Get Started With Bitcoin Poker
Bitcoin poker is online poker using Bitcoins instead of dollars or euros etc. The big advantages are that it's quick and anonymous. It's not hard to deposit coins into your poker account, and normally you don't need to produce documentation in order to withdraw. And the rake on Bitcoin poker sites is usually lower than elsewhere as well.
Finallly, it seems like a lot of the people playing on Bitcoin poker sites know more about Bitcoins than they do about poker, which means profits for you.
Set Up A Wallet
Nowadays the easiest way to go is to set up an online wallet. There are many to choose from, and all of them let you move coins in and out of your account quickly. Here are a few of the most popular:
Pick one and set up an online wallet for yourself. You will get a new account, with some Bitcoin addresses. Don't worry, if you want to use a different wallet in the future you can move your coins to it easily. The important piece of information right now is your receiving address, which will be a long string of numbers and letters like this:
1Eo9e3ekcGksELjq8rUkcQN9BtyWvkNxAF
The address above is one of my receiving addresses - any coins sent to that address will go into my account. It is basically like an account number, but it can only be used to receive coins. As you can see, publicly posting your receiving addresses is perfectly secure. The address above can only receive coins, not send them, so no one do anything bad with it. You will have a receiving address of your own once you set up a wallet. That is the address that you will send your coins to once you buy some.
Get Coins Into Your Wallet
There are many ways to do this. Rather than rehash the subject, have a look at the Bitcoin Wiki's list of options for buying BTC: Buying Bitcoins
Sign Up For Poker!
If you are waiting for funds to become available, now is a good time to sign up for some poker sites. Most of them offer regular freerolls, so you can try them out without any money.
SwC is still the biggest Bitcoin poker site. It is well-known and popular. Freerolls are conducted every hour on the hour so sign up and get in there now!
This is a new site still in beta. Not much action yet. On the plus side, the freerolls have very few players at the moment, and it's easy to pick up some free chips..
Another new site, not many players yet. The lobby software is more mature and the game interface has more options than other bitcoin sites, but it is still a bit clunky. Freerolls are less frequent than on SwC or BitsPoker.
