Why do we talk about Laszlos pizza but not the 1000 BTC poker tournament ?

[xtraelv]

Going over old topics I found this fascinating post: The Worlds First Sudo-Anonymous Poker Tournament ?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80

I enjoy playing online poker ( Texas Holdem ) and so I've decided to run a tournament with Bitcoins ! No 'real' money will change hands. We are playing for electric bottle tops only. I don't encourage gambling and this will probably be a 'one-off' event for fun. Poker is a skill game anyway, like chess

Introducing...

The 1st ( and only ? ) Bitcoin Forum - Online Poker Challenge Event.

" The Worlds First Sudo-Anonymous Poker Tournament ? "

A Password Protected - Private Game using the Free Open Source - PokerTH - http://www.pokerth.net/

Sat. 20th March 2010 at 3pm ET

50 Bitcoins + 5 Bitcoins Buyin | 1000 Bitcoins added to the Prize pool | 10-Max Table

10,000 Starting Chips, 10 Starting Blinds, Blinds will double every 10 hands !

4 places will be paid. 1st 750 Bitcoins, 2nd 375 Bitcoins, 3rd 250 Bitcoins, 4th 125 Bitcoins ( based on 10 players )

I will be playing and hosting the game and providing the 1000 Bitcoin added prize pool. You are trying to win my Bitcoins !

So, we need another 9 forum members to participate. Entries will be on a first come, first served basis.

Please PM me with your Bitcoin address and a random 'username'. I will then PM you my Bitcoin address to send the 55 Bitcoin entry fee, you will then receive the password for the game lobby.

If a player is a 'no show' or their are less than 5 players, actual players and / or opponents will be 'made up' of computer opponents. Any Bitcoin prize that a 'computer' player should win will be equally divided by the number of actual registered players and equally returned to each participant.

Please download the free pokerTH software to get used to the client. You can also practice against the computer. We will use the 'default' IRC / server and Lobby. You can work out how to connect it through Tor if you want to remain anonymous.

Bitcoin.org or the Bitcube will be advertised in the game lobby whilst we are playing !  

If their is not enough interest or participants I will consider canceling or changing the date / time.

Thank you.

BitcoinFX.

The "Worlds First Sudo-Anonymous Online Poker Tourament" was played with much success. Everyone expressed their enjoyment and we discussed the possibility of holding further event(s) A big thank you to those who took part and to those who expressed interest, but were not able to participate.

Congratulations to our winner dwdollar !!!

Total Prize Pool 1200 bitcoins (4 'real' players)

1st - dwdollar - 600 BTC

2nd - theymos - 325 BTC

3rd - BitcoinFX - 175 BTC

4th - Computer6

5th - Computer5

6th - Computer3

7th - Computer2

8th - DannyM - 100 BTC

9th - Computer4

10th - Computer1

As there were only 4 'real' players and 3 of us finished in the top 3, we agreed that instead of doing a 4 way split on the 4th place prize (won by Computer6), that DannyM should receive the entire 4th place prize.

It was a very unlucky hand DannyM

...

dwdollar was 'un-stopable' for most of the Tourney after taking out 3 computer players in one hand and gaining a monster chip lead.

RIVER [board cards 2h,Kh,Jd,Tc,9h]
Computer3 has [ 6d,Kd] - One Pair, Kings
Computer5 has [ 8d,Js] - One Pair, Jacks
Computer6 has [ Td,Jc] - Two Pairs, Jacks and Tens
dwdollar has [ Jh,Ks] - Two Pairs, Kings and Jacks

dwdollar wins $80150 <<<
Computer3 sits out
Computer5 sits out
Computer6 sits out

...

I'm about to send out the Bitcoin 'winnings', so please confirm that you have received them.

Not bad - a tournament where you double your BTC - even if you are the last "live" player ! What is 100 BTC worth now ?

I love this quote: "No 'real' money will change hands. We are playing for electric bottle tops only". - BitcoinFX (2010)

[o_e_l_e_o]

Nice find. At current prices, first place earned about $4.5 million dollars, and at peak prices back in December the first prize was worth about $11.4 million. This means that this tiny 4 player bitcoin poker tournament had more prize money than the World Series of Poker (first prize this year of $8.8 million).

[HabBear]

Well, with only 4 people joining the tournament it's understandable why it's been forgotten.

The big question I have is how the pot was funded with 1,200BTC when only 4 players bought into the tournament. The buy in was listed at 55BTC...so where did the extra ~1000BTC come from to fund the payouts?

I suspect shenanigans.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The big question I have is how the pot was funded with 1,200BTC when only 4 players bought into the tournament. The buy in was listed at 55BTC...so where did the extra ~1000BTC come from to fund the payouts?

I suspect shenanigans.

I will be playing and hosting the game and providing the 1000 Bitcoin added prize pool. You are trying to win my Bitcoins !

[aso118]

The sale of the pizza was a real world transaction everybody can relate to. Not many people across the world can relate to an anonymous poker competition. Plus, the offer was open to everybody across the world. Somebody took up the opportunity and became rich. That could be one reason why it is still talked about today.

[franky1]

because people treated it like a "bottletop" game,,
like hal accepting the first ever tx from satoshi..
 after hal-satoshi tx .. no tx/games/bottletop swaps seemed as important..

but then.. a real deal for real pizza .. that reset the bar to a higher milestone of importance than hals tx from satoshi

after all, you remember your first love/sexual experience.. but after a few meaningless bodily fluid exchanges.. you dont realy treat a meaningless game of strip poker with a pole dancer as something special

and these days.. its bettr to spend time walking into retailers in your town and get them to adopt bitcoin.. rather than find historic events to hope you can energise adoption with stories of the good old days

[pawel7777]

Nice find. At current prices, first place earned about $4.5 million dollars, and at peak prices back in December the first prize was worth about $11.4 million. This means that this tiny 4 player bitcoin poker tournament had more prize money than the World Series of Poker (first prize this year of $8.8 million).

Yet still, even at ATH prices, the total prize pool (of 1,200 btc, not 1,000 as the topic's title says) was much less than WSOP's total prize pool, so not as impressive and mind-boggling as the world's most expensive pizzas.

But the main reason is what franky1 wrote above.

Still, nice dig OP.

[mazdafunsun]

This indeed is very nice find.
So fascinating to look back and  read such post where btc was not even reffered as " real money" and 1000 BTC was chunk change.

[xtraelv]

Nice find. At current prices, first place earned about $4.5 million dollars, and at peak prices back in December the first prize was worth about $11.4 million. This means that this tiny 4 player bitcoin poker tournament had more prize money than the World Series of Poker (first prize this year of $8.8 million).

Thank you for that info - that is awesome. I knew there would be someone who could put it into perspective.

This is a great quote: "this tiny 4 player bitcoin poker tournament had more prize money than the World Series of Poker (first prize this year of $8.8 million)."

Well, with only 4 people joining the tournament it's understandable why it's been forgotten.

The big question I have is how the pot was funded with 1,200BTC when only 4 players bought into the tournament. The buy in was listed at 55BTC...so where did the extra ~1000BTC come from to fund the payouts?

I suspect shenanigans.

BitcoinFX provided the extra 1000 BTC - worth at the time very little.

Don't forget that in the early days there were only a few "regulars" in the bitcoin community.

dwdollar is user 24, BitcoinFX user 30, DannyM user 51 and Theymos user 35 is the forum administrator.

because people treated it like a "bottletop" game,,
like hal accepting the first ever tx from satoshi..
 after hal-satoshi tx .. no tx/games/bottletop swaps seemed as important..

but then.. a real deal for real pizza .. that reset the bar to a higher milestone of importance than hals tx from satoshi

after all, you remember your first love/sexual experience.. but after a few meaningless bodily fluid exchanges.. you dont realy treat a meaningless game of strip poker with a pole dancer as something special

and these days.. its bettr to spend time walking into retailers in your town and get them to adopt bitcoin.. rather than find historic events to hope you can energise adoption with stories of the good old days

I've done the same with some later cryptos. Treated them like bottletops. Tipping then like chocolate sprinkles, playing bingo with them and using huge amounts of them to buy trivial things - only for some of them to have some serious value years later. Nothing like bitcoin. But it was fun at the time and have no regrets about it. If it hadn't happened it would have no value now. From that perspective - it is super cool to see it done with bitcoin. Predecessor to all the alt coins - sometimes the history repeats itself. (Not every altcoin will turn to gold - most of them will fail - most alt coins and ICOs are a ploy to exchange your bitcoin for that "magic fair dust" straight from the vacuum cleaner bag)

Talking to the local bitcoin exchanger. He was telling me that he mined bitcoin when they were around $5 and was overjoyed when they hit $20 and sold them for a quick profit. Those with little faith sold them for a quick buck and those with faith would have still traded them but kept some of them.

There are a number of events that are programmed into the media psyche. There have been far more interesting events that took place. This is one of the ones that stood out when I was documenting some of them. here

While I agree that getting your local retailers to accept bitcoin would be practical and productive. I believe that documenting history is important. Assembling stories, legends and timelines while the memory is still fresh and those that lived it and experienced it still can tell the stories.

[BitcoinFX]

The big question I have is how the pot was funded with 1,200BTC when only 4 players bought into the tournament. The buy in was listed at 55BTC...so where did the extra ~1000BTC come from to fund the payouts?

I suspect shenanigans.

I will be playing and hosting the game and providing the 1000 Bitcoin added prize pool. You are trying to win my Bitcoins !

No shenanigans. I indeed added the 1000 BTC to the prize pool from my own mined coins.

I'm fairly certain that all of the transactions for the tournament were from this old wallet ...
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4630066.0

I would post the transaction ID's, although that would not really follow the original spirit of the tournament!

...

Before Bitcoin I used to do online poker botting (with some limited robot development) for the OpenHoldem project.

The concept for the tournament (a home style game in reality) was simply my attempt at that time to try and build the forum user base, utility and economy. I was also curious to see if anyone would actually bother to participate. There was literally nothing much to do with your Bitcoin at that time and in hindsight that would of been the better option for me personally too.

Anyhow, the Bitcoin Pizza's indeed remain the first real world example of someone offering up payment for perishable goods with Bitcoin. One always requires beer (free as in) + pizza for a good home game of Texas Hold'em, right? However, it's much more likely that Laszlo was (subliminally?) inspired by the original bitcoin.org website here ... https://web.archive.org/web/20100327210623/http://www.bitcoin.org:80/faq - Read: "... What is Bitcoin’s value backed by?..." and realize that this text also pre-dates Laszlo's offer (even if he does not recall reading it).  

...

Now they are all at it - https://cointelegraph.com/news/kim-kardashian-west-raises-stakes-with-bitcoin-in-charity-poker-night-out - and for some good causes at least.

[BitcoinFX]

I'd like to stress that this was intended to be a sudo-anonymous tournament and that my word play of pseudonymous was intentional and supposed to be ironic.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonymity
and
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo

i.e. superuser (forum members) and substitute user (computer players) do anonymous Bitcoin poker tournament.  

...

In truth though I really would of liked Satoshi to participate as looking back on it now that would of been something a bit special.

At least no one finished on the money bubble. C'est la vie.

[Dudeperfect]

I think we should take time to appreciate those who have used Bitcoin as a payment system even in the early days instead of holding their funds and waiting for the price to grow. That's how it should be, now it is our responsibility to do the same and give first preference to use Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as the payment instrument. Well, I am not sure about the legal status of Poker in most of the countries but it is really appreciable to use Bitcoin if playing poker is legal in your country.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I've done the same with some later cryptos. Treated them like bottletops. Tipping then like chocolate sprinkles, playing bingo with them and using huge amounts of them to buy trivial things - only for some of them to have some serious value years later. Nothing like bitcoin. But it was fun at the time and have no regrets about it. If it hadn't happened it would have no value now.

It's interesting to consider. If anybody back then knew how much Bitcoin would be worth in the future, none of these type of things would have happened as everyone would just be hodling. But if none of these things happened, would Bitcoin see the growing adoption it sees today?

-snip-

Hey man, next time you run a free to enter poker tournament with 1000 BTC prize money, can you give me a heads up? I'd like to join. 

[oldmaid]

I have described the pizza transaction many times to people with success. I'm not sure how to describe this.

[bitfocus]

Thanks for sharing buddy

[jemarleon]

Wow, its a big amount of money. I wonder if they still hold those price's and how rich they are now if they still have it.

theymos is already in here that time and until now he is actively supporting this forum as the forum administrator, he deserve's all of his achievements. Kudos to sir theymos! 

[suemendez25]

Probably because not everybody knows poker. And the pizza was first, and i think nothing will beat the first.

[pawel7777]

...
No shenanigans. I indeed added the 1000 BTC to the prize pool from my own mined coins.
...

Hope you don't regret it and that things turned out better for you than for the Laszlo guy (who ended up basically with no bitcoins when it skyrocketed). But if not for people like you guys, Bitcoin would've never got off the ground.

Thanks for sharing the story.

[BitcoinFX]

...
No shenanigans. I indeed added the 1000 BTC to the prize pool from my own mined coins.
...

Hope you don't regret it and that things turned out better for you than for the Laszlo guy (who ended up basically with no bitcoins when it skyrocketed). But if not for people like you guys, Bitcoin would've never got off the ground.

Thanks for sharing the story.

Welcome! Though I'm pretty much in the same boat as Laszlo in that regard then, what with LR and Mt. Gox, and the numerous other unfortunate issues over the years. Anyhow, I'm still here, mostly as a 'home' BTC miner (need to upgrade) and some basic contracts, shares and alt. coin holdings etc., also finalizing set-up of a crypto / privacy / security related non-profit project, amongst other things.

As a self-employed person I currently spend much of my week juggling crypto payments (and earnings) for services and survival. I guess in some alternative reality I might of achieved more in this community, perhaps I'm just to jaded now.

[jademacoy]

Wow that is a huge tournament over there having 1000 BTC as reward. This is something really good on using BTC instead of having dollars in the table or as a reward. As we all know that money nowadays is so  hot that is why in every casino the organizers will going to acknowledge using chips to avoid getting conflict because of the fiat money if being represented.