This is the Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes GIF of buying Bitcoin. You used a foreign (bad idea) debit (bad idea) card to fund the world's worst exchange (Coinbase) which wouldn't get any business at all except that it has a large chunk of the US market captive. I really don't understand why.

Not without the ~$15 mining fee these days. It's frustrating and there are a lot of stakeholders looking for ways around it, but BTC isn't the easy way to move a few hundred dollars around it was a year ago. I still like it for midstakes+ amounts of money but it becomes problematic downstream when the deposit-and-blow-$200 guys no longer think it's worth it.

I do think the market will shake out and six months from now you'll see more providers with their own coins or using something easier like zCash or Dash. Whether SwC is one of them, who knows, they don't seem very interested in their product.

I had never heard of zcash. I just looked in to it to see what it was. I think I will steer clear of cryptocurrencies. The whole cryptocurrency thing sounds like a crash waiting to happen. What about sending old fashioned fiat currencies backed by governments and tanks? Do you have any insight on the cheapest safest way to do that?

BTC and other cryptos should generally still have cheaper fees than credit cards, bank wires, or other methods of getting fiat on or off a site. SwC only takes BTC - no fiat or other cryptos. ACR takes other cryptos I believe. As far as the fees go, SwC covers the fees on withdrawals of 20 chips (approx. $220) or more. To withdraw less than 20 chips they charge about $1 in fees.

I think the odd and frustrating thing is their lack of social media/forum presence. For instance, last month they lowered rake to make their rake the lowest of any site that serves US players - but didn't bother to announce this on their twitter or on 2p2. It's like what a reg who has found a soft site and doesn't want anyone else to know about it would do lol. But they're a who should want as many players as possible. You'd think they'd tell everyone they could that rake was lowered, but they mysteriously have neglected to do so.

There's been some nosebleed draw, badugi, and limit holdem action since the rake decrease (approx. $400/800) and there is always micro action and OFC running. But the mid-stakes mix games only run a few nights a week. Shorthanded NL runs occasionally at most stakes. 5 cd PLO and Big O seem to be the most consistent game at the low and mid stakes.

Agree, the rake was a huge deal. I don't know why they aren't promoting it more. I am super glad they lowered it and will be looking to player higher volume there. Someone start some games with taata at the 5 card plo!

lol. haven't bought bitcoin in a while cause I only use it to play poker and I can profit on seals to make free 20 chip w/ds. Then bitcoin went from 20k to like 11k in a month so I decided to buy 500 bucks.

https://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/...thout-fees.php

His step one is go to coinbase so I went to coinbase. I did not want to wait 4 business days etc so I just ponied up the fees. If you are so fluent with bitcoin I would like to know what to use next time to avoid the fees.

I'm not a bitcoin speculator/trader. I just use it to play poker for a cheap rake.

One problem with bitcoin fluency is that people who want to play on seals are even less fluent than me so we need a solution so there are not a million side show bobs who just want to play poker.

Yeah the rake is a huge deal for me. I used to play on bovada and had a 13k month. But I paid almost 10k in rake bringing my net to 3kish.

Then I decided I would rather not play at all. But seals is way fair with rake and rakeback. Maybe better than pre BF days.

taata gets a lot of action. Sometimes 6 handed. The site is really missing a true nosebleed plo player tho imo.

After looking over this place in the FAQ, the rake is low but only on a percentage basis. The max is high as hell. A max of .07 is $776. How is that low? Surely there are better places to play. I was curious at first just because I know American options are limited, but this doesn't seem that great to me.

You didn't look close enough. 1,000 chips = 1 BTC so .07 chips = $0.77

I agree that $776/hand may be on the high side if that were the case.

This 100%. They need to make a little bit of effort with trying to get more players. I am a huge fan of the low rake and game choices but there is never games running. Now is the best time to make some noise given the crypto craze that's going on.

If you're not in the US Neteller and Skrill work fine.

If you're in the US play on Global where you can use Paypal.

What country are you in?

what are withdraws like at this site?

Oh I see now. Yeah I was just breezing thru it and must have missed the chip value.

America. But my point is bitcoin should be so simple that it doesn't matter if in antartica or north korea or middle of bermuda triangle. If using a cc/debit card is bad should i deposit by carrier pigeon? Wait, I'll go on localbitcoins and meet a stranger in person with 500 bucks. What could go wrong?

I looked at past posts of yours and you always recommend an intermediary wallet when depositing to seals. Well that's a mistake. You are paying double mining fees and they will still know exactly where the bitcoin ended up. It's public record. You're not tricking anyone, especially not the exchange. And if you get caught they will not take your coin, only close your account at which point you can use one of the superior thousands of other exchanges.

The only way to truly cloak a bitcoin transaction is to use a tumbler but now we are definitely in tor network/dark web territory. And if you think paying two mining fees is expensive wait till you see the cost of a tumbler.

You have to withdraw 20 chips or more (approx. $225) to get a free withdrawal. For any payout less than 20 chips, you pay a fee of approx. $5-$10 I think

Withdrawals are processed within 24hrs, but usually take less than 12 hrs

SCAM! EXITSCAM!
Dont play on this site they will make exitscam like last time,
Im played on this site before and when they moving to new software they forgot to tranfer my btc,
How strange they make new account on new software but they didnt send btc to,i dont know where they send btc from old account. Im sure they will make great exitscam again.

So players dont be naive and just cashout btc and leave this scamers to play arround with my btcs.

There was some drama last night that I wish to address since swcpoker is such a small and tight community:

There's this guy that complains anytime an underdog wins a hand. If the favorite wins the hand, then he expresses his utter surprise. Last night he went off talking **** in the chatbox about what a huge luckbox donk I am after I won a hand with an underdog. I just let him go on and on, but then this happened:

I'm in the big blind with some trash hand and the **** talker was in the small blind. We all get our cards and he says, "someone bet im not betting him." which is just blatant cheating. Sure enough, someone raised and everyone folded. So I went off a bit in the lobby chatbox and sent an email to support.

Will report back with any news.

The word on the street is that this Sunday there's gonna be a rather large side pool for the medium btc. Check the chatbox for details.

what is a side pool?

If player A bets that he can do better than player B in a particular tourney. Lately a very generous seal has been adding bonus chips to the side pools depending on how many join.

Why isn't there more traffic on this site?

I downloaded the site and and after 7 hours not a single player sat at the plo tables, every plo table is empty.

No limit holdem was pretty much the same besides a $10 table running.

Its a bitcoin site which a heap of players use. Rake is very low compared to other sites, and apparently withdrawals are fine.

So then why is there not traffic I don't get it?

When the old site decided to close they kept a webpage open for months in order to process withdrawals. They tried to make it as well advertised as possible that players needed to withdraw by a certain date. Everyone that requested a withdrawal was paid.

They did not transfer player funds to the people running the new site, SwC. The new site only received a list of player names and Krill amounts. They didn't even get passwords... you had to reset your password in order to sign up on the new site.

I do feel bad for anyone that forgot about their balances and didn't check during those months to see that they needed to withdraw when the old site closed. But I don't think there was any better way for the site to handle it. They had to stop eventually.

So, the old site did not exit scam. The new site, SwC, did not get any of the player balances from the old site.

And from their actions over the years there's no reason to believe that SwC would exit scam. That said, although I trust them... there's no reason to leave more than is needed on the site when you can withdraw/deposit with bitcoin so quickly.

Yeah, I know... I just try to keep spreading the word. Especially about rake compared to other bitcoin sites. It's an insanely huge savings, and I don't think people playing on the other sites realize it.

About getting tables running, it's always been tough to get a table started. Many people will comment that they don't want to play HU.

But if you can get someone to start playing HU with you... then you have a better chance of a 3rd joining... and with 3 sitting there's a decent chance that others will fill out the table. Obviously game/time of day/stake dependent... but in general that's been my experience. There are more people on the sidelines willing to play if a game is already running.

I've always thought something like an interest list like in a live room would help. Maybe agreeing to sitout at a table until 3 or 4 people join and then going to the lobby chat to try to recruit others.

Welcome to the site though, and I hope that you keep trying a bit more and have better luck. With a small site it really only takes a handful of people to make a big difference in the amount of action on a given day.

This would probably help. If seals know you and like you, then you're much more likely to get action.