat 8 wins a 150k pot, which had I have won would have put me in a much better position. Now the shoves are coming thick and fast. There were 4 or 5 all in and calls but they all ended up in split pots or the smaller stack winning. By this time the blinds are 10k/20k(3k) With 1,050,000 chips in play, that's 50bbs on the whole table. Unfortuanelty I catch no 2s that double me up or help me, the blinds go up again to 12k/24k(3k) and I'm all in for 1bb with KJo vs 82. I don't improve and I get knocked out for 7th place for £670. Ultimately I'm very happy with how I played. I ran pretty well, didn't do anything stupid and had fun. It's a shame a couple of cards didn't come differently for a much bigger score, but given I can now brag about having a 100% cash rate at the EPT and have a good story to tell I'm not going to complain. If this event remains in the schedule I'll do my damned best to play it again that's for sure. Thanks very much for reading. I know it's a wall of text but in this instance that's kinda the point. GothicLord PS- The /poker championship vids will be going up soon. For some reason (possibly the size/length of the videos) sometimes they crash and I have to start the uploads again.
Chen Qin wins opening event of PokerStars.net 2014 Beijing Millions
For more than a month, the United States was the cornerstone of live poker, but action has subsided and professionals are leaving Las Vegas. Europe will become the new gambling hub later in August, as the European Poker Tour will resume in August with the Barcelona tournament. Meanwhile, many poker players have traveled to Asia, for the PokerStars 2014 Beijing Millions and Chen Qin can brag about winning the opening event. PokerStars is playing a significant role in this part of the world when it comes to promoting poker and has established a permanent position in Macau. This year, the prizes for the PokerStars.net 2014 Beijing Millions exceeded expectations, with the winner taking home ¥675,000. A quick glance at the standings will reveal the fact that the runner-up won a bit more and the difference between the winner and the one finishing in the third place was just as wide. The reason for why this happened is that the remaining four players decided not to play until the final hand was dealt, but instead chopped the pot right away. This is common practice at both live and online poker tournaments, as the finalists frequently prefer not to allow luck decide the outcome of the game. There is a protocol and players are usually getting a share that is indissolubly linked to the chips in front of them, but then again they have unlimited freedom to proposing alternate deals. In this particular case, an agreement was reached fairly quickly and the top four players claimed the paycheck right away, leaving them to fight for glory alone. Chen Qin persevered and after the deal was made, he shifted into a more aggressive gear, knowing that there is nothing to lose. Yang Zhang proved to be the most difficult competitor, but even though he won more money at the end of the tournament, he was deprived of the honor of winning the event. The Beijing Star Poker Club was the gracious host for the PokerStars tournament, which was the largest outside United States. More than 200 players participated, but only these nine made the final table, not surprisingly all of them being from China. Check out their placement below and the corresponding prizes: 1 Chen Qin China ¥675,0002 Yang Zhang China ¥700,0003 Tong Shen China ¥650,0004 Feng Bai China ¥587,5005 Jing Liu China ¥312,5006 Chen Hao China ¥250,0007 Qiang Liu China ¥205,0008 Hui Xu China ¥162,6509 Yuanye Chen China ¥125,000 from via Casinoreviews
The European Poker Tour Barcelona generated tremendous interest among those who choose to play live poker and prefer major series. To some extent, the competition rivals the World Series of Poker and attracts the very best professionals, although the prizes are slightly smaller. This edition was special for several reasons, with participants knowing that the one winning the opening event would make history by claiming victory in the 100th EPT tournament. PokerStars is the sponsor of the competition, which explains why the European Poker Tour Barcelona enjoyed such ample coverage over the Internet. There were plenty of players who usually compete only online and this time they decided to put their skill and luck to the test at live tables. Only a fraction of them won satellites, with the vast majority having to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars. This explains why the EPT Barcelona €5,300 Main Event featured relatively few amateurs, but even so the field came four players short of hitting 1500. This meant that a new record was set and the winner was guaranteed to win in excess of €1 million, assuming no deal was made. It took a couple of days for the competition to be reduced to just nine and some of the most interesting hands were played in the hour preceding the bubble stage. One surprising thing about this edition of the European Poker Tour Barcelona €5,300 Main Event is that no famous poker professional made the final table. There were plenty of Red Spades at the tables but none of them made it to the finish line, with most of those who made the final nine being less known over the Internet. Andre Lettau, Samuel Phillips and Hossein Ensan dominated this late stage of the competition and it didn't take long for them to make three-handed play. At this stage, it was Phillips who had the biggest stack and he suggested the deal that his opponents accepted without many hesitations. The American make the right choice, because instead of competing against the Germans, he took the big payout of more than €1 million. Winning the event is every bit as important as taking home a sizable paycheck, so even though Andre Lettau had to settle for a smaller amount he was the proud recipient of the trophy. This is how the final table looked like at the end of the EPT Barcelona Main Event: 1 Andre Lettau Germany €794,0582 Samuel Phillips United States €1,021,2753 Hossein Ensan Germany €652,6674 Andrea Dato Italy €362,0005 Andrey Shatilov Russia €286,0006 Kiryl Radzivonau Belarus €224,5007 Ji Zhang Germany €171,6008 Slaven Popov Bulgaria €121,300 from via Casinoreviews
Poker professionals have already established a beachhead in Las Vegas, where the World Series of Poker is scheduled for a full month. Many of them arrived on the scene several days before the first side event began and are already competing for bracelets. Vanessa Selbst is one of the most successful female poker players in the world and a formidable opponent both online and at live poker tables. Granted she spends most of the time playing over the Internet, the PokerStars Team Pro proved her skills time after time in live tournaments. She told the media that she is very optimistic about this particular edition of the WSOP and hopes that she will be winning at least one more bracelet. Apparently she knew ones was talking about, because she already claimed her third bracelet in the second event. Since the opening tournament was dedicated to casino staff, therefore poker professionals were denied entrance, Vanessa won the first event that she was eligible for. Despite mading the final table with a significant disadvantage and had opponents with as much as seven times more chips than she did, Selbst never gave up. Her aggressive style of poker proved to be correct in the Event 2 – $25k mixed Max NLHE because in the end she claimed the top prize and a massive amount of $871,000. By winning this event, she took her total tournament winnings to more than $10 million, a remarkable achievement that only a handful of male poker players can brag about. Thanks to her performance in Las Vegas and elsewhere, women poker players are now respected and nobody can say that they are any less good than their male counterparts. In fact, Vanessa dominated her opponents at the final table in such a manner that she won the uphill battle without breaking a sweat. Those who are wondering whether her performance represents a premiere for female poker players, should know that she's the second one to win as many WSOP bracelets. The good news is that she is still very active in the series and with more than 60 tournaments left to be played in 2014 at the World Series of Poker, she can add another bracelet to her collection. The runner-up in the $25k mixed Max NLHE event goes by the name of Jason Mo and for his performance he received $538,308. from via Casinoreviews
The Australia New Zealand Poker Tour is the tournament of choice of those who play poker in the southern hemisphere and Season 7 has just begun. There are plenty of events scheduled under this brand and PokerStars is the official sponsor, so players can book a seat to the real money tables by playing over the Internet. They won't even have to pay the full buy-in, as long as they are perseverant enough as to participate in several qualifiers. A couple of lucky players already booked seats and plane tickets to Perth, where the opening event took place and Michael Kane emerged victorious. There were several side tournaments scheduled and most of them have reasonable buy ins, with the main events being the one dedicated to professionals and highrollers. Compared to other similar tournaments, this one didn't have prohibitive entry fees, so a total of 192 poker players found it worthwhile to participate. Those who made the final table were guaranteed to collect a five digit amount, with the winner expected to win in excess of $100,000. This didn't happen and Michael Kane had to settle for almost $99,000, due to the fact that he made a deal with the runner-up. After overcoming 190 players, he had to decide whether the game will continue until the last hand was dealt, or the chips will be split accordingly to the corresponding stacks of each players. He and Stephen McHugh decided that it was better not to allow luck decide the outcome of this tournament and instead settle for a slightly lower amount. This didn't mean that the tournament will conclude right there, instead several hands were dealt until the winner was finally crowned. Half an hour after the two players reached an agreement, it was Michael who emerged victorious when his stronger starting hand held on. He won a significant amount and despite the fact that he didn't cross the psychological six-figure barrier, it was more than enough to justify the effort. Stephen lost the heads-up but he also took home a hefty amount, in excess of $72,000, twice as much as the one who finished in the third-place. Check out the final table results below: Place Player Prize (AU$)1 Michael Kane $98,9002 Stephen McHugh $72,1003 Michael Doyle $37,0004 Navin Bechar $31,0005 Mihcael Guzzardi $26,0006 Raiden Kan $20,2007 Robert McLean $16,5008 Gregory Wheeler $13,0009 Bryan Huang $10,500 from via Casinoreviews
[uncensored-r/CryptoCurrency] FunFair - An in-depth analysis.
The following post by Commissar_ is being replicated because some comments within the post(but not the post itself) have been openly removed. The original post can be found(in censored form) at this link: np.reddit.com/ CryptoCurrency/comments/7o2gtl The original post's content was as follows:
FunFair. An in-depth analysis. Intro. FunFair is a decentralised gaming technology platform which uses the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, and proprietary state channels to deliver casino solutions with games that are fun, fast and fair. FunFair is not a casino. Instead, FunFair will license its technology out to casino operators. This differentiates FunFair from the competition in the blockchain gambling sphere – being a casino carries with it risks and burdens stemming from statutory and regulatory hurdles. Being a licensing entity instead, provides legal safeguards and will enable a more widely used platform. I’d like to touch on the many aspects of FunFair that makes it an extremely promising and undervalued project. However, I won’t be making any price projections. As always, do your own research. In this case, I’ve done a lot of it for you. The market. Online gambling is a large market: currently over 47.1 billion dollars, and projected to continue increasing. https://www.statista.com/statistics/270728/market-volume-of-online-gaming-worldwide/. However, this is not to say that the price of the FUN token should be compared to the market cap of internet gambling. FUN is not a measure of casino capital/wealth, it's an entirely new animal. The problem and the solution. Trust. Traditional online casinos rely on you trusting them to be fair. The chance of red coming up on roulette is 48.65%. How do you know your traditional online casino is giving you those odds? You don’t – you need to trust them. Most online casinos are incorporated in island microstates. Do those nations have online casino regulators? Do they possess the willingness, manpower, and expertise to audit online casinos? FunFair puts the gambling on the blockchain so it’s trustless – you know you have a 48.65% chance of having red come up. It’s fair. The team. FunFair has their ground covered and bases loaded. With their team of 30+ professionals they are way ahead of the competition. You may know CEO Jez San, OBE, from his career track: Argonaut Games (founder), Star Fox (programmer), and PKR Poker (founder). He has been in the gaming industry for more than two decades, and has built valuable relationships along the way. Constantly engaging with the FunFair community through Telegram, Discord, and Reddit, it seems as though he leaves no engaging question unanswered. Alongside Jez as COO is David Greyling (https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgreyling/), former International Director of William Hill, one of the world’s leading betting and gaming companies and one of the most trusted brands in the industry. (https://www.williamhillplc.com/about/). Recently, Stefan Kovach joined the team - Stef is an industry executive with a wealth of experience, having headed up the marketing functions of both PokerStars and bwin.party – two of the biggest brands in online gambling. Further, FunFair is looking to expand – and fast. They expect to have a team of 50+ people in the not-so-distant future, as they are currently hiring business and marketing professionals. So, if you’re looking for an opportunity to showcase your expertise in these fields, try your shot at securing a position within the company! (https://www.funfair.io/careers) The FunFair team’s base of operations is in London, UK. The platform. FunFair presents its casino operators and players with a gaming opportunity never seen before:
Decentralized, serverless
Provably fair, blockchain-based
Trust-less outcomes that can be witnessed on verifiable smart contracts
Instant cashouts – FunFair does not hold your funds
Accessible through web browser on desktop or mobile
Fun games with an exciting user interface
Casinos feel safer, with no risk of fraudulent charge-backs from player credit cards.
Fast gameplay conducted through Fate Channels – the team’s custom version of State Channels. The Fate Channels developed by the FunFair team are superior technology. In very basic terms, Fate Channels are what supports the communication during a game session between the player and the casino. They provide a fast, low cost method for random number generation, starting gaming sessions, ending them and settling with smart contracts on the blockchain. This allows for secure, deterministic, fair gameplay. There is only one gas fee needed to start the game session. For an in-depth explanation that you won’t be disappointed in reading, please refer the the technical white paper here: https://funfair.io/wp-content/uploads/FunFair-Technical-White-Paper.pdf FunFair is preparing for mass adoption and has a working solution for Ethereum network congestion. Fate Channels.
For more discussion both technical and company related, have a look at both whitepapers: https://funfair.io/explore/whitepapers/ The games. FunFair is pursuing a full suite of traditional casino games:
Blackjack
Baccarat
Craps
Roulette
Slot machines (various types)
Let It Ride
Caribbean Stud
5-card Poker
3-card Poker
And more to come
You can test all of these games right now at https://showcase.funfair.io/. Some are currently testable on the Ethereum testnet. FunFair is one of the only projects in the cryptocurrency space that has a working product. They are set to launch in the beginning of Q2 of 2018. What have they been up to? Are they on track? Consistently ahead of schedule and on top of their roadmap in many ways, FunFair was a sponsor of DevCon 3 and had one of the most engaged-with booth setups. They connected and networked positively with many developers at the event. https://twitter.com/FunFairTech/status/926113230677856256 They’ve recently received the Malta iGaming award for “Best ICO of 2017” which was determined by a nomination panel of 5 industry experts, and a panel of 32 judges with many years of combined experience in gaming. The awards were hosted during Malta Gaming Week; a very large event attended by many business executives, authorities, and even local government: http://maltagamingweek.com/ They’ve been constantly updating their product showcase, and adhere to all feedback received by community members. Their new showcase was designed to “be able to cope with adding more games easily by the team + third parties, and also to be configurable by casino operators.” Some of their product update can be found here: https://funfair.io/awards-latest-product-update/ How does the token (FUN) derive value? FunFair does not issue dividends or offer profit sharing – FunFair doesn't have much to share. The technology will be licensed to casino operators for almost nothing – itself a major draw for existing casino operators to adopt the FunFair platform. With a fixed supply, the value in FUN is derived from scarcity of the token in the marketplace. Scarcity comes from four sources:
Casinos holding FUN as part of their bankroll (described more below);
Players holding FUN and not cashing it out immediately after they play;
Speculators (investors) holding FUN anticipating it will increase in value;
Token burn: a small amount of FUN will be slowly destroyed over time. The exact amount has not been announced, though it will likely be quite small.
That first scarcity factor will be key, as casinos will need extremely large bankrolls of FUN to operate a large casino with multiple games, high max bets, and a large number of seats (allowing numerous people to play concurrently). Right now, price has been set purely by speculators. As casinos open down the road, scarcity will ramp up --- Casinos will need to buy FUN, which will lead to players buying FUN which will lead to greater popularity of the platform causing more speculators/investors to buy FUN. Scarcity and utility are what drives price. Plans for the future & the latest company update. FunFair will be attending the ICE Totally Gaming Conference on February 6-8 (https://www.icetotallygaming.com/exhibitors/funfair-casino). This is a major business-to-business conference for the online gambling industry. The team plans to have the developmental side of the FunFair project done in time for the conference. Tech completion in February will allow for the advancement in operations and partnerships, which will lead to live FunFair-licensed casinos going live in Q2 2018. FunFair is in the process of acquiring their Remote Gambling Software License from the UK, which will enable them to license their technology to existing and regulated casino operators. FunFair has steady operational costs covered for the entire year, as well as an 85,000 ETH reserve/storage for any and all upcoming costs. An Updated Roadmap (December 20th, 2017) (available here: https://funfair.io/company-update-december-2017/)
Q1: In January we will be submitting to the UK Gambling Commission our application for a Remote Gambling Software License. In February we will be attending ICE Gaming, an international B2B conferencing event, where we will be introducing the FunFair brand to the gaming industry. By the end of March V1 of the FunFair blockchain casino nears completion. This release will allow for real FUN to be used on the Main Ethereum Network for the first time. Q2: Operator On-Boarding: Deploying the FunFair casin...
[uncensored-r/CryptoCurrency] People that don't know what FunFair (FUN) is you should really check it out, this might help you ...
The following post by Squid2g is being replicated because some comments within the post(but not the post itself) have been openly removed. The original post can be found(in censored form) at this link: np.reddit.com/ CryptoCurrency/comments/7q3xbo The original post's content was as follows:
First I'd like to say that I'm invested into it (really nothing big at all, but I need to put this here) FUN definitely is one of those tokens with huge use case in online gambling industry, it can guarantee fairness in all online casinos if they adopt FunFair, and online gamblers can finally know they are getting fair odds without rigged programs at games like blackjack, roulette, slot machines... you name it. with current online gamble sites no one can really know what odds they are getting, if odds are being rigged etc. (it's often said they let you win at first so you up your stakes and then they take it from you) and FunFair can solve this with smart contracts. now you make ask your self "hey, why don't they just use ether for all this?" and this is where the actual platform comes in, FunFair isn't just a 'standard' that other online gambling sites can adopt, it's also a platform that lets you make your own casino with very little effort (I sorta see it as WordPress for casinos) and that casino will be easy to set and of course fair. FunFair is also launching their own casino which you can already try (multiple games with blockchain and test options) it already looks fine but it's of course not launched yet, you should see it as an early beta. I see it that as first FunFair casinos will get launched everyone would likely be switching to them (or to those that adopt it, remember they can also do that) as they can guarantee fairness that others just can't. I basically see no reason for players to stay on casinos that won't use it as a standard. another absolutely huge thing about FunFair is their team which is absolutely amazing, big names from both gambling casinos (head marketing of PokerStars and bwin, former International director of William Hill and founders and programmers from multiple online gambling sites) now don't just take my word for it; go check their site, read about it, raise questions about it... as an investor I feel like this has absolutely HUGE potential and it's still so unknown for most people in crypto. Basically with so much coins being completely useless or with no real use case at all this one is one of the few that actually does something amazing and the best part is that they really don't have any competition at all (unlike currency, privacy, smart contract, decentralised exchanges, fast transactions... coins) their site: https://funfair.io
points I missed(edit): BioRito made another great point that I missed; The Casino doesn't get to hold, handle, or interact with your money in any way. The two parties make the bet and the results are handled through smart contracts: you lose, you pay up; you win, they pay up. Your funds stay in your wallet until you lose the bet. This is a huge reduction in risk for users. You don't have to trust the gambling site (trust that they'll actually credit your account; or trust that you'll be able to withdraw the money in a timely fashion, or at all; or trust that the whole place won't go tits up and close their doors with your money still in it; or trust that the owner won't use the casino's funds to pay for his vacation and his mistress' apartment before bankrupting it; and so on). Also input from OriginalUnicornBoner: Another overlooked benefit of their blockchain model is that a player never has to "deposit" funds into the casino they are playing at. Unlike traditional online gambling where the player deposits fiat and receives "Chips" of value and then cashes out, FunFair casinos will be operated with the FUN token that the user is always in control of. No depositing/cashing out needed.
[Brag story] Played and won my first live tourney ever today. (Only 11 players tho)
There's currently a low buy-in poker series being hosted in a Casino (associated with Pokerstars) near where I live so I decided to give it a shot and thus playing my first live tourney. Earlier this evening, I registered to a 18.6€+3.4€ freezeout because sadly it was the only one I could attend due to work. Levels are 20 minutes and we have a 12.000 starting stack. I expected to see a field of 30+ at the very least but we were only 11 (no guaranteed prizepool). With people busting and people late regging, we were never more than 9 at the same time so it was basically a STT. There were 3 places paid, 43€ for third, 63€ for second and 99€ for first. I played pretty tight the whole way and actually played pretty terrible poker. I didn't value enough with KK on T54 where I x/r'd 3way then check twice on the two bricks. Also, I called a turn PSB shove with TT on Q335 in a 3b pot. As the blinds became pretty nasty and there wasn't much possible play post-flop, I went on beginner's luck mode: I proceeded to suck-out everytime I was behind and held most times I was ahead. Won Q8dd vs AKhh (I had 8 BB and open shoved). Won T8o vs A9dd (SB open shove) to KO the 5th. Then later K5s vs KTo 3-handed. The only highlights: 4-handed and on the bubble, everyone is in shove or fold mode as none of us has more than 12BB. I look down and see two red kings UTG. I limp for the obvious trap. Still, BTN shoves with A8o and my kings hold to burst the bubble. As heads-up starts, we both have about 10BB.
First hand (OTB): I open shove K2o and he folds.
Second hand: he minraises and I shove with A9o, he folds.
Third and final hand:
Pre: I hold and decide to limp, he checks his option. Flop: a ridiculous , we both check. Turn: , he checks again and I bet ~1.7BB, he calls. River: , he checks. I ask for a count then jam. He calls with 7x. ~~~~~ I had a great time, chatted with most of the players and the club host. Obviously when you win, you end up with a happy face but I would have been happy without even cashing as I went there for fun and to have a first experience of live poker. TL, DR: Won the first live "tourney" I played, mainly due to running better than god.
With 90 players left in EPT San Remo in 2008, I got JJ in against Roland De Wolfe's QQ... on a T 7 3 flop. I hit a jack on the river and went on to win the tournament for 1.4 million $
I was playing for about 2 and a half years while going to school and working part time jobs, before I realized I was going to make a living solely from poker. The turning point was when I decided to go for supernova elite on Pokerstars in 2007.
Actually there's a hand against Justin Bonomo that I played on the big game in which I had AxJd and check shoved the river as a bluff. Makes me cringe a little- although, I'm not sure it was such a bad play :)
I had to stop doing that a long time ago. I spend so much of my time playing poker at the highest level that when I'm not doing so, I want to do something other than poker.
A few months into 2007 I was well on pace to achieving Supernova Elite status on Pokerstars, which meant I would make a nice chunk of money throughout the year.
At that point, it didn't impact much, I was playing online basically working a desk job. Once I started travelling a lot for poker though, my life changed dramatically.
My beliefs as a Christian haven't really affected my relationships or my approach to live games except in that I'm trying to not put in such long sessions anymore playing cash. That is more of a health thing though.
Doubting your abilities is something that almost every poker player struggles with. It's hard not to during the downswings. Overcoming this is difficult, but a lot of times you just have to play through it.
As already mentioned, some updates can cause issues that weren’t present before. If your Pokerstars won’t open on Mac right after an update, though, don’t worry. Developers are probably already aware of this and are working on a fix. In case you already had the newest version possible, but still can’t open PokerStars on Mac, try reinstalling. I worked with pokerstars and AT&T on this. Pokerstars said there were three ports that AT&T needed to open. These ports are 443, 26002 and 22. I called twice to get these ports open to improve the game play. Nothing has helped. Though uncommon, it’s not entirely unheard of for players to find themselves in a situation where they have downloaded the PokerStars.net app, but discover it will not open on their device. The problem can afflict both iOS and Android users, and the recommended course of action is the same no matter which sort of device you’re using. Problems with the Cashier at PokerStars have become quite common lately, but as a rule it all boils down to one thing: players wish to make a deposit but can’t find the ‘Cashier’ button on PokerStars.. Problems (glitch) with the Cashier at PokerStars #1.You’d been playing at PokerStars for play money chips, but all of a sudden you felt fed up and decided to make a real money deposit. About Current Outage Q: What to do if problem is at my end? If pokerstars.com is up actually and appears down only for you then follow these troubleshooting steps or you can search for an alternative.. Q: What to do if problem is at pokerstars.com server?. If pokerstars.com is actually down then you can resolve the issue by doing following:. Wait for the site going up again. I can't get in on the app or through pokerstars platform, i can however access the casino and everything else. 2021-01-28 17:20:04 @Micha088 @StarsSupport @PokerStars @PokerStarsUK Still no reply to my reported issues! I've had this on going problem with the pokerstars.com, pokerstars.uk site for a while now, I've been in contact with customer service about it, it was resolved for a short time maybe 2 or 3 hours then reverted back. Launch PokerStars app; Select in the right panel menu 'Help' and select menu 'Open' folder 'My Settings' of the list; Turn off PokerStars app as soon as settings folder opens; Delete User.ini or User files from the open folder; Restart PokerStars client. The second way (if you are unable to open PokerStars) PokerStars Casino is part of PokerStars.com, one the largest online poker brands in the industry. This online casino offers a variety of virtual and live casino games powered by well-known software providers including NetEnt, Microgaming, Quickspin, iSoftBet, Leander Games, Blueprint, 2 By 2 Gaming and several others. The games are accessible through the PokerStars website in instant This is a discussion on Pokerstars and FT won't open within the online poker forums, in the Poker Rooms section; I was playing on PS earlier then I closed the program to install the new update of
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