Also that the game would be verifiably cryptographically secure, which is fun, reassuring, and has potential implications. I really don't understand how we keep asking what the benefits are, for solutions that are "other than" a more profitable environment. Nevertheless you perfectly outline the benefits of what equates to a shrinking governance role by 3rd party's. So what we will watch is over time the players will have more and more control over their game, because of technology (think about creating and playing the variants YOU want!).

Start to think about an environment where different models offer different solutions in this regard. Without the traditional barriers to entry and without the same payment processing regulation/restrictions. This is what a mental poker implementation on ethereum provides: a new infrastructure with a completely different paradigm.

Yes you highlight this perfectly as well. It's exactly what I mean to say..."How did Satoshi solve collusion of exchanges?" He didn't, he implemented his solution in such a way that natural greed created an equilibrium that is effectively trustworthy. It's a conjecture, there can be no other proof for it but the actual experiment, but we are watching the truth of it in real time. It means that the price of bitcoin is effectively secure you see...and we apply the same solution to collusion in the implementation of mental poker (innovation through competition).

It might seem tangential, but from the players perspective, it is simply put by saying, you will profit more.

Ok, then explain how it works.

I'm not 'concerned' with that, I'm asking if that is how it works.

It must go from my wallet to somewhere else. The escrow. I'm asking where that escrow is. It's not a 3rd party and it's not me or the people I'm gambling with. So where is it? The miners are being told to keep those coins in limbo and not owned by anybody?

very interesting stuff itt and i've to admit, that i will have to read more, to get a deeper understanding.

nevertheless i don't see any chance, that this will be a big thing in the near future. or to phrase it into a question: how long will it take, so that ppl can just play.

imo 5 years

But its closest living relative is among us. It is low-rake, anonymous Bitcoin poker.

Some of the same advantages.

okay, but bitcoin poker hasn't taken off, and tbh ... how can we get recs into the game w/o a big 3rd party company ... again, this whole idea is very interesting, but i can't see any masses grinding 'crypto poker (obv my 'prediction' is lol-nostradamus) ... anyway, hope this thread is alive for some time and thx for the quick reply

You have to spend some time with this because the concept is likely quite new and foreign, but its simple in metaphor.

Anyways, you don't really move coins. There is a ledger that keeps track of what private keys own what coins, and when you "move" coins the ledger just updates who the new owners are (and aren't). "Moving coins" is a metaphor, they don't actually move.

What you are asking about here is simply an extension of "programmable money". You tell the miners, by effectively programming your money, that you want to create an (otherwise) irreversible escrow based on specific conditions. Once you broadcast this special transaction, and the miners have picked it up, the security of the ESCROW is (conjecturely) irreversible.

So to be clear, there is no 3rd party, the escrowed monies are simply unspendable on the network until the conditions set are met. This is what is special about bitcoin. Sending money through transactions is one thing, but being able to program those transactions opens the door for entire contracts.

These contracts are the most secure and trustworthy contracts we have in the world, and reside on the most reliable and robust system we have available to man kind. They also serve as a paradigm for a new programming language (which ethereum implemented called solidity).

This system was designed and described 20 years ago, broken down into modular parts, and is simply now being pinned together through a decentralized workforce. I hope I explained that well enough, I am not always the best at explained, but forgive me because its a very difficult topic and a paradigm that is very new to us. That said I don't mind re-explaining in different ways.

So your coins don't move and the network is the escrow (and its more secure than any other escrow in the world!)

It's inevitable, but what is inevitable might not be what you are thinking. But there is an obvious reality that is perfectly relate-able to bitcoin's movement and growth. The existing legacy systems that arose are, because of natural order (dawkins + hayek) necessarily secure and worthy simply because of their continued existence over time. You can't really beat this kinda of security that really equates to being "tried-tested-and-true".

So people that are familiar with Szabo's works especially understand very well that bitcoin cannot end bank's in an instant, and Satoshi seemed to clearly know this wasn't to happen either. I think I read Szabo say 30 years. And no one seems to deny-he is the authority.

Bitcoin we understand, if we are being reasonable, must be extended to the peoples. We will call it Steve Job yelling principle perhaps. We have somewhat seen this happen with bitcoin, but its a long way from the settlement system it is intended to be, to the coffee money the user wishes it to be.

There is interesting content here I believe.

The top dev's in this industry are trying to fashion bitcoin in such a way that it can be seemlessly integrated into our banking system as the backbone of it. Corporations and business ventures are trying to build the user end products and services that connect bitcoin to the people. It's a war. There is greed and money to be made. Most importantly EVERYONE can participate. It gives a new meaning to conflict, because this freer market is benefiting everyone.

And is changing at a pace us average citizens cannot keep up with intellectually. That is the point. It will bring solutions that we use but don't understand. This is what technology is. We have a perverted view that Capatalism and Technology are negative phenomena we must protect ourselves from. Satoshi changed that.

Enter: Ethereum
You have to continue to try and understand the paradigm which I am working on daily to understand myself. You are alluding to a new poker site or skin, that has some advantages, but doesn't claim other advantages that existing sites have.

Ethereum is a bitcoin network that anyone can use and seamlessly tie applications (called decentralized applications = dapps) to the security and robust virtual machine through smart contracts. Smart contracts make ethereum turing complete which means it can do anything our computers can by definition.

This was all a theory proposed by Nick Szabo 20 years ago, today we are simply unable to deny the truth of anything he has written.

So now there will be a massive rush in the computer science and programming industry because every single system we have, from government, to corporations, to our stock market, to our legal infrastructure, or poker...now simply needs to be translated into the language of solidity and will reside on a decentralized virtual computer/database system.

New inventions will be controls via electromagnetic and timing mechanisms etc. so their security and ownership will be controlled on the block-chain. Imagine incredible complex, self actuated, geo relational rules. The property, or thing, knows where it is, in space and time (because of wifi etc. not woo woo), and governs itself accordingly. (These secure property titles are called proplets).

So what is happening now is that there is a race between like minded, creative, intelligent peoples to develop an infrastructure for the gambling industry that resides on ethereum. But at the same time, legacy sites, if they are serious about the future, are scrambling to extend there business model to somehow connect with this technology. However its a very difficult paradigm to grasp. Even Josem is having troubles.

Cliffs: To answer your sentiments the user experience will not change (other than profitability and security will go up dramatically as well as "fun"), but all competing models will eventually reside on distributed networks, and most likely ethereum (or bitcoin). So there is not a single new site model that must disrupt the industry. The infrastructure has evolved and all sites will adopt it.

Yes for example SWC is a very good example of how and why a site must evolve to be secure in many fashions. You CANNOT just build a good idea and expect the boat to float first try. This equates to time. 5 years is far too long, bitcoin is only ~7 years old and its already disrupted every country's legal and banking system in the world.

We have to understand that when you solve complex problems you modulate the solutions, and you modulate layers of solutions. This allows us to address problems that are otherwise unsolvable. Ethereum is the implementation of a second layer. Mental poker is a subsequent layer. This stuff is moving way faster than we are discussing it.

Most importantly I've been traversing the code of one such implementation of an INFRASTRUCTURE. A tangible, working, proto-type! I think we are about to see an explosion on this front. We were simply waiting for ethereum to get to a certain point where the average to experienced programmer could sink their teeth in and relate to the dev tools and language.

Bah sorry I wrote an essay

no worries, like i said, highly interesting and complex topics need complex explanations ... cheers!

i agree that it's a new infrastructure with a completely different paradigm. my argument is not that it will never happen. it will, just not for a while. and the reason for that is that current decentralized online poker proposals do not offer anything truly groundbreaking over current centralized alternatives that would make people want to flock to them.

it's like buying coffee with bitcoin. bitcoin offers a new infrastructure with a completely different paradigm but there are better alternatives exist already when it comes to buying coffee. i see blockchain poker the same way-- it's the better solution, but it doesn't offer enough marginal utility to choose it over the next best thing right now.

i'm not sure why you're attributing market forces to satoshi's implementation of anything. in what way is having more exchanges (with no collusion information on) "an equilibrium that is effectively trustworthy"? it seems that you're saying that we should let the free market solve everything and that's not a very convincing proposal.

This will help you understand bitcoin better for me to say: Block-chain based poker is not for the user to know, understand, and see etc. It is for the sites and the industry to move to. There is no flocking of the players to be done in this regard. This is also ultimately how bitcoin will work in the long-term. But if you think bitcoin's purpose is to be a coffee money (short-term this was true), then you will not understand or agree to this.
Yes we rather should expect bitcoin to become the backbone of our global financial system (as well as the great securer of property rights). Nonetheless bitcoin is being well adopted because it's greatest attribute is a hedge against inflation expectation. The quality of fiat is what drives these markets, so there is a force there that is not deniable.

Can you intuit the force that drives the poker markets?



Its exactly what I am saying, and its not my proposal, it's Satoshi's, and Szabo's. It's Hayek's, Adam Smith's, and Nash's. And its undeniable.

It's true there is time involved, but like when ethereum came to the market, now with at least the implementation I am looking at (will take days for me to understand the validity of) the dialogue once again, has changed.

I think when Dash (cryptocurrency) implements their oracle via the Masternodes in the next major update (Evolution's full release), this will be easier. The point of the oracle is not smart contracts, but it enables them on Dash for the first time (other than contracting with the DAO itself). And since Dash already has instant transactions via InstantX (IX), migrating all the major poker projects to Dash would make sense. Also, Dash already has the DAPI (decentralized API). Also, because of the multi-tiered aspect of the network, they can possibly implement insurance to be purchased and track player reputation (new accounts would be charged the most for insurance to disincentivize constantly starting new accounts, and the age of the account has something to do with rep scores to avoid fraudulent interactions with conspirators to pump rep ratings). Although the player can remain anonymous at the table, the system can still assign rep ratings without outing their identity, and it still separately mask the transactions as well. All this helps alleviate issues with security. One could pay an individual escrow insurance fee, or it could be related to the tables themselves in the form of rake rates, etc.

PS. I forgot to mention Dash is working on their own debit card, and an exchange (which could fully insure deposits via the blockchain and the DAO directly). The debit card would pay 7% interest (the Masternodes make 11-15% dividend, so this is sustainable). And they already joined Bitcoin on Lamassu ATMs. Lastly, the Evolution update is doing to get rid of the the confusing crypto addresses and allow for regular names and whatnot, with underlying crypto addresses no one has to see if they don't want. The name is attached to new addresses being generated in the background as usual. All this makes ease of use for poker players much better.

This blog I think properly encapsulates the idea of how the INDUSTRY might be re-arranged and not just rather a site policy or proposal itself:

https://medium.com/@skolsuper/pokers...c9c#.h3kqlwalk

I didn't read this well the first time I think, after finding this again I realized that I am quite inline with the sentiments.

Good summary.

(One minor misstatement/typo ?, see bolded word above?, Doesn't the ledger track ownership movement between public addresses, rather than private keys. The private key functions to unlock the ledger entries regarding a given address and can transfer ownership out of one or more such entries concurrently. )

Who holds the private key or its equivalent programmed authority to unlock an escrow and send out the contents ? That two parties can designate a particular entity in their contract is clear,and why they might do so is demonstrated by this line of "escrow" discussion. IF two parties are more comfortable allowing say, Dnegs, Rich Muny, David Baazov, or even Chainsaw to grade/unlock their escrow for a small fee, they do not need to trust/understand the capacity to decentralize that last function. Put it this way, a significant portion of the potential, needed liquidity might trust known brands rather than a largely decentralized community of miners.

I get the decentralized enthusiasts' desire to adapt new technology as much as possible to games/markets like poker, but solving only 97% of all centralized "problems" instead of 100% might optimize adoption without blowing a significant portion of the necessary liquidity base for poker.

carry on.

(As I understand!) yes public addresses are used to prove ownership of private keys and sign/validate transactions to included by the network. The public addresses correspond to the private key's associated with ownership. Ledger “knows” what key's are associated which each private key through this system. Nobody, nor the ledger, knows the private key holders...the public key transactions are view-able for irl public, but in a way that you cannot connect the public keys to the corresponding private key. And so it is pseudonymous, rather than anonymous. I have some really good well put together links/vids on this.

I am not the best person to explain this, as Gzesh correctly highlights, yet I think this is a good example of something that would be best served in a FAQs section. I think it would not only be interesting for more and more players as time goes by, but it would also raise the security awareness of the community which can only be seen as a major plus for all imo.

You say something strange, and I think it actually outlines the power of ethereum. But I am not completely confident I understand you, so forgive me if I am not perfectly clear.

The escrow you describe I think perfectly highlights the fundamental philosophical question the player faces in regard to the cost of exchanging money for chips. Traditionally the solution has been to contract out much of the security of the game to a third party. You show this with your example, there is cost involved, trust involved, and then a service provided. Today the players pay sites for this service.

In terms of bitcoin, we have this same proposal, that the user of money no longer needs to pay the banks a “fee” for the security of our money. Traditionally we have contracted out what is basically “security” for our money systems out to central banks and authorities. I think Gzesh would be correct to point out that given the cost benefit of bitcoin to fiat, there are a lot of people that might still rationally choose fiat for their everyday (or anyday) transactions.

But there is something else I want to highlight about this, that is explained very well, and very academically by Nick Szabo (who is also a lawyer!) “Trusted Third Parties Are Security Holes”: http://***********.********/ttps.html (bah google the title!)

(Admittedly, there is a hint of what Gzesh alludes to though!)

This is a significant point to make in order to understand the current conditions and poker in general going forward (and our comparable understanding of central banking). If Szabo (the leading philosophical writer/thinker in computer science, economics, and law) is correct than we can understand there is a significant issue with our traditional methods.

We are paying security holes to secure our system, therefore costs are relatively astronomical!

What bitcoin does is arrange the problem in a different way, so that the need and want for a 3rd party solution to “trust” doesn't need to exist. It doesn't really solve the problem our traditional system poses, but rather re-writes the problem in a solvable form.

This is the traditional method but as you can see its failing and I have put together what I believe to be a very thorough argument that suggests that this is not a coincidence but in fact an inherit flaw in the traditional poker site model which is in fact inherited from our banking system.

Traditional poker sites function with the same centralized nature as our banking system; Future poker sites will function with the same decentralization nature of our new banking system.

This happened because of natural evolution (ie there is SOME predictable nature to it).

I think the point here is that we CAN do this now. And so the user gets ACTUAL choice on who they want to trust. But the big deal about ethereum is that it doesn't need to be a human anymore, or rather we will be able to connect ALL our systems to a block-chain virtual machine so that these systems function with a PERFECTLY trustworthy fashion (we can imagine all sorts of escrow verifying parties or services...perhaps “Gzesh-coin Poker arbitration and escrow service”).

So now you get a system where you are paying what will amount to the user as a small or negligible fee, for a service that actually provides what it is contracted to provided.

I'm not sure if you or others would provide that PS, for example, IS providing the game security and integrity it is contracted to, or that it is satisfying the wants of its customers, but I think I would have a pretty strong case that rake is wasted in this regard today, especially relative to an ACTUAL security solution.

One key point is the service itself (ethereum) in this instance is NOT a trusted 3rd party

But again, don't think of ethereum as a contract between me and you as players. For the future of the game, we might still play on a small handful of sites that we contract SOME of our security concerns too, but these sites can be set up together to have a type of inter-liquidity in regard to their functions (ie checks and balances!).

I just think we have to be careful, when it comes to security and integrity issues, to espouse a view that trusting entities (known brands) is a reasonable solution. It's only a traditional solution and the one Dnegs will bring to his grave. It's not optimal on either the cost side or the security side, this model sort of trends the cost vs security inversely proportional to each other and towards infinite.

This is going to be a very important point to make I think, that I wholeheartedly agree with you here (with the points I made above considered), but I also think here your refer to decentralized as more of a negative not useful definition (which is fair because many have the view bitcoin has decentralized our banking system which it clearly has not!).

Decentralization should mean, to split up the power, or to solve a problem, in such a way that it is conjecturally secure from manipulation. This could mean a p2p solution, OR it could mean service offered by such a competition of providers that it is self optimizing simpy from each provider trying to beat the others. It could mean taking out anything 3rd party security providers, or it might mean changing what these providers are used for or changing the traditional role they play. Decentralization takes many forms and I believe it will take a lot of dialogue from many contributors (many who are in this thread) to discover and highlight the different forms of decentralized security solutions that could be found.

Here's the dialogue I promised earlier: https://medium.com/@rextar4444/how-t...259#.t7pv2xovc

This gives a walk through on how to encrypt/shuffle/pass cards etc. and includes links to calculators so that you can follow along with the math. I post a link because the content is quite long.

Was super fun and interesting for me to finally be able to put the protocols to use and understand how they work in action. In conjuncture with that the blockchain helps so that msg's can't be reneged on and the escrow can't be revoked.

But all of the calculations can still be done independently and off the chain. The implementation of the protocol, mental poker, is what smart contracts provide.

Ethereum's block time is over 15s now, but ultimately when they switch from PoW to PoS the blocktime will be more like 2s.

Look, I think Ethereum has potential, and bought into a very small amount at the presale. However, I think among all games and betting, poker may be the toughest row to hoe if relying on the blockchain as a game engine.

For example, the poker market is actually very demanding of software in terms of game speed, which is more than just the time to implement actions once taken. 2 seconds will seem a lifetime....when applied to every action in a hand by every player.

I'll eventually catch up with the literature posted in the thread. However, keep at it.

like everything around ethereum, can you play on etherPoker or poker-eum (without the dash cuz 2p2 censors it)? No. it's STILL just hype. i could see the launch of either of these rooms taking longer than Infiniti Poker.

This is a misconception I will try to clear up, but you'll have to be patient with the explanation...

bitcoin's community is wrought with new adopters right now that are fear-mongering about the transaction limit being approached. You know this, but just for context I'll mention, bitcoin can only handle something like 7 or 20 transactions per second, which in the grand scheme of things, and the perspective of these ignorant users, renders it effectively use-less as a money.

But the upper echelon understood this very well from inception.

There is a pretend debate out there about what the future of bitcoin should or might be, and what it was supposedly intended to be. The reality is, bitcoin's parameter's (ie block size) will never be scaled to support daily purchases. It is destined to be a slow and costly machine.

However this isn't a fatal flaw, its a clue about it's true intended use.

There are off chain solutions, that is solutions that still mitigate the security of transactions, but don't come with the same clunky-ness and cost of using the block-chain for each transaction. You will hear people say off chain transactions are a myth, or they can't fulfill our transaction needs, or they are costly or insecure. These people are the same people mentioned above. They are new and ignorant users.

So as the debate continues there is not the full focus on these new off chain solutions that there will be when enough people realize the false dilemma the debate creates.

One such off-chain solution is lightening channels. LC's are easy enough to understand. I set up an open transaction channel with you through the block-chain (I make it auto refund back to me after a time period in case something happens to our agreement). I sign transactions with incremental payments to you and send them to you off the chain. You can always choose to cash in your payment (finish the block-chain transaction) using the highest payment I made to you, or you can continue to receive updated payments from me.

The payments cannot be reneged on, however the parties CAN eventually settle OFF-CHAIN. So what happens is the block-chain acts as a credible threat and theoretically never gets used (a conjecture for irl).

Technical talk here but these guys are good at explaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zVzw912wPo

Now bitcoin isn't necessarily capable of this atm, I mean that some will argue LC's aren't a viable solution to the debate. Nonetheless ethereum has an equivalent called state channels (http://www.jeffcoleman.ca/state-channels/).

Ethereum has plans to evolve (so bitcoin doesn't have to!).

When you play a poker hand on ethereum you aren't sending moves to the block-chain, waiting for the other player to find the move on the block-chain and then put their decision to the block-chain.

You open a contract on the block-chain, which is a hand perhaps, and then you send signed msg's back and forth with the players. These msg's are VERIFIABLE on the block-chain, but there is no need to verify the decisions when everyone is playing fair (this is going to trip people up I know it!).

Remember there is an escrowed deposit for anyone that is caught cheating so there is a conjecture that there will be very little to no cheating.

So the truth of the matter is. All decentralized poker, or hands, or decisions, or hand history, will essentially be played OFF the chain, with only basically using the chain as a credible threat (and perhaps start stop games settle cash outs etc.)

So when we are looking at the block times for a poker "game" engine, really we are saying that a 15 second block size is your CASH-OUT and DEPOSIT time. Which is absolutely amazing. Remember we aren't talking about when your bank account is updated, we are talking about 15s for the money to ACTUALLY be in YOUR possession!

This is along way of saying there is no longer a "poker engine" required.

Cliffs: P2p poker doesn't require faster block-chains.


Posts/Posters like this is why I am asking this forum for a larger section for discussion and for more specialized moderation (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=8448). This discussion doesn't belong in NVG, and it doesn't belong in Business Finance, and it Doesn't belong in Programming.

The nature of it is such that it deserves its own section to grow, and it will bring great value to this community instantaneously I'm sure of it!

Yeah maybe to early for a Poker Dapp with Ethereum.
But there is other crypto-currency in dev.
I think maybe the project Vcahs can be a potentiel solution. Not by the project but by the technology behind. It's maybe the most advanced technology project. Currently transactions in Vcash are confirmed in 0.24s. This technology can be the solution of Dapp needs instant transaction / action.

Thanks. It took me a while to get back to the thread.

I've thought of the blockchain as if it were the game engine, (due to my review some years back of how SatoshiDICE was desgined to use he blockchain just that way to present the notion of a provably fair outcome.)

Lack of speed absolutely kills a poker game online. (I spent years dealing with market requirements or poker software). I understand what you mean by putting game decisions off-the-chain, in the context of poker; what you describe as remaining decentralized maybe only (1) deposits/cashout processing, and (2) that part of the game engine that grades the result of a hand and pushes the pot to the winner. I'll give it some thought.

In the interim, I've looked at a promising launch of a "gaming blockchain" using multi-currencies, tradable concurrently ..... one of the multi-currency coins resembles in the aggregate a deck of cards. If this gets adequately funded, I'll be looking at it seriously because it lookslike can be tweaked by creating new currencies for trading on the same chain.

My concern over game speed of play is the same because it is critical, whether in-game decisions are processed on the chain or off-chain.

For what it is worth I agree that "Blockchain Gaming" could be a great sub-forum for discussions like this. The topic is broad, goes beyond poker,and touches on game design, adapting emerging technology to the extent possible to provide good games, and dealing with as-yet-unseen regulatory issues. A niche discussion forum within the context of 2+2 .might minimize spamming present in some more general "crypto" forums. As for sponsorship/justification for such a niche forum, I suspect bitcoin industry marketing money might find it worth some ads.

Well the currency is doing well. I wish I had bought when I first read this thread but I bought a week or two ago and it's already gone up 50% lol

this is what convinced me to buy:

https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog...c75#.qpk3ud61z

Etherpoker article and referenced site:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/etherpoker-...hereum-1551331

Anyone willing to try it out and report on their experience ?

"The interesting thing about EtherPoker's peer-to-peer platform is that the cards and money are never touched by a centralised website. This means no third party can peek at their cards or mishandle their money. The cards are encrypted and shuffled by the players' own computers during the game. When players buy in, that money gets put in an Ethereum smart contract for the duration of the game and then is distributed to the winners after a tournament ends, or when a player leaves a cash game. The result is cryptographically secure P2P poker which makes it more trusted for people to play high stakes."

Interesting article..., a good easy-read summary of what I happen to think is Ethereum's potential.

FWIW, the article took what I thought to be an interesting view of the relative core development resources at work on projects for each of the BTC and ETH blockchains.

I would be pretty happy if the following possibility from the Coinbase co-Founder's blog article took place:

"What is very real, though, is the possibility that Ethereum blows past Bitcoin entirely. There is nothing that Bitcoin can do which Ethereum can’t. While Ethereum is less battle tested, it is moving faster, has better leadership, and has more developer mindshare. First mover advantage is challenging to overcome, but at current pace, it’s conceivable."

Hello friends. I made this account for Patrick as he was having issues getting an account going for himself. I suggested he might address the players questions on the subject of this thread since he has been working on a mental poker implementation for quite some time and feels he has something valuable for the industry to share. He is quite knowledgeable on the subject and a very sincere player. Historically he has felt a little nervous presenting himself to the community because he knows this subject has been taboo. Nonetheless I feel players will receive him very well as language is clearly one of his talents and so he is able to explain things in a way that the players also can understand.

Please treat him well and with respect, I believe he has done something amazing for this game, and I expect he can bring great value to us all.

Cheers.