Since news of the launch Phenom Poker, a new crypto-based poker platform, first broke earlier this year it seems like more and more players have been seen wearing the brand’s purple patch at the tables. Justin Young and Sergio Aido, above, are just two among many.
Ring games of various stakes finally went live at the site earlier today, with several hold’em, Omaha and mixed game tables in action even during the morning hours. It’s not even ‘early days’ for Phenom Poker - more like ‘early day’ - but the new operator already has an ambitious roadmap of future features including fast-fold poker, bad beat jackpots, run-it-twice options and OFC. And ahead of them all, of course, multi-table (MTTs) and Sit & Go (SnG) tournaments.
There is plenty to keep an eye on, then, and with a ‘Roadmap’ link available to all players, directly within the client, that’s easy to do. Clicking the link brings up a list of features, from ‘Launched’ to ‘Planned’ to ‘Under Consideration’, which players can vote and comment on, or even submit their own.
On a busy launch day, we caught up with Phenom Poker co-founder Matt Valeo to find out a little more about the newest kid on the block.
Congratulations on Day 1 of Phenom Poker. There are a few grayed-out options in the client at launch, most notably MTTs and SnGs. Do you have an idea of when they’ll be available?
We’re aiming for 60 days, they’re already under development. We have a whole slew of other features coming too - in the client we have a link to a product board where people can actually see the progress. We’ve already done a lot of different things, but tournaments are our biggest priority.
The Phenom Poker lobby includes a 'Roadmap' link at the top, with players able to read, submit and vote on new features.Are there any upcoming launch promotions you can discuss?
Nothing I can share right now, but I will say this: we are hard at work designing what we think will be some exciting options for when we put tournaments out there. That includes some aggressive freerolls, and different programs to incentivize the people that are already playing, for example tied to the tier system, giving people at different levels access to some cool freerolls right out of the gate.
We’re also looking at some step tournaments, and we’re also working at potential live partnerships as well, so we can get people to satellite into some different live events. There’s some other cool stuff too, but not that I can share right now.
Do you think the market is ready for a crypto-based site like Phenom Poker?
Do I think that our addressable market is every single person on Earth? No. But we’re in a different place than we were 5 or 6 years ago in terms of crypto adoption. I think a lot more people are getting more familiar with crypto, I think there’s a lot of people who can play on Day 1, but it’s also a bet on the future.
I think if you fast forward another 2 to 5 years, the number of people who will have exposure to crypto and familiarity with crypto will just continue to grow. We want to skate to where the puck is going, not necessarily where it’s been, or where it is right now.
That’s part of why we invested what we have in the architecture and infrastructure, really trying to be forward-thinking on a lot of this stuff.
Security is always a hot topic in online poker; what would you say to players to assure them Phenom Poker takes it seriously?
I want to be completely transparent - that’s core to our mission - but security is also one of those things where you can’t give a blueprint to people that are trying to game the system. There will always be people trying to cheat the system, it’s never going to stop - if there’s money at stake, there’s someone that’s going to be trying to get it illegitimately.
But I will say it’s extremely, extremely important to us and that’s why we’ve invested heavily in security, and in some of the most sophisticated methods. We’ve already seen around 1,300 accounts trying to register which have failed the KYC [Know Your Customer] process. We’ve already caught people trying to use forged IDs, mismatched things, people on blocklists, we’re seeing all kinds of stuff.
Some of our largest competitors, they don’t even KYC when you create an account, they don’t KYC until you cash out, and so the system is very easy to game because if they win they just transfer their funds to another player or an agent who gets the money out.
We’re looking at a lot of different things, from the time that players sign up to when they sit down and play, how many tables they play, how they behave, how often are they sharing an IP address with other players, the consistency of their playing styles. We’re looking at a lot of data that I think will help identify these issues. It helps that we have a lot of longtime poker people that are here helping to identify these issues, as well.
Speaking of longtime poker people, you have a lot of ambassadors already - will they be playing on the site?
It’s early in the day right now in the US where a lot of our ambassadors are, but I can tell you Alec Torelli is playing right now. I was talking to Ben Heath just yesterday, he’s excited to get some higher stakes games going; Big Huni [Chris Hunichen] has expressed an interest in playing regularly; Brian Rast is excited to play some of the bigger mixed stuff.
Our ambassadors aren’t just paid shills, these are people we have a relationship with, that we play poker with, and I think all of them are supporting the site because, just like me, they want somewhere to play.
