Grinding daily on ICE Poker

One of the resolutions this year was to create income streams. On the 14th of January I was lucky enough to buy one of the NFTs on Decentral Games' Ice Poker. The first few rounds were minted at 0.25 ETH but unfortunately my round was 0.5 and the most recent drop was 0.75 a piece. However on Opensea the floor is at 2.3 ETH. If you have no idea what I was just talking about, well I bought something that allows me to play in the fishiest poker room that I've ever seen!

Welcome to the ICE poker room

The way it works, everyday you're given 3000 chips for free, and three tasks you have to complete to get rewards called ICE tokens. These tasks range from "Seeing the flop 20 times" to "Getting fullhouse 1 time" etc. Each task will award you 25, 100 or 200 ICE depending on difficulty. And the kicker is ICE is worth real world money. If you complete all your tasks for the day, you will earn 330 ICE. But if you are a winning player on the day, you can get up to 660 ICE because of the 1.35, 1.5, 1.75 or 2x multipliers. If you lost for the day you might also get less like 0.75, 0.5, 0.4, 0.35 multipliers. So there is an incentive to play well to win. 

My recent results daily

You must be thinking that's easy, crushing fishes all day. Well my recent results have proven that to be kind of true. HOWEVER most of these guys play without much of any poker logic and it is sometimes frustrating to play against them. Some of them are vomit inducingly bad where they can call 6bb with K2o with 2bb behind, or call all the way with A high and spike it on the river. The game is 10/20 and it allows a maximum buy in of 2000, however a lot of players buy in for the minimum 400 which is unseen in any poker game I know. But in the last week or so I have adjusted my play to be profitable in this game. 

Contrary to normal logic, the goal is not necessarily to win pots. For example if you flop a set on a wet board, in a normal game is to bet for value and protection. However in ICE poker, if your top task is to get a full house, it is more profitable to slow play in hope to see a turn and river for the house to fill up. This task for example will gain you 200 ICE which at the moment is worth about $30. Doesn't seem like much but coupled with the multiplier, and hopefully the value of ICE increasing over time, and doing this consistently everyday, it adds up. 

Ever since owning this NFT on January 14th, I've played 18 sessions, each session taking me between 2-4 hours a day. So far I've earned 6074 ICE worth roughly $880 in today's prices. The floor price for one of these NFTs is now at 2.23 ETH which means for now I am up 1.73 ETH and that's worth $4700 at the moment. Since I have nothing much to do anyways, I will continue to play and hold until I get bored of it. But even if I do, I can still delegate it for someone else to play on my behalf and get 40% of their earnings. 

Joker shirt, kinda suits me don't you think?

If you're interested in getting one of these, there will be a drop tonight. However to qualify for this one is a bit more complicated than usual. I definitely will try to mint one tonight if possible. Metaverse poker, maybe that's the future. 

What are NFTs and Why do they make sense?

When I first heard of NFTs I was skeptical. Why would anyone pay tons of money for a video clip that you can watch over and over again on YouTube? Or a tweet that someone typed? Don't even get me started about cartoon cats. I said to myself this is a bubble and it's just a license to print money. To a certain extent I think that is true, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

Since the beginning of time, humans have been into collectibles. Whether it's stamps, coins, rocks, watches, cars, sports memorabilia, antiques, artwork... people are willing to pay good money to have the privilege of owning something exclusive or rare. How much they would pay for them depends on the rarity, background story, sentimental value, difficulty to obtain, condition, and of course how much money they have. You may question why someone would pay $69 million for an NFT called "The Verge", but at the same time I question why someone bought Picasso's Les Femmes D'Alger for $179 million. Truth is, the value is in the eye of the beholder and we are not to question why, but just lament the fact that we are not rich enough to bid for them. 

"The Verge" sold for $69 million

Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes D'Alger sold for $179 million

Well, so much for a skeptic, I spent about 1 ETH to buy an NFT myself. It is a digital horse and yes, you can race it, bet on it, breed it, trade/sell it. So far it has won 3 races, finished 2nd twice and 3rd seven times. You can check it out HERE, and yes it is for sale for the right price. A friend of mine bought a super rare horse and sold it for 30 ETH recently (Roughly $63k at the time). 

My horse (Click for more details)

But why do NFTs make sense? 

1. Everything is digital 
So many aspects of our lives are now digital. From our calendars to banking, we have become a digital age, so why not collectibles as well?

2. Safe from Forgeries
Because of it's value, people have been forging artworks, coins, banknotes, deeds, wills, but "non-fungible" means it is unique, cannot be replaced, and the blockchain proves its existence, ownership and authenticity.

3. Safe from Theft
Depending on how you store them, crypto can still be hacked and stolen and that includes NFTs. However because it is a unique token unlike a Bitcoin, it would stick out like a sore thumb. The blockchain will show who it was stolen from and who holds it now. 

4. Safe from Deterioration
Mold, rust, rips, oxidation, most collectibles are super fragile and over time they deteriorate. Unless you decide to throw away the key, or a doomsday scenario where we lose all power and internet access otherwise your NFT will be here forever. 

5. Ease of display
What's the point of owning something cool without being able to show it off? Someone somewhere probably has cool collections but without knowing the person and physically visiting them, I would never be able to see it. With NFTs you can share it, invite people to your own virtual galleries, I assume frame them on a digital frame as well. 

Yes there is a lot of hype with NFTs at the moment, and I do think some of the prices are way inflated, but once the dust settles, and people grow into the idea of NFTs, I really think they are here to stay. 

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