[Phenom Poker] Official Thread
Welcome to the official thread for Phenom Poker! My name is Michael Dunlap and I am part of the Phenom team, focusing on
"Also, ideally you don't want support to have to be good."
This made me chuckle. Reminds me of the movie Tommy Boy, "why would somebody put a guarantee on a box?"
Anyways, as for the contracts, I'll readily admit I'm a noob in that area. I know we can't use regular currency if we want to operate in and around the US. I personally have been playing since Day 1 and love the fact I can pull my funds at any time, for any reason, and have it in my personal wallet in minutes, sell it, and have it in cash in my bank account in a day or so. Is it perfect? No, but it's much easier than folks think.
You made good points about hype, as you continue to, but I'll tell you why I think the site warrants it.
1. Mixed games are vastly underrepresented in the online poker ecosystem. You mentioned Kings Club, which is fine if you want to play a 60/120 here and there, but that's basically it. They're not putting any resources into that site and haven't in years.
2. The value of compounded rakeback. You talked about how it skews towards established players that hold. Let's look at an example of a player who started May 12th, less than two months ago. If they earned $50 in rakeback that week (at 0.93 PHNM, that's 53.76 tokens), PHNM is now at 1.93, making those tokens worth $103.75. That's more than a 100% increase.
3. There's no site where you can play all of the different games, and tournaments, and soon Private Rooms and Chinese Poker. We're centralizing what everyone is asking for in the poker world.
For what it's worth, I appreciate your candor and your passion around this. It's clear you've been around and having your opinion (even if it's contrarian at times) is valuable to me. Let's keep chatting and figure out ways to make things better. We're both owners and can put things to a vote if we land on something specific!
1. I agree, Kings died and rightfully so, invite-only agent model is nut-worst, crypto is better, if it works.
2. I understand how it works, but let's be honest, the random rec goes broke within the week and then uses the RB each week to get back into action, if it is enough. Meanwhile the winners and rich get richer. Good for us, I'm holding a few hundred right now myself, but it ain't great for the eco system and is a reason why Stars' model died and GG created PVI.
3. SWC used to be that but admittedly they squandered their lead very impressively.
I understand that I may come off as overly critical, but I have made a living off online poker for the last 20 years. I have seen it all, seen PartyPoker falter with UIGEA, got 5 digits stuck on FTP, saw the fall of Stars to Amaya, witnessed the hourly $25ks on GG, been playing with crypto for longer than most, saw the rise of the apps and clubs. I've been burned too many times before and I am now too seasoned to be captivated by hype. But while I myself am towards the tail end of my poker career, I do genuinely wish for it to be a path to freedom for future generations.
It could be Phenom. But my opinion remains that odds are stacked against it as long as they hold onto faulty contracts for operations. It's just not friction less and user friendly enough.
true
@PhenomMike an idea...why not merge Phenom Poker with SWC Poker?
both only crypto, both offer all variants of poker, both struggle with traffic
Unfortunately, we live in an era where online poker is restricted in many countries around the world, making it much less popular and accessible than it was in our twenties in the 2000s.
Does it make sense to open a new poker room with little traffic today?
Isn't it better to join forces with other similar rooms?
just my 2 cents
"Also, ideally you don't want support to have to be good."This made me chuckle. Reminds me of the movie Tommy Boy, "why would somebody put a guarantee on a box?" Anyways, as for the contracts, I'll readily admit I'm a noob in that area. I know we can't use regular currency if we want to operate in and around the US. I personally have been playing since Day 1 and love the fact I
You still don't get it and you are not learning anything as we go lols. This is like Galfond's poker site all over again ...
1. I agree, Kings died and rightfully so, invite-only agent model is nut-worst, crypto is better, if it works.2. I understand how it works, but let's be honest, the random rec goes broke within the week and then uses the RB each week to get back into action, if it is enough. Meanwhile the winners and rich get richer. Good for us, I'm holding a few hundred right now myself, but
I agree on the recs. One of the first things I brought up is how the model is slanted towards high-limit players (and ultimately, the winners). Rich get richer, as you noted. I argued that the bottom and middle stakes players will have next to zero power if and when votes are brought up, since the vast majority of tokens will belong to nosebleed stake players, employees and ambassadors. Their priorities DO NOT match the average player. I also argued that the system should do a better job catering to losing players, but was told that's "predatory."
The fact is, the site is run by current and former high-limit poker players, who view things through that lens. These are the folks who had Supernova status at Stars, and while that's amazing, it's not representative of the folks that are needed to create a monster poker site. Again, my own opinion, not shared by the powers that be.
WHAT DO WE WANT? LESS RAKE! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!
You asked, you got it. We've reduced rake across the board, check out all the details here:
TOURNAMENT GUARANTEES ARE HERE
We had to iron out some bugs once tournaments got launched, and we've done just that. Now, let's put our foot on the gas. Coming Thursday, August 7th at 2pm ET, we're launching our first guaranteed tournament, a $2000 guaranteed NLH10 tournament.
Use this code to get a juicy deposit bonus: https://play.phenompoker.com/register?r=...
I agree on the recs. One of the first things I brought up is how the model is slanted towards high-limit players (and ultimately, the winners). Rich get richer, as you noted. I argued that the bottom and middle stakes players will have next to zero power if and when votes are brought up, since the vast majority of tokens will belong to nosebleed stake players, employees and amb
The fact is they will fail, just like the other site ran by those same "high limit poker players" ... your site is pretty much guaranteed to fail like Galfonds
I agree on the recs. One of the first things I brought up is how the model is slanted towards high-limit players (and ultimately, the winners). Rich get richer, as you noted. I argued that the bottom and middle stakes players will have next to zero power if and when votes are brought up, since the vast majority of tokens will belong to nosebleed stake players, employees and amb
Ya but these nose bleed games are bringing in more players. I have noticed a lot more new faces. We also hit that guarantee yesterday.
The more players, the more evenly the tokens will be distributed. Hopefully, collectively, the mass number of players will hold a larger majority of the vote
Never build expectations on high stakes games. They never last. This is a nice bump but it's almost certain it's temporary.
In general, with the new rake deduction, things ARE moving in the right direction tho.
If you're on the fence, get off the damn fence and get in the game. Site revenue continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Admittedly, NLH is lagging behind, but if you're interested in mixed games and the PLO variants (PLO5, PLO6, PLO/8), from micro to nosebleed stakes, you need to check out Phenom.
"How does it work?"
When you earn rakeback, you get paid in PHNM tokens. You can exchange these tokens at any time for USDT and take your rakeback immediately, OR you can hold them as the price of PHNM rises and watch your investment grow. Here's an example:
Let's say you joined the site April 1st, when the PHNM price was 0.89. In that week, let's assume you earned a modest 50 in rakeback.
50 USDT rakeback at 0.89 = 55.5 tokens
As the PHNM price rises, the value of your tokens rise. Today, the value of PHNM is 2.51. Those tokens would now be worth 139.30. That's 178.6% rakeback!
In 2025, the year of our Lord, you won't find another place to get anywhere near that rakeback.
"Looks like I already missed the boat."
The site hasn't even started to pay to market the tournament schedule. Multiple games are being introduced soon, including bomb pots, double board, Chinese Poker and more. No propaganda here -- the site's numbers are increasing across the board. Does the $2k/4k game create a lot of revenue? Of course, but every other limit is growing, the player pool is growing and the team has a litany of levers they've yet to pull. Join the revolution, now!
Get 100% up to 2000 USDT by signing up here: https://play.phenompoker.com/register?r=...
This is not propaganda.
You think you will get 100% cashback, playing, fighting and get nothing.
Its lagging. So we didnt stolen your money.
Its lagging. So its not our problem.
It will be better. Maybe..
Its Phenom!
There’s just no traffic on here for games majority of ppl play (100,200nl and 100,200plo)
I understand the mixed games is catering to specific crowd but it’s just way too niche to ever get this site off the ground. Gotta cater to the masses first with low and mid stakes NL and PLO if you want this site to gain any market share.
the average person who's willing to transact with this type of interface tends to be higher buyin, niche game player. if you want to play small/mid stakes NL/PLO there are so many better options with less friction. is what it is imo.
There’s just no traffic on here for games majority of ppl play (100,200nl and 100,200plo)
I understand the mixed games is catering to specific crowd but it’s just way too niche to ever get this site off the ground. Gotta cater to the masses first with low and mid stakes NL and PLO if you want this site to gain any market share.
How can they cater to them? They're offering games people either show up and play or they don't. I'm not sure what else they could do to cater these people to come and play these games.
the average person who's willing to transact with this type of interface tends to be higher buyin, niche game player. if you want to play small/mid stakes NL/PLO there are so many better options with less friction. is what it is imo.
And while those players are strapped for options, even their patience may just run out eventually.
In my opinion, there is too much effort put into MTTs and new features and not enough into making the existing experience somewhat enjoyable. Maybe I'm in the minority here but I couldn't give a **** about bomb pots as long as filters, timebanks and sitouts aren't fixed.
Unfortunately, I have to issue a very stark warning with regards to this site now:
Mere chat violations can cause you to lose access to your funds, indefinitely.
For reference, all I said that "this ****" will break games by continously max tanking and then having an argument with the chat mod.
I have been playing online poker for 20 years, never heard of a site that will restrict your account and WALLET access over chat issues. Temporary chat bans, yes. This however is so far beyond the scale of being reasonable that I have severe doubts the team is able to run the site in a professional fashion. The subsequent e-mail chain has confirmed that doubt, Douglas seems unable to follow a train of thought.
Caution while playing here.
Where did they say that you would lose your funds?
That's not what I'm saying, but you lose access to it (as you cannot log in). Again, That's so highly unusual that I suspect this chat mod (new hire) is power tripping and didnt know/discuss with more senior and knowledgeable members of the team. Very worrying for a new player on the scene regardless.
They have said countless times that it is your wallet and they can't access it.
I get the main way to access your wallet is through the site... but I don't think they can restrict access to it. It's through privy.io. The site just facilitates the process of setting up smart contracts from your wallet to the table so you can play.
There must be a way to access your wallet through privy.io if you are restricted from accessing it.
Yes, I read your inquiry in their discord. While technically correct, even their main guy doesn't know how you would gain access to your wallet through them. Additionally, that means you are now trusting another third party that is barely disclosed.
I'll just leave an old jmo thread on this:
Yes, I read your inquiry in their discord. While technically correct, even their main guy doesn't know how you would gain access to your wallet through them. Additionally, that means you are now trusting another third party that is barely disclosed.I'll just leave an old jmo thread on this:
Best advice is don't chat I guess.
Yeah, I remember reading these tweets... and they are from a year ago, almost to the day.
Interesting to read them again now that Phenom has been up since October 2024. It does make me wonder if my USDT could be frozen.
He also says he that he advises against anyone playing high stakes... there has been nose bleed games running regularly on the site.
I have not seen ****ycakes say anything about Phenom in recent days.
Also, if anyone is concerned about their USDT in their Phenom Wallet, since it's on polygon and gas is pennies, you can transfer your funds to a personal wallet after your sessions.
And while those players are strapped for options, even their patience may just run out eventually.
In my opinion, there is too much effort put into MTTs and new features and not enough into making the existing experience somewhat enjoyable. Maybe I'm in the minority here but I couldn't give a **** about bomb pots as long as filters, timebanks and sitouts aren't fixed.
I really don't know what else you guys would want from the site. They're already dealing cards in a way to keep the game as even as possible. I have never played a site in 20 years where you see so many coolers. I don't care if it's heads up three people at a table four people it doesn't make a difference you play 200 hands here and you see 10 coolers in 200 hand sample every time. And you guys are complaining they don't have filters they don't. Be happy that they're dealing cards like this so the game will be as even as possible for you guys because there's no chance any losing players could ever win unless a site does something like this. I mean you guys are so picky about things that shouldn't even matter when the real scenario is they're dealing cards in a way to help you lose slower. Which they have to do as a new site because if they don't the winners would crush and there's not enough people on the site to keep the volume going. I mean the software is great in my opinion but the random number generator to me is sketchy as hell
mumbo jumbo
I have not seen ****ycakes say anything about Phenom in recent days.
Also, if anyone is concerned about their USDT in their Phenom Wallet, since it's on polygon and gas is pennies, you can transfer your funds to a personal wallet after your sessions.
Careful, you can get banned for 24 hours if you say his twitter handle!
And yes, that's what I am doing now, withdraw after every table. The fact that high stakes have been running doesn't imply safety of any sorts, those people are extraordinarily careless about game- and site safety on occasion if the spot feels worth it.
jmo is very OG when it comes to this stuff and while he is at times disagreeable in nature, I trust him when it comes to this stuff - and I agree with the competency part.
