PokerChained Open Beta on the EOS Mainnet!

It is here! After two months of public testing, more than 5000 hands played by dozens of people, sleepless nights and enormous efforts, Graphene Lab presents PokerChained Open Beta on the EOS Mainnet!

What’ve we achieved?

• p2p Texas Hold’em functioning on the EOS Mainnet

• Usage of DCDp (Decentralized Card Deck Protocol)
  PokerChained is the first client operating on Decentralized Card Deck Protocol (developed by yours truly). DCDp makes development of the games that need decentralized card deck much easier; We plan to build decentralized ecosystem around it in the future.

• Fully on-chain implementation
  Game’s logic is implemented in EOS smart-contracts only.

• Decentralization
  Shuffling and encryption of cards are happening on clients’ devices

• Safety
  Users’ funds are stored in the smart-contract during the game; deposits and withdrawals are instant.

• Cross-platform
  Clients for Windows, MacOS and Android are available. Also there is web-interface and test version for the iOS.

Features

Deposits and withdrawals

In-game balance is created for the account after user chooses limit, buy-in size and clicks “Play”. We’d like to draw your attention to “auto-rebuy” function – if you don’t want to deposit funds automatically in case of losing your buy-in, clear the corresponding tick box in the lobby. You can withdraw your funds instantly at any time using “Withdraw” button (or by clicking on the “Exit”).

Resources

As all the game happens on-chain, every action spends resources of your account. Please consider this while playing (there are indicators that will help you to keep your eye on the resources), otherwise you risk to finish the game incorrectly.

During the testing we’ve discovered that 50 EOS for CPU and 1 EOS for NET are more than enough to play the game comfortably for a long time.

Shuffling

Generation of deck and shuffling of cards are happening on players’ devices only. Unfortunately it takes time to transfer all the keys between players that consequently leads to delays during the game. We are constantly optimizing the code and will smooth the game process in the future releases.

PLEASE NOTE: ONLY exit the game using "Lobby" and "Exit" buttons. As of this publication, game needs all the players at the table to keep their apps running – otherwise game ends incorrectly for all of them. This problem might be solved in the future by implementing keys’ sharing.

Rake

As of today rake’s basic functionality is implemented:

• rake is 3% of the pot

• CAP (rake’s maximum size) is 5 EOS

• rake’s system uses “Weighted Contributed” scheme – proportionally to every player’s stakes

• rake is taken from the pot after the end of the game

• rake is not taken if there was no flop (No flop – No drop); also it is not taken if the game was finished incorrectly.

We plan to remake rake system considerably while developing DCDp (however we won’t increase % of rake and its CAP). Among other things, we’ll implement loyalty system, rakeback and will reward our players with protocol’s token. Please note that rake which is being taken now is being recorded in the smart-contract – this way all the users who play today will eventually receive the corresponding reward.

How to play?

There are clients for Windows and MacOS (they can be found on our GitHub page), client for Android is available on PlayMarket. iOS version is on the approval stage – however you can test it using Apple TestFlight.

In the current release you need to import your private key (unfortunately it’s not easy to integrate Scatter with desktop and mobile clients – but we’re working in it). If it makes you feel uncomfortable, feel free to use our web-interface (with login via Scatter).

If you’ve chosen the last option, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND you to whitelist all the actions related to our app (otherwise you’ll need to approve them one-by-one – and there are A LOT of them). You can find the detailed instruction on this matter here.

Oh, we’ve almost forgot! The first player who will win the hand with Royal Flush (or Straight Flush A2345) will receive 100 EOS (they are already reserved on the pokerchained account).

Conditions:

• at least two players have to reach showdown

• you need to win the hand (or be among the players who win the hand) with Royal Flush or Straight Flush A2345

• screenshot your win and send it to our chat along with the name of your EOS account and approximate time (UTC). You’ll help us (though it is not mandatory) if you won’t play after that till we confirm the result.

• In case the combination will be on the board, the prize will be divided among the players who will reach showdown.

What’s next?

There are plenty of things coming! Besides technical enhancements (interface improvements, remake of rake system, increase of application’s speed, implementing of fees for incorrect exit from the game), we are working on loyalty system (which will allow to reward loyal players) and developing a partner program. Also we have extensive plans concerning DCDp and protocol’s token – but it deserves a separate article :)

Also we’d like to express gratitude to our friends at Blockchained SBP and EOSNation BP, who have launched READ nodes for our app – thanks to them we can provide higher level of decentralization and comfort to our users.

We still have a bounty for finding critical bugs (that result in players losing their funds, or getting an advantage over other players). Please contact us about them at our email poker@graphenelab.io with your contact info and the name of your EOS account (also please report other mistakes to our GitHub).

If you have any questions, you can always contact us via our official Telegram Also we’ll really appreciate if you’ll use this form to leave the feedback.

Follow us on our website, Twitter and Medium.

Best Regards,

Graphene Lab