When you think about professional players discovering online poker and diving headfirst into the game back in the day, sites like Planet Poker, PokerStars, and, later, Full Tilt Poker likely come to mind. For CoinPoker Ambassador Gary Blackwood, however, the poker bug took hold in the free-to-play Zynga Poker games on Facebook. While others were posting vacation photo albums, Blackwood was grinding the play-money games. From there, he graduated to penny stakes and worked to improve his game before eventually making the leap into the professional domain.
PokerOrg spoke with Blackwood about his personal poker journey and the importance CoinPoker places on game security and trust. You can watch the full interview above and find selected highlights below.
I started playing poker probably around 13 or 14 years ago. I was a recreational player for a while – we all were. I started playing on Facebook for play money and then that descended into playing for penny stakes with friends online. I met a friend of a friend who was a professional at the time and bombarded him with questions and started to get a little better at the game.
Eventually, I took a humongous leap of faith and quit my job with a small bankroll and a dream. Somehow, I was able to make it to where we are today.
What exactly is it about CoinPoker that attracted you to their site?
Honestly, as poker players, we look after number one and the most important thing for me is that I want to play in poker games that are good games. CoinPoker has good games. There are recreational players, there are regulars who are not as tough as the regulars on other sites, and, above all, there's traffic.
When you play mid-stakes cash, you can't really just play on one site – you need to have two, three, four different sites to play on. I wouldn't add a site to my list if I could only get one table going.
CoinPoker is growing. It's not quite at the stage where I can play all my action there, but it could well be that one day.
Right now, the growth aspect is probably the most important thing for CoinPoker, right? You've got to build the player base.
Very much so and they're doing all the right things. They're signing a lot of high-profile ambassadors in the game of poker – guys like Patrick Leonard and Mario Mosbock – the list goes on. They're also signing big names outside of poker, like the Brazilian UFC fighter Paulo Costa and boxers Carl Froch and George Groves, which obviously helps to grow the game of poker.
They've also got that Proof of Reserves – some people might be skeptical of playing on a website like CoinPoker because of x, y, z – but they've got this proof that people's money is safe and no one's going to lose any money. Obviously, security is very important to poker players.
They're growing the brand, the site, and ensuring that there are enough players. They're doing all the right things. It's very encouraging so far.
You can follow Gary on X and YouTube.
Image Courtesy of Eloy Cabacas/Rational Intellectual Holdings Limited
