Win some Bitcoin playing poker: Blockchain Poker review

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With an immutable blockchain and fast payments, Bitcoin was basically designed to make gambling better. Blockchain Poker has been entertaining poker fans with digital currency tables for quite some time, and might be the best Bitcoin SV (BSV) poker option available today.

The site began operation in 2015 and started as a BTC only site. Over time, other options were added, with BSV coming on line in February 2019.

Signing up is as easy as visiting the site, setting a user name and password, and sitting down to a table. If you’re new to Bitcoin, Blockchain Poker will spot you 100 satoshis (each satoshi is one hundred millionth of a single Bitcoin) to get you started.

Choosing which currency you want to play with and will be very familiar to poker players: simply chose your table based on the blinds, currency, and play speed of your preference. If you rather simply jump to a BSV table immediately, you can do so by toggling the currency at the top right of the screen.

While the majority of tables are cash games, if that’s not your style, it also has Sit & Go tournaments. Join a waiting list and participate in a mini tournament as soon as enough players register.

So how’s the action? After joining at able, it became immediately apparent that some players definitely knew what they were doing, while others were a little looser with their money. It’s a nice opportunity to learn the game while potentially winning some crypto. If you get good, tables with much higher blinds are available, making higher level play a possibility.

But maybe not today. While at any moment, a whale could join the site and start a high stakes game, the volume of players at the moment remains fairly low. A peek at the sight during the late hours of the night revealed approximately a dozen players at a time, with a few more signed up for Sit and Go wait lists. Unfortunately, none of them were sitting at BSV players, effectively not making that an option.

When joining a table though, all of the features you’d expect were there. You can select pre-select your move (check, call, raise, fold) before the action comes to you, decide to show your hand after a key bluff, or even show your hand while folding in a showdown.

The graphics of the site remain basic, however. They do the job, but in 2019, they compare unfavorably to how poker sites looked in 2009, unless you’re very much into a minimalist design.

To end on a positive, the site has potential, and a roadmap. They’ve been showing constant improvement for years and plan to make the site a more robust offering. They have a pretty clear idea of the basics of how to run a poker site, but maybe need some help on the marketing side.

So if you’re interested in playing around with a Bitcoin poker site, Blockchain Poker is worth a peek. But unless you’re bringing some friends with you, expect it to be a little cozy.