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. 

Cutthroat Poker Industry?

Of all my blog posts since 2015, this is the one that I might regret writing as some of my friends are still involved in the companies that I am writing about. However the purpose of this blog is to tell the real life journey of an aspiring poker player, trying to make a living however I can, and the experiences I had along the way. I would be a hypocrite if I just shared the warm fuzzy stories and hid the ugly ones. 

I have been an affiliate of many poker companies over the years, including PokerStars, FullTilt, Bet365 and Natural8. I joined Natural8 in 2016. At the height of my involvement I recruited 300+ players. I still remember meeting one of their representatives at a Macau casino to collect their All-in buttons and Dealer buttons which I put to use at two Hong Kong live poker clubs. Me and my friend proudly wore their badge at tournaments and my friend made the final table. Designed and printed business cards that I distributed wherever I played live poker. I even wrote 7 related articles on my blog. (now removed) I got active again recently prior to the WSOP 2019 but I just found out that my affiliate account was deleted in February 2021, even though I was still actively promoting the site. I guess I am upset and hurt by that decision after all my effort. Kudos though to their affiliate staff who wrote me a beautiful email and was very diplomatic in responding to my disappointment. I never made a lot of money from doing it but it was still nice to be able to check my players' progress from time to time and the occasional commission check here and there. To remove me completely like that for me feels really cutthroat. Just a comparison, I joined PokerStrategy.com as an affiliate in 2009, bringing them 1371 players. I logged into my affiliate account before writing this post and my account is still there, everything intact. 

In 2018 Upoker entered the poker industry basically a copy cat of PPPoker but was struggling to gain any traction. They offered me a position as their consultant and thanks to me, I came up with the idea of merging with an established poker union (AU) that was run by my friends. About a month after their agreement was signed, my services was no longer required even though I was promised an account management role. I felt really sore about it because without my ideas and network, they would have disappeared like many poker apps that came and gone. Instead of what Upoker is today and how their business has continued to evolve since. But I comforted myself knowing that my friends are benefiting from that success because of me. 

The last story you guys know very well already so I won't repeat the same details. Basically me and my friend built a poker club from nothing into a successful business. We were in the profits on day 4 of operations and never looked back. At the peak of our success we were raking $70,000-80,000 a month consistently. Not bad for a one-table club. 3 months in my friend was almost forcibly removed from the business. I should have seen it coming as I was too after 9 months. He was smarter than me to sell his shares and got out on his own terms. 

Me taking a nap at the poker club

I don't know if Poker is a more cutthroat business than others but I have not had similar experiences in any other industries. Everyone knows each other in this tight knit community and yet I have heard many stories of betrayal, misunderstandings, hostile takeovers, unsportsmanlike competition. As one guy once said (and I am super paraphrasing here), "in poker, no one remains friends forever, but no one remains enemies forever either". For now I am grateful that these are now in my past and hopefully I won't need to get involved anymore in the future. 

NeverLosePoker - REVIEW

Disclaimer: I am an official exclusive agent for NeverLosePoker in Malaysia and Hong Kong. However in all my poker room reviews (online or live) I am always honest and tell you exactly how I feel. Different people will have different experiences and I am only sharing mine.

NeverLose PC lobby

NeverLose is a skin of the J88 platform. I did play on J88's site a few months ago and now things are surprisingly much better. There are usually about 20-30 active tables especially at night. The app is smooth and easy to use, but I most prefer their PC version. It reminds me of the good old PokerStars days. You can easily tile or cascade your tables to multi-table like the good times. Bring out the Nanonoko in you.

Mobile version

The game has their own Game Points (GP) or Crystals, and the currency is USD 1 = 100 Crystals. Maybe that's why it does feel more like a game rather than a Poker site, but the advantage of that is you will have players that will play it like a game. You can buy and cash out your Crystals via your trusted agent. (like me) The platform was first introduced in Korea and have since spread to major markets like Taiwan, China, and Southeast Asia. I haven't played much of Holdem or Omaha on the site, but I love the OFC games there. I think there's a bunch of players that are hooked on the game playing $5, $10 even $20 a point. Let's just say my skill and experience has paid off well so far.

They also have MTTs and SNGs around the clock. It's a great place to hone your tournament skills and even make some money. There are some guaranteed events really worth your while. The next one is going to be on October 27th only USD 88 to join with a USD 30k guarantee.

Overall I like what they are trying to do. The marketing team is pushing hard to get the action going and they have attracted a whole bunch of recreational players on the system. The app has improved in leaps and bounds in just the last few months alone, and they will be introducing more games and MTT guarantees in the future.

For a limited time, I am offering new players a 25% CRYSTAL PURCHASE BONUS (T&C applies).

1. Go to neverlosepoker.com
2. Download your preferred platform
3. Create an account using the code POKER168
4. Contact me to make your Crystal purchase
5. Start playing!