Back during the peak of the poker boom, it was oh, so easy to start an online poker site. Ok, maybe “easy” is a bit of an exaggeration, but for the most part, all someone needed to get up and running was some start-up cash and a willing network. And there were plenty of willing networks looking to hand out skins to whomever wanted one.
Nowadays, it’s not quite so simple, especially in the United States. In this country, if you’re just an entrepreneur, you can’t get into the real-money online poker game in the three states where it is regulated. That privilege is reserved for land-based casinos and their software provider partners. Even in other countries, where markets are a bit more open, it’s not the free-wheeling land grab that it used to be. So, if someone wants to get involved, they need to get creative.
Enter the start-up Sponge Poker, led by founder and CEO Alex Kim. Now, Sponge Poker isn’t a real-money online poker site, rather, it’s a free-to-play social poker site on Facebook. Billed as “the most realistic online poker game ever created,” Sponge Poker aims to find a balance between casual players who just want to hop on for a few minutes and find a friendly game and more seasoned enthusiasts who take their poker seriously. While being free-to-play, Sponge Poker claims that free chips also won’t be “limitless,” supposedly preventing all-in-fests like can often be encountered on other play money sites.
Sponge Poker has also developed its own software. It is fairly limited at this point, though it is attractive and runs smoothly. The unique aspect of the interface right now is that players can see what their opponents are doing before an action is even taken, thus supposedly making it possible to see people’s tells. The way this is done is through the betting system. Rather than being able to just type in a number of chips to bet, there is a graphic representation of chip stacks. Bets are selected by highlighting the chips and then pressing the bet or raise buttons (there are also preset bet buttons, like “pot” and “all”). While a player is dragging their mouse to select chips, everyone else can see the person’s potential bet increasing or decreasing. In my limited experience with the game play, I did not notice if my opponent hovered his mouse over the check or fold buttons; the only “tells” I saw were when he was changing his bet size.
The betting mechanics are a bit clumsy, though they work. It might be hard for seasoned players to get used to not being able to type in a bet figure. Additionally, the way the software indicates a raise amount is a little awkward: if, for instance, the blinds were $5/10 and I raised pre-flop to $30, a raise of $20 was shown. This is technically correct, of course, but most players are used to seeing the software show a raise to $30, rather than just a raise of $20. Also, every opening bet on a street is called a raise, which is not correct, though this isn’t particularly important.
The player base of Sponge Poker is extremely small right now; Facebook shows fewer than 100 people having installed the app and fewer than 700 have “liked” it. In order to grow the site, Sponge Poker management has taken to the crowdfunding site indiegogo.com to raise money. With 15 days left on the campaign timer, just $285 has been raised, with an ultimate goal of $300,000. The money will be used to pay the development team and contractors as well as for marketing of the site in order to attract more players.
Sponge Poker is currently running an interesting promotion which gives players a chance to win real money using just their play chips. Rather than the typical system in which real money is given away in free tournaments or raffles, players on Sponge Poker can win $10 just by doing well in cash games. Everyone starts with $1,000 in play money. Anyone who runs that up to $11,000 (for a $10,000 profit) will receive $10 via PayPal.
Overall, Sponge Poker looks promising, particularly if the company can implement new features to make it a bit more robust. Hopefully more players will find out about it and hop on the tables.
