So, I was thinking of an app idea to deal the cards without having cards and using smart phones and tablets instead. I figured there was probably already and app for that and it looks like there is and it's called Bold Poker. I haven't had a chance to try it yet and I did a search for posts in this forum that had the title "bold" and didn't find anything, so I started this thread.

Has anyone used it or something similar? Did it help your game? Shuffling cards, dealing, and handling dealing errors doesn't help the game and something like this, in theory, could speed things up a LOT so we get more hands per hour AND cut down on errors and just have a generally better time.

The drawbacks seem to be that everyone has to have a smart phone, but most of my players probably do and I could probably get some extra tablets brought to the game for the few who don't. Some players probably prefer to have real cards to hold, but they can hold their phone or tablet. As long as it works for both Android and Apple devices, it seems like it would be a big hit.

I just realized another potential drawback is folding. When a player folds his or her hand, they aren't going to want to leave the cellphone or tablet in the muck and it'll be tougher to tell who is in the hand. I guess as a workaround, I could give everyone their own cut card and you just muck it when you're out and keep it when you're in.

Also, I haven't used the app yet, but it might be problematic if a player gets a phone call or wants to multitask and surf Facebook.

I don't think it'd be a "big hit" at all in home poker games. Handling the cards, dealing, etc, are all part of the game.

I think that's true to a degree, but more so with the chips than the cards and we'd be keeping the chips. I know a lot of my players hate to deal. We also have some players who like to play with two decks (shuffle one while playing with the other) so the game goes faster and then some players who only want to play with one deck because two are too confusing. Plus, there's always a bunch of misdeals and errors to contend with. All that might be eliminated.

But, ya, I can definitely see some resistance by some at first. The question would be if it would work well enough to overcome the initial hurdle. At least a few of the reviews I read were something along the lines of "we were skeptical but now we couldn't go back".

Too many chances for cheating or to give the appearance of cheating to ever consider something like this at a home game. Plus actually handling everything is a huge part of playing live.

There is an older thread, if I remember correctly, about this exact thing (it just didn't specifically refer to Bold Poker, which is why you didn't find it). As I believe I said in that thread, I would absolutely hate this. If a game I attend were to start doing this, I would find another game posthaste.

This type of thing has been tried, by the way, on Carnival cruise ships and in a handful of cardrooms. I think that PokerPro is the leading brand. It doesn't involve "smart" phones or tablets, but it's basically the same thing—everyone playing with digital "cards." And it's crap. Maybe it attracts the occasional tourist who is intimidated by real poker but can deal with video poker, but it more than negates that with all of the actual poker players it drives away.

Online poker? Sure, if I can't get together with a group of players in person, it's an acceptable substitute. But I'll be damned if I'm going to get together with people at someone's house to play poker and then play basically online poker with them.

If your players suck so badly at dealing that you're thinking about doing away with cards altogether, your players need more practice dealing so they can get better at it. And regarding misdeals, just wait until you hit a problem in the app, phones start dying or glitching out, or any other hiccup. You'll wish you had a deck of cards you could just shuffle back up and redeal.

Meh. People unfamiliar with technology may buy in to the "appearance" of cheating but it's encrypted and designed by someone else. Plus casinos and cruise ships have electronic tables, too.

Actual cheating is obviously really bad, but all it takes is the mere impression of the possibility of cheating to ruin a poker game or even friendships. And anyway, no technology is foolproof. People have been cheating as long as people have been gambling, whether with cards or machines. It's a cat-and-mouse game. Mark my words, someone will figure out a way to cheat with Bold Poker—maybe at your game, maybe somewhere else.

See my other post about cruise ships and casinos that use "e-tables."

terrible... just terrible idea.

You pretty much said what I was going to respond with here. People can cheat no matter what. If I wanted to cheat my friends with real cards or if they wanted to cheat me, nothing is stopping us. If you have friends who would do that at your poker game, then you've got bigger problems than what kind of cards you're using. As for as cheating is involved, it's a wash either method.

So, assuming no cheating, I'd have to test it to see if it would be better than real cards. For ME, I think I'd like it a lot better. Maybe some others wouldn't like it as much. I think running two decks is a no brainer, but some of my players don't like it.

I thought of another potential drawback - peeking at the cards. I'm pretty paranoid about people seeing my cards. They suggest putting a mirror underneath your phone, but you still have to tap the phone to get the cards to show, so I'll have to figure that one out, too.

It sounds like you're going to do this no matter what. Just don't forget that you were looking at a 100% rate of negative responses in this thread, some of them very negative. If your players dislike it anywhere near that much, and you employ it anyway, don't be surprised when people leave early and don't come back.

Ya, I realize they may not, but that doesn't mean it's not worth a shot. Sometimes we don't like things until we try them like Green Eggs and Ham. And if we don't like it, the real cards are still available.

I ordered grasshopper tacos at a restaurant one time for the hell of it. They tasted like charred ****, but I still choked down both of them so as not to waste food.

Green eggs and ham is just normal eggs and ham with food coloring. Pfft.

I'm not sure I understand the violent opposition to electronic cards. I play online almost every day. It's awesome. I played live on an electronic table and didn't really have any problems with it either. I like live cards, too. I just get tired of all the shuffling and waiting.

Imagine this: You get some money together, call around to some friends, and arrange a trip to your local strip club. When you get there, the whole place is just TVs with live (or are they time-delayed? hard to tell) video feeds of the strippers from backstage.

Maybe some folks would find this okay. I know that I, for one, would not. I could've just stayed home and watched porn.

That's the difference for me, as best I can analogize. I play online poker too, though not as much as I used to (several hours a day, easily). But when I put on pants and get together with human beings for a poker game, I want the real thing.

Ya, I'm just not seeing it. Your cards are your cards. It doesn't matter to me if it's from a deck or on a screen or even telepathically whispered in my ear if that were possible. I look at my cards once JUST to know what they are and I don't touch them again for the rest of the hand until I have to fold them.

Like I said, CHIPS I understand because they are like money and I DO play with chips and it IS fun to rake in a big pot of chips and stack them. But the cards are reset everytime. I don't really have a connection with them.

Now I'm VERY interested to see what others in my game think to see if they are equally irrational or not

I'm actually the inverse of you. I want the cards there for sure, obviously. However, while I very much prefer to play with chips, I could do without them. Playing with piles of cash (or even change for baby stakes) is okay with me.

a multiplayer cel phone ap running on a network is going to be MORE trouble than a deck of cards, not less.

This ain't the 90's. Wifi is a pretty stable technology. We're not splitting atoms here. Just randomly distributing 52 cards

Well if you want to try it and enough of your poker buds will give it a look, I say why not? I have no personal interest in changing my game (live, cards and chips) but that's MY game and your suggestions are for YOUR game. Sounds like an experiment to me. It may fall flat with your group or it might really roll. IDK, but I would not mind a follow up post with an honest review by you of how it went. Good luck!

A bunch of people sitting around a table, looking at their phones. Isn't that a Starbucks?

I found out the app is designed so that if you have it facing down that the cards will expose themselves automatically - no need to swipe or tap the cards like I do when they are facing up. So, if I had a mirror underneath the phone and the phone facing down, I could peak at them VERY similar to how I peek at real cards. That should eliminate this as a drawback for the most part

At the very least, I'd like to play an hour or two with real cards and then an hour or two with this app and see the difference in hands per hour.

I can only imagine how easy all this would be with Google Glass?

I don't think this is a technological problem so much as a social problem.

Does your group perceive you as a computer geek? My biggest concern about this type of system is that if you are a big winner at your house using your WiFi and the app that you introduced to the group, somebody is going to start to suspect you of funny business. It may not be logical or realistic, but that doesn't matter. Suspicion of cheating can kill a game even when it is completely unfounded.

A deck of cards is simple. Everybody understands how physical cards work, and everyone is comfortable with them. (Ironically, this is one reason why a good mechanic can cheat and get away with it.) But most people who use technology don't really understand it. Some of these people are losing poker players, and we all know that losing players will look for other things to blame their losses on. Look at the people who think online RNGs are rigged, for example.

Personally, I think good playing cards are a tactile and visual pleasure. I stare at a screen all day every day, and I find the poker table to be a welcome break from that. But that's my opinion, and I don't expect you or anyone else to share it.

Electronic cards may work for your group, but it's wise to be aware of reasons they may not. Give the app a try and let us know what happens.

I trust that OP will give us a full report.

Hey, maybe this is the wave of the future. There were those who railed against the death of the slide rule. I'm sure there were people who said they would never do business with any outfit that did not do their accounting using abacuses.