ConsenSys backed Virtue Poker: P2P Decentralized Poker Built on Ethereum

[Virtue_Poker]

Hey All,

Our company is a ConsenSys incubated company, created in May of 2015. (Just search "decentralized poker, or "Ethereum Poker" -- we come up first on google because we've been around by far longer than any other company trying to create a blockchain based decentralized poker app.)

We have built out a P2P decentralized poker platform using a combination of a Mental Poker protocol for card shuffling, that hooks into Ethereum smart contracts for short term game escrow and a payout mechanism. We have Joe Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, founder of ConsenSys // Andrew Keys, Head of ConsenSys Enterprise and // Robert Davidman, former Party Poker Executive as advisors.

In September, we brought on board two of the top 10 all-time live earning pros: Dan Colman, and Brian Rast. Our article on PokerNews was the top performing article for them of the month: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2017/09/virtue-poker-dan-colman-brian-rast-28926.htm

Unlike some other companies in this space, we are aiming to address and solve two core problems with online poker: (1) solving gameplay fairness using a P2P card shuffling protocol that involves each player in card shuffling and results reporting and (2) eliminate player deposit risk, i.e. the trust a player must take when depositing money onto a site that is held in control of the operator -- using Ethereum smart contracts.

Each player creates a funds a wallet that they control. Tables are smart contracts on Ethereum that include: game parameters (game type, # of players, buy-in amount, payout etc) and a "chip counter" that keeps track of players stakes. Players join a table by transferring ETH (or VPP our token) to the table address.

Player's then go through the process of Mental Poker:

The dealer first generates a 52 card deck on their machine. The first round of “shuffling” is where all players first shuffle then encrypt the deck of cards. After this first pass, the deck is in its final ordered state, 1–52, and this order does not change throughout gameplay.

Encrypting/Indexing the Deck:

The second round of “Encrypting the deck” is where each player encrypts each individual card with their own encryption key. And following this round of encryption, each player is assigned cards in the deck. For example, let’s say “jfa” is assigned cards 5 and 6. “jfa” owns his encryption keys that correspond to cards 5 and 6, but needs each other players’ encryption keys at the table that correspond to those cards so he can view his private cards, but no one else (and visa versa for each player). For community cards, all players must share the keys that correspond to these public cards so all players can view them. This process continues until the showdown, where the winning player is rewarded the pot, and the players at the table sign-off on this end result and submit a transaction to the Ethereum smart contract to update the players stakes in the “chip counter” included in the contract.

We put out our 50 page white paper in August, check it out here: https://virtue.poker/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Virtue-Poker-White-Paper-DRAFT-0.1.pdf

We've been working with ConsenSys backed funding for two years, and our app is already 13,000 lines of code, and we are currently running on multiple test networks and have implemented a Mental Poker protocol (no other company has done this yet).

Check out our demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYypmr5Negs&t=7s

Website: https://virtue.poker/

[1713303131]

1713303131

[Virtue_Poker]

We will be announcing partnering with another legend in the poker community next week. Will keep this thread updated. Feel free to comment with any questions.

[monsanto]

This could be a really big deal. What kind of fees will this require? What would be the lowest blinds that would still be feasible? I will be watching this.

[Virtue_Poker]

This could be a really big deal. What kind of fees will this require? What would be the lowest blinds that would still be feasible? I will be watching this.

We developed an innovative fee structure (flat rake 1 bb/100 to 2 bb / 100 hands across all stakes), with most going to individuals who run "justice nodes." (Let me better describe the token model so it makes sense). w

Our token, VPP, can be used for 4 things: (1) as chips (2) to access special tournaments (3) earned as rakeback and (4) can be staked to become a Justice. You can think of a Justice as a validator node (software) that validates, verifies, and send for submission all hands played on the Virtue Poker network. Analagous to mining but instead of verifying transactions, they validate and submit for storage each hand played.

To become a Justice, a user stakes tokens (similar to POS in ETH), in a contract, and a Justice's assignment % is based on their stake over the total amount staked in the contract. When a Justice wants to remove their stake, they submissions are reviewed to ensure they were honest, if not, their stake (and fees accrued) are forfeited.

There are a couple of difficulties w/ Mental (p2P) Poker that Justices solve (and this is their purpose).

First, is the "dropped player problem": since all players private encryption keys are needed to share community cards, if a player drops out before the end of the hand, the hand can not be completed and the hand is canceled. Using shamir secret sharing, a Justice can piece together the missing key and ensure the hand continues.

The second is "dispute resolution" -- an edge case but can happen. Since gameplay is fully P2P, a player in theory could hack their client and "dispute" the end result of a hand. This is fairly obvious when it happens, but since their is no mediation mechanism, the hand is canceled. A Justice kicks out the winning player and rewards the winning player the pot.

The third is regarding game security. In order to do bot detection, multi-account prevention, and collusion detection, a poker site needs to tie back hand histories to a unique player ID. With fully p2p poker, you can think of each table as a silo of data and activity. A Justice submits each verified hand to a database (initially under Virtue Poker's control) so we have a full picture of all activity on the platform, and more importantly, so that we can run algorithm's across this data to detect patterns of cheating.

So in essence, anyone can become a Justice, and earn fees from providing this service to the network. The "Rake" goes to the Justice Pool, which is the users who decide to run Justice nodes.

We made an infographic on the Justice System here: https://medium.com/@VirtuePoker/infographic-the-justice-system-on-virtue-poker-3cac71e8bbcb
And if you want to have a visual for how Mental Poker Works, check this out (should take 5 minutes): https://medium.com/@VirtuePoker/secure-and-fair-card-shuffling-on-virtue-poker-6f71b32d230b

[Virtue_Poker]

If anyone has any questions check out this FAQ our team put together:

https://medium.com/@VirtuePoker/faq-blog-post-for-virtue-poker-28a5f37bb964

[dorismak]

i think that games shall base on the principle of justice, fairness and openness, but someone was always breaking the rules. If these problem can be avoided, it will be welcomed by most people.

[Virtue_Poker]

Virtue Poker explained in 90 seconds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LNM_0DC95s&t=2s

[RonHandy]

Players and investors should take note of the other recent player in this space that didn't last 3 months and is currently sitting at 80% off ICO prices.. The coinpoker scam which currently has a dozen or so players is declining and has an unbelievably high rate of complaints.  TonyG's project has been labeled as scam by players, investors, pro's, just about everyone who isn't making money off it.

This is exactly the same thing, another disgraceful ICO with faces that have no business in this space.  They will have you believe that phil ivey and others can add value to this project. It's the exact opposite, they're in it to take your investment out.

The coinpoker scam turned out to be to be a 10 year old failed site tonybet they rehashed as a ICO.  This is obviously different but in some case it's actually worse. 

Investors should ask why a wealthy player like ivey or coleman is behind this.  Why would anyone want to run a poker site or be involved in any way in this space which doesn't even have 100 players worldwide and has never turned a profit. Crypto poker is a small nearly dead space, the virtue poker team is already bullshitting people with sales pitches and promises of decentralized poker, a product they haven't been able to work out for almost 3 years and is something not exactly welcome by players.

Do some research

You've been warned. 

[RonHandy]

Nobody wants to touch garbage like this.  Anything  Ethereum / Consensys / ERC20 is toxic as gas. This is another scam project with not even a chance in hell at anything, you're only trying to get idiots trading the token.

[CryptoNinja11]

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[CryptoNinja11]

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[CryptoNinja11]

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