Trustless Poker. Crypto way.

Today I want to share an idea for a new kind of poker I call "crypto poker."

In regular poker, we have to fully trust the dealer or online poker site. We must believe the cards are dealt fairly and no one peeks at other players' cards.

I thought of a way to make poker more transparent and secure using blockchain technology. Let's look at how a head-to-head game would work.

Before the deal, each player picks two random numbers that will determine what cards they get. These numbers are hashed and published on the blockchain.

For example, I pick 17 and 66212d28383162584DdB4151dd389B3268884fCb. The 17 affects my first card. The long number is a random salt for hashing. My opponent picks 32 and 3a020271755413a3112efcC3522fA047512F3305 for his first card hash.I reveal my number for my opponent's first card, say it's 32. We add: 17 + 32 = 49. So his first card is the 49th in the deck.

Knowing the picked numbers, we can figure out everyone's cards. But no one knows the other's numbers until revealed.We use a similar approach to generate flop cards.

To reveal your card, you publish your number and salt. The hash published earlier allows your opponent and smart contract to verify you originally picked that number.

Unlike regular poker, cards are independent. Players may get the same card. Several cards on the table may match. New winning hands like 5 of a kind make sense.

The gameplay should resemble popular No Limit Hold'em but be more secure and transparent thanks to the public blockchain data.

I just came up with this idea and would love your thoughts. Are you interested? Want to be first testers? Or help develop it? Maybe even invest in the project? Anyway, I'm excited to discuss this poker innovation!

--Update from the comments---ZK poker solutions that are offered for example in https://zkholdem.xyz/ I think are not good enough.

In mental poker, this is called the "drop outs problem" - when a player goes offline and quits the hand prematurely. Requiring huge deposits to solve this seems awful to me.

Imagine we're playing 0.5$/1$ with a 100$ minimum buy-in. Yet there could be 1000$ stacks on the table. Say 3 players go all in for 1000$ each, making 3000$ in the pot.If any initial player folds offline without revealing their key to see the river, the hand cannot finish.

The question is - how large should the deposit be? 3000$ with a 100$ min buy-in seems crazy. But even that isn't fully safe. If you have a 3000$ deposit for a 100$ game, and lose internet - you could lose the full deposit.

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