Coin Poker is the newest poker room to arrive on the scene for U.S. players, even though they cannot currently deposit or withdraw funds until the in-game currency hits a U.S. serving cryptocurrency exchange. This poker room is built off of blockchain technology and uses a cryptocurrency named CHP as the main currency.
If you were fortunate enough to buy some CHP during the pre-ICO and ICO stages from November 16th, 2017 to January 19th, 2018, then this review will be a great guide to help you know what to expect from Coin Poker in these infant stages.
All players who missed these ICO timeframes from the U.S. should check back at a later time when they can properly deposit and withdraw from the site. Other countries are perfectly welcome to join in on the fun that is Coin Poker once they get ahold of some CHP tokens.
Players Accepted: All
Players Not Accepted: U.S Players cannot deposit or withdraw money yet
Reputation of Coin Poker
Coin Poker was recently founded in late 2017 so it is tough for them to have much of a reputation just yet. However, in order to get an idea of how reputable they might end up becoming we can examine some of the companies that are advising them and partnering with them.
In the executive summary that Coin Poker posted on their site, they list their partners at the bottom of the page. These names include some of the biggest company names in poker such as Pokertube, HighstakesDB, and Pokernews. This just goes to show that this project is heavily backed by the poker world and it is a legit operation.
In addition to the support from the poker world, they are also partners with ValueNet Capital which is a venture fund investment company as well as DigitalX which is a financial advisor company. It seems that the people responsible for creating Coin Poker are professionals in either the poker world or the investing world and they have a lot of experience in their given areas according to their LinkedIn pages.
Formats of Poker at Coin Poker
Primary Formats Offered: Cash Games, Multi-Table Tournaments
Primary Formats Not Offered: Heads-Up, Full Ring, Sit and Go Tournaments
Coin Poker is best known for their cash games and multi-table tournaments. They recently unveiled a new multi-table tournament schedule where they are adding CHP to every single tournament’s prize pool. Unfortunately, there are no Sit and Go tournaments available yet.
If you are a fan of playing short-handed you will be happy to hear that nearly every table on Coin Poker will fit six people at most. Occasionally, you can find some multi-table tournaments that are 4-handed. Anyone who prefers to play full-ring or heads-up poker will have to consider playing on a different site to find what they are looking for.
The blind structure of the multi-table tournaments on Coin Poker is special because it causes the tournaments to move at a turbo speed of six minutes per level. The only exception to this rule is the daily High Roller tournament which has 10-minute levels. If you combine these turbo structures with the short-handed tables you get tournaments that are over very quickly which is favorable for recreational players.
Games at Coin Poker
Primary Games Offered: No Limit Hold’Em, Pot Limit Omaha
Primary Games Not Offered: Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, 7-Card Stud, Limit Hold’Em
There are currently only two games that you can play on Coin Poker, which are No Limit Hold’Em and Pot Limit Omaha. These are the two most popular poker games on the internet at the moment, but most sites tend to have at least four or five different games available. You can play cash games and multi-table tournaments in both No Limit Hold’Em and Pot Limit Omaha on Coin Poker.
Limits at Coin Poker
Min to Max Limits for Cash Games: 0.10 CHP/0.25 CHP to 10 CHP/25 CHP
Min to Max Limits for Sit and Go Tournaments: N/A
Min to Max Limits for Multi-Table Tournaments: 10 CHP to 1000 CHP
Ultimately, the stakes that any given cash game or tournament is played for all depends on the current price of CHP tokens. At the time of this writing, that price is at 10 cents per coin, but like most cryptocurrencies this price fluctuates greatly from hour to hour.
The cash games on Coin Poker offer mainly small stakes games, with the biggest game being about equivalent to $1/$2. Most sites offer stakes higher than this, but as the price of a CHP token goes up then so will these stakes. The smallest cash game stakes are about equivalent to $0.001/$0.002 which is the smallest that we have ever seen.
The multi-table tournaments feature buy-ins that range from around $1 to $100 when converted from the current price of CHP. The lower end of this range is perfectly fine but they could certainly use a couple of high stakes options since most sites offer few weekly tournaments with an entry fee between $200 and $1000.
Software at Coin Poker
Playing poker on Coin Poker is as simple as downloading the software to your computer. Once you make an account and log-in, you will be able to see the main lobby.
In the main lobby, the games are neatly organized and easy to find since there are filters at the top which can help you find what you are looking for a little bit faster. You can filter the lobby by poker game, buy-in level, tournament status, how many seats there are, and whether the game is private or capped.
The gameplay on CoinPoker is extremely fast since the tables are all short-handed. Each player receives 60 seconds of timebank for every 50 hands. Each player gets 25 seconds per decision in addition to this timebank, but people rarely seem to think for that long.
Once you click on the icon in the upper right-hand corner of the lobby that looks like a gear, you can see the various table settings. These settings are more extensive than we thought they would be with options such as a four-card deck, auto-rebuys, straddling, and running the board twice.
The table layouts are extremely clean and easy to read and we did not notice any software glitches or hiccups during gameplay. Everything seems to run extremely smooth here and we are a big fan of this poker software overall.
Flaws
The main lobby is somewhat bland since it is mostly black and gray, so they should consider coloring it up a little bit. The tables are also very black and gray with no option to change the background color.
The tournament lobbies seem to have trouble properly updating how many people are left in the tournaments. The player count on the actual list of players is always different and more accurate than the number advertised on the left-hand side of each tournament lobby.
One weird and minor flaw is that you cannot access the table settings from the poker table, you have to do it from the main lobby. Almost every poker site we have ever seen allows you to change the table settings from the table.
Multi-Tabling at Coin Poker
Coin Poker allows each player to play up to six tables at a time, which is great for those who like to multi-table. Most players who wish to play more tables than this are usually sit and go tournament players, but Coin Poker does not offer any sit and go tournaments anyway.
There are two options in the upper right corner of each table on Coin Poker which will help multi-tabling players to place their tables in a specific format automatically. These two options are “Tile Tables” which will organize the tables into a square formation with no overlap, or the “Cascade Tables” option, which will place all of your tables in a line with a slight overlap.
Competition at Coin Poker
The competition on Coin Poker is extremely easy, which is surprising for how difficult of a process it is for a cryptocurrency newcomer to deposit money onto the poker room. Players here simply do not seem to care about losing in many cases, and you will almost always get paid off on your big hands.
One reason why the competition is so easy on Coin Poker might be that there have been freerolls that reward CHP running for months and there is 2500-3000 CHP rewarded to these players every time. This spreads some money out to some of the worst players on the site which helps to make each buy-in level easier than it normally would be.
If the price of CHP skyrockets in the near future, then you can expect the competition in the higher stakes games to become much easier than high stakes tournaments on other sites. There seem to be very few people on the site who understand how to employ a proper aggressive pre-flop strategy in a turbo tournament, which is the format for most of the tournaments on CHP.
Coin Poker Mobile App
There is currently no mobile app available for Coin Poker, but their website says that they will be releasing this feature on April 2nd, 2018. Coin Poker is not accessible via a web browser either, so you will need to wait for the app to be released in order to play from your mobile phone.
Rake and Rakeback at Coin Poker
The rake on Coin Poker is extremely competitive since they only take 4% of each pot instead of the industry standard of 5%. This is one of the most appealing parts of playing on Coin Poker since this lower rake could possibly turn a breakeven player into a winning player or a losing player into a breakeven player.
There is currently no rakeback program available at Coin Poker, which is to be expected since they do not have any bonus promotions at all yet. The one way that they give back to players is they are constantly adding extra CHP to every tournament prize pool and these tournaments go off every hour of every day. Technically, this is like giving rakeback since it will have the same effect of increasing each players’ win rates in the long run.
Coin Poker Sign-Up Bonus
There is currently no sign-up bonus available on Coin Poker. The only way to receive bonus CHP tokens was to make a deposit during the pre-ICO or ICO stages when you could buy CHP directly off of Coin Poker’s website.
Other Promotions at Coin Poker
Coin poker does not currently have any sort of bonus promotions for their players to take advantage of outside of the freeroll tournaments that go off every two hours. These tournaments generally have a guaranteed prize pool of 2,500-3,000 CHP and attract around 1,000 players. This is a great way to get CHP onto Coin Poker if you missed the chance to buy some during the pre-ICO and ICO stages of this cryptocurrency.
Coin Poker Bonus Terms and Requirements
There are no bonus promotions on Coin Poker, therefore there are no Bonus Terms and Requirements. Their executive summary clearly states that they plan on offering a ton of these bonus promotions in the future which would be a great idea in our opinion.
Customer Service at Coin Poker
If you would like to contact Coin Poker’s customer service department you can start by clicking on the icon in the upper right-hand corner of the poker lobby that looks like an envelope. From here you will have three contact options which include Live Chat, Telegram messenger, or email.
Live Chat
Normally we would recommend using the Live Chat feature for any gambling site because of the speed and convenience that it brings. However, the Live Chat feature on Coin Poker is not so simple because when you click on the Live Chat link it automatically opens a web browser and asks you to log-in again.
The problem here is that if you try to use your log-in information for the poker site, it will say your username is not found. This is because they expect you to register AGAIN just for the Live Chat feature, which is the first time we have ever seen this. We recommend using the exact same information that you used for your Coin Poker account just to keep things simple. It will take a total of 2 minutes to make an account and then you can log-in.
The weird part about this Live Chat feature is that after you log-in you will find yourself in a large chat room with a bunch of other people who are also asking questions. This format could sometimes lead to a chaotic situation during busy hours but the site is still fairly small so this rarely occurs.
Telegram Messenger
If you choose to contact the Coin Poker customer service department via Telegram messenger, you will first need to download this program for free on your phone or your computer. Once you sign-up for an account and log in, you can click on the magnifying glass in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and type in “CoinPoker”. After that, simply click on the option with the red Coin Poker logo and began typing a message to customer service immediately.
If you already have an account on Telegram, which is very popular in the cryptocurrency world, then this contact method is a decent option. However, there are times when they have not even been online for many hours so it is probably best to ignore this option for now if you require assistance in a timely fashion.
If you are not in the mood to sign-up for any new accounts or download any new messenger programs, then your only option is to contact Coin Poker via email. You can do this by filling out the “Contact Us” form in the poker software or emailing them directly at [email protected].
We decided to test out their email response speed for your convenience and we were greeted with a reply in a respectable 34 minutes. If you demand an answer as soon as possible it is probably better to just try the Live Chat option since that will certainly be much faster.
Deposit and Withdrawal Options at Coin Poker
Minimum Deposit: 1 CHP
Maximum Deposit: No limit
Deposit Methods: Myetherwallet
Withdrawal Methods: Myetherwallet
Coin Poker is the exact opposite of other sites because it is a long process to deposit money while withdrawals from Coin Poker to Myetherwallet happen almost instantly. This is one of the first times that we have ever seen this situation but it is quite intriguing for those who like to receive their withdrawals quickly.
Coin Poker is also unique because the in-game currency that is used on this site is a cryptocurrency token which goes by the name “CHP”. These tokens can be bought with another cryptocurrency named Ethereum and the current price of each CHP token at the time of this writing is 10 cents worth of Ethereum.
Depositing money begins with buying some Ethereum at a popular site such as Coinbase.com. Once you have some Ethereum and you have made a Myetherwallet account, then you can send the Ethereum to any cryptocurrency exchange that holds CHP and buy some of their CHP tokens. You will then need to send this CHP to your Myetherwallet account so that you can send them to Coin Poker as a deposit.
In order to withdraw your CHP from Coin Poker to your Myetherwallet, you will need to find an exchange to send your coins to. It makes sense to use the same one that you used to deposit money with. Selling your coins onto an exchange will allow you to convert them to Ethereum which you can then convert to dollars and send to your bank account. At the time of this writing, Allcoin.com is the only exchange that is carrying CHP.
Unfortunately, Allcoin.com is not available for U.S. residents. CHP will eventually spread to other exchanges but the ICO is still in its infancy stages at the moment. This means that US players will not be able to deposit CHP or sell their CHP that they bought during the pre-ICO or ICO stages until CHP joins more exchanges that are open to residents of the U.S.
When this situation clears up for U.S. players, we will update this page with further information to get you started. The customer service team at Coin Poker tells us that “More exchanges will come soon that accept U.S. Players, don’t worry”.