Bold Poker 3 is available for iOS and Android today, bringing a sleek, professional-level experience to poker home games
Dealing and shuffling cards when playing poker with friends can be slow, annoying and error-prone. Bold Poker uses an iPad for the community cards as well as an iPhone or Android Phone for each player and turns them into an efficient, exciting and intelligent deck of poker cards. Meticulous attention to detail in interaction and design results in truly professional-level game experience, with much of the work and waiting of a normal home game removed. An iPad running the app displays the board cards. Moving the dealer button on the iPad, each player is instantly dealt a hand directly to their own phone. A single swipe on the iPad reveals the flop, the turn or the river. Bold Poker replaces only the logistics of dealing with the deck of cards; players still use physical chips to place bets.
“The focus on minimal functionality and elegant interaction is what makes Bold Poker so enjoyable and easy to use. A game is setup with a single touch on each device,” says Martin Kavalar, creator of Bold Poker and CEO of kater calling GmbH. “After a few hands, most players forget they are using an app. They are amazed by how many more rounds of gameplay they have when Bold Poker is in charge of dealing”
Bold Poker 3 introduces a brand-new “peek mode” for the players’ pocket cards. A player uses one hand to cover the screen and uses a finger to peek at their cards in the top left corner. Moving a finger all the way down reveals the cards completely. Folding is done by simply “throwing” the cards off the screen. These natural and intuitive gestures improve usability, allowing the app to do more: when a player shows all cards, the board and their cards rearrange to gracefully display the winning hand. Detailed attention was given to both the shuffling algorithm as well as the security of the game. Bold Poker implements the Fisher–Yates algorithm for unbiased shuffling, guaranteeing a uniform distribution of cards. Connections are TLS 1.2 encrypted with certificate pinning and perfect forward secrecy to ensure the game is secure and the players’ cards are kept private.
Trying out Bold Poker is easy. A fully functional free version can be used by all players. The only restriction is a five-minute break every 30 minutes. Removing the breaks costs $4.99 per night (for 24 hours) for the entire group of players. Any iOS device at the table can make the purchase.
kater calling GmbH is located in Berlin, Germany, where the team has developed online and mobile app card games for almost a decade. A strong focus on cutting-edge technology and attention to detail has led to half a million players around the world enjoying their games.