Congrats to Zynga Poker player Jessica who is featured in this week's Play of the Day! We picked Jessica's hand out of hundreds of submissions we got from a recent survey on the Zynga Poker fan page.
Zynga Poker lead game designer Shawn Carnes, who is an amateur poker player, gives feedback on Jessica's video this week who took home a big win with a full house. Big wins are great, but we're here to find out how to turn them into even bigger victories.
Jessica is playing at a nine-person table and in early middle position, limping in with a K-5 of hearts.
A K-5 suited loses against so many other hands, especially at a 9-person table. Ace-rag (a low-value card) will beat that right out of the gate. You need to be very careful if a flush appears because a player with an ace-rag suited will also beat you.
"If you're coming in with K-5, why not raise to $1,200 (1.5X big blind)? Why not make other people at the table think you have something that you really don't?" said Shawn. "I bet you anything that if you showed a little aggression here, you may have knocked out the people who posted their blinds coming into the pot."
How would you play a K-5 suited at a crowded table? Do you go with Jessica's conservative move pre-flop or show some aggression like Shawn suggests to take control of the board?
We frequently get questions asking if Zynga Poker is rigged or favors certain players. We want to assure everyone that Zynga Poker's shuffling is random.
To make sure the game is fair to everybody, we use the Fisher-Yates shuffling algorithm, a best-in-class algorithm for producing a random shuffle.
Whenever we make changes to the game, like new features that could affect the quality of the shuffle, we audit the resulting hands dealt to make sure they are random. For example, we make sure that every seat has an equal chance of getting any particular set of hole cards on any given hand.
Our shuffling and dealing algorithms have no knowledge of and are thus indiscriminate to the players involved in any particular hand. There is no favoritism or edge given to any player based on his or her status, level, or chip stack. Everyone has the same opportunity to have luck on their side.
Still not convinced? We often hear from players asking why are there so many royal flushes or why are there more big hands in Zynga Poker than in other poker situations?
This is just a common misconception, as these hand are naturally more memorable. Also, there are more hands being played and at a much faster rate, which statistically drives up the number of big and amazing wins.
Our tables hold up to 9 players at once which means 23 of the 52 possible cards will be in play at any given time, that's almost half the deck! So now you know the truth about Zynga Poker.
As poker pro Phil Hellmuth says, "Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck."
Now let's play some poker and may luck be on your side!
In Position Poker, there are two buttons. The dealer button determines the blinds and the deal and the winner's button is given to the player who last won the pot. The player who holds the winner's button acts after the dealer.
"I have had experience playing position poker, so I figured any sort of advantage, no matter how minor, was worth my time," Carnes said. "I'm not a pro, but I was definitely there to play poker."
Carnes put his Zynga Poker play to good use. He waited patiently to make an epic move against the chip leader, Nicolas Fraioli, who is the poker tournament director of the prestigious Aviation Club in France.
As Carnes recalled, Fraioli was playing very loose and aggressive and just "pissing people off. He definitely had the reputation at the table as the crazy gun."
Carnes had pocket 4s and used that opportunity to take on Fraioli who had roughly 70% of the chips.
Fraioli had won the previous hand and had the winner's button. Carnes was out of position against him and raised 3x the big blind. Fraioli raised and Carnes called.
The flop revealed 9-8-4 in different suits. Carnes, with a set of 4s, checked. Fraioli bet 50% of the pot. Carnes returned with a big re-raise that Fraioli called. Everyone else at the table folded.
A miracle card on the turn revealed a 4. Carnes had quads!!! Both players checked at the turn.
The river was a 7, meaning at best Fraioli could have a full house, "but most likely I thought he was representing a straight," said Carnes.
In a move to intimidate his opponent, the chip leader shoved all-in. Carnes stood his ground and called. Fraioli revealed K-7 of diamonds.
"He was really surprised when I showed him the quads," Carnes said. "I was setting him up. I knew the way to beat a good player like Fraili was to lull him into a trap and show him the goods.
If felt good, but what really sealed the deal were the pros at the table saying, 'That was a sick hand. Good job.' I was the amateur dude at the table. It felt great to play against pros."
The only thing that is better than 50% more chips is 50% more chips plus a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas.
Get 50% more chips with any purchase on Zynga Poker today from your mobile device, on Facebook, or Zynga.com and you will automatically be entered into the Vegas sweepstakes, which includes a three-day, two-night trip for two. There will even be a limo to greet you when you land in Sin City. (See official rules here.)
If you love chips and Vegas as much as we do, you best act now because the sweepstakes will end May 13.
I want to first thank everyone for watching my weekly Play of the Day and all the great comments and feedback you have given.
A lot of you have told me I suck. And you know what? I do suck. That's the whole point, right?
I'm not a dude trying to be a poker pro. We released Play of the Day to let people like you and me who are big poker fans have a chance to talk about poker hands.
Like most of you, I don't have access or the opportunity to talk about my hands on TV like the pros do. Play of the Day is a chance for Zynga Poker players to get in on some of the action. Pcitures say a 1,000 words, and being able to visualize your poker hand and talk about poker is what this is really all about.
In this week's play, I won with a top pair. But I'm not sure I made the right move. I'd love to get your feedback on how you would play this hand.
I'm pretty confident until the turn hits, which pairs the board with an 8. I have to assume my opponent could have trip 8s.
For those who are new to poker, trips are different than a set. Trips are when you have a 3-of-a-kind with 1 hole card and 2 cards on the board or there is a 3-of-a-kind on the board. A set means you have a pocket pair with a matching card to complete your 3-of-a-kind.
My opponent makes a bet that's less than 10% of a $2 million pot. I wonder if he is trying to go for a spade draw. This move is called a semi-bluff because he's betting that he is representing something that he doesn't have but hopes that he can draw into.
I'm not convinced that he has trip 8s or a flush and I'm willing to make a big bet to push him all in. I have top pair and I'm representing absolute strength. Though I win the pot because my opponent ultimately folds, I'm not entirely sure I made the right move.
When it gets down to two players in a tournament and you're at a disadvantage, you need to look for premium hands to make your move. But having a good hand isn't a guarantee of winning. Sometimes it depends on what your opponent does.
PRE-FLOP: I'm down to the final 2 players of a $10,000,000 chip Sit'n'Go. My opponent has a 2:1 chip advantage. The way the blinds are structured, I have just a little over 10 big blinds left.
In this particular Play of the Day, I luck out with an Ace Queen (AQ) offsuit. I have a good hand. When you’re in a heads up situation like that, a huge range of hands suddenly becomes very playable for you.
My opponent basically limps in and calls the blind. But I’m not going to let him get off that cheap. If you feel you have the advantage over your opponent, you want to punish them for calling you. In this particular case, I have no reason to think that my opponent has anything stellar because they simply limped in, so I raise and they call.
FLOP: This is an amazing flop (2-2-Q). I have top pair. In fact I have 2 pairs with an ace kicker. I feel like I'm in really good shape.
If my opponent has a 2, I feel very sad. But he called my raise pre-flop. I have no way of putting him on anything other than a queen. But if he has a queen, I have the ace kicker. I feel really good about this hand.
I check because I'm acting first, and I feel I can get more information and see what he does. Sure enough, he bets out $200.
$200 into a $1200 pot with so many chips is really a probe bet. He’s making a bet to see whether or not I hit that. I call the flop.
My plan is if he does another squirrely bet like that at the turn, I’m probably going to spring on him.
THE TURN: A queen! That's huge for me. I check and he bets out a small bet again. That's like an 8:1 bet into a $1,600 chip pot. I might as well seal the deal here, but I don't want to scare him off.
I make a raise of $800 into a $1800 chip pot now.That’s a big raise for what he bet out. But I want to tell him that I have something.
It gets interesting now. In a million years I would not have expected him to re-raise here. I honestly don't know what he is thinking. If he has a queen, we're going to chop the pot because we both have a full house. Maybe he has 3-2 suited, but I'm more than happy to just do another bump.
Sure enough he pushed me all in, and I call.
THE RIVER: The 3 is irrelvant. My opponent has a 2-8 offsuit. He had 2s over queens, and I had queens over 2s. That's a tough position for him to be in.
More than anything else, this was less about me making the right move and my opponent making a bad move, which started with the pre-flop.
A 2-8 offsuit is the second worst hand in poker. This doesn't matter if there are 9 players or 2 players at the table. Limping in is a bad move. It's a chip leak. People often put money into a pot as a small blind thinking, 'I have a 3-9 offsuit, but this only cost $100 into an $800 pot. Who knows, something magical can happen.'
Chances are with a 3-9 offsuit, nothing magical is going to happen. One of the best things a player can learn to do is fold your hand. If your hand is stinky, and you're up against 5 other players, fold!
You know what happens next hand? You get a brand new set of cards and you can try something with those.
All good things must come to an end in order to make way for even better things. We are phasing out the feature that asks you to accomplish goals like “get more buddies” or “install game bar”.
The Zynga Poker team is actively reviewing every part of the game to make it better. Sometimes that means removing features that no longer serve their purpose.
Many of our community think it’s time to let go of this feature. We agree with you and appreciate your feedback, so let’s take a moment of silence to say goodbye to “Complete the steps to win the race.”
Here’s to new and improved features that make Zynga Poker the best poker game around!
The three most important thing about poker are: position, position, position. Being able to act last as the button lets you get a slew of information.
As many poker professionals have said, poker is a game about making decision on incomplete information. If you are the first to take action, you're acting with less information than your opponents.
PRE-FLOP: In this particular example I am playing a $10k/$20k regular table with eight other players. As the button, I get the luxury of seeing callers before me. I'm face with AK suited, and that's a really strong hand. I want to lead and raise six times the big blind because I had 2 players limp in before me. This was a big bet, but it wasn't a bingo play (shoving all-in).
Honestly, I love playing against bingo players. It can be very frustrating for you to get in the best of it with a bingo player. You need to continue playing good solid poker and wait for a premium hand. Chances are you're going to beat bingo players on average more than they are going to beat you because they typically go all-in with a less than a premium hand.
Now back to my hand! My $120,000 chip bet forces the blinds who limped in to make a $100,000 chip bet in order to stick around and play with me. If they're making that sort of call, I'm happy to play with my AK suited.
Four players are going in.
FLOP: This flop - a rainbow 6-7-K - is a really sad flop for me. It's time to turn those lemons into lemonade.
There's a standard move when you make a raise pre-flop. You want to follow up with a bet after the flop, also known as a continuation bet. What you're doing is continuing the story that you have the best hand.
Now there are 2 things you’re going to see here in action. I can see that all three of my opponents checked. So that tells me one of two things. They are waiting to see what I am going to do or they didn’t necessarily hit the board. I make a raise of $260,000 chips because I'm making a claim to the pot.
Telling the story is very important. When you make your actions, you are trying to sell the players at the table on something. Here I'm saying, 'I have this pot right now. Are you guys going to stick around? You want to punish your opponent for trying to draw.
I'm making a big bet that I'm representing that I have the king. It's very helpful in this instance to make a continuation bet onto a board that has a big card like that – the king. (Lemonade!) The big raise I did pre-flop makes people think I have pocket kings, king/queen, or ace/king. Definitely king something.
Because the players at the table haven’t played with me that long, when they see a bet like that, they have to make the assumption that I have the best hand at the table.
If you start disbelieving all the betting actions of every one that you play against, you’re going to be out of the chips really quickly. You’re going to consistently lose because nine times out of ten in Zynga Poker when someone makes a substantitve bet, chances are they have that. And that’s thepower of the continuation bet.
60 Million Fans! Today we are proud to announce that we have reached 60 Million Facebook Fans across the world. Our heartiest thank you goes out to each one of our fans for your continued loyalty and support. It would have not been possible without each and every one of you. As we continue to our next milestone of 70 Million Fans, we look forward to getting to know you better, having exciting sweepstakes, promotions, fan gifts, events, and new poker features throughout the year. Thank you for being a fan of Zynga Poker and connecting with us. You would be the absolute nuts if you were a poker hand, the best hand possible.
To celebrate this huge milestone and thank our fans, we are giving free rainbow dice to all of our fans today. Click here to get your free collectible dice! We look forward to seeing you on the tables. From the entire Zynga Poker Team, we are wishing you the best of luck and skill, both on and off the table.
Did you know that 60 Million…
Zynga Poker Facebook Fans Rock
Zynga Poker Fans are from all over the world
Is close to the size of country of Italy
Is how many miles the planet Mercury is from the Sun
Pennies for your thoughts would be $600,000
Miles could allow you to travel around the earth 2,400 times
People would fill up over 1000 Sports Stadiums
Would account for almost the number of 52 card decks sold each annually
Is double the number of visitors to Vegas annually
Is 23 times higher than the total number of hand possibilities in a 52 card deck
Equals the number of minutes in 114 years
Is a pretty epic chip stack
Our 60 Million Facebook Fans have a place to enjoy playing poker with friends…
Far from it, actually – in Texas Hold ‘em, you should only be getting involved in roughly 20% of the hands you get dealt. That said, having Pocket Rockets is no guarantee that you’ll win after the flop, turn, and river hit the board. Sometimes, you get a bad beat put on you.
Play of the Day not only captures great victories, but every so often it also picks up on those hands where your very good hand is beaten by an even better hand. Sometimes you get trounced on the river when your opponent hits that one-outer. Sometimes you were behind from the start but never knew it. That’s poker, and telling the story of poker would be incomplete without showing those bad beats.
PRE-FLOP: It’s early in a $1,000,000 Sit-N-Go, and I don’t have much information on anyone yet. One person has been booted already who decided that going all in pre-flop with J-3 offsuit was a good call. I love playing against bingo players like that, but unfortunately I didn’t have the hand needed to make a stand. Blinds are 10/20, and I’m two off the button.
I have 2-2 – a pair of ducks! Honestly, two deuces aren’t that stellar here. Sure, I’m leading against hands that are not a pair, but it’s a very slim lead. In fact, I’m a very slight underdog heads-up against A-K suited if I don’t hold any of my opponent’s suits.
Still, I want to see a flop on the cheap, looking for my set. UTG (Under the Gun – the first player to act) limps in for 20, as does the player to my right. For me, that’s a fair price to see what happens next, so I call. If the raises start flying, I’m going to back out.
No one calls ahead of me, and the blinds bring in the action. I’ll actually be last to act after the flop, which is great position to make some moves if I can.
FLOP: It’s the Flop of the Beast: 6-6-6! I have a full house, but it’s the weakest of all the full houses possible. If I am going to win this hand, I need to win it right now. All four players behind me check, and this lets me make a bit of a move here. I jam 80 into a pot of 100, which is a good-sized bet. Any pocket pair beats me, but my bet is hopefully selling the story that I have a bigger piece of the board than I actually have.
Everyone folds until the player to my right pushes all in for 100 (call of 80 and 20 more to put him in). That was a great move on his part, and I was lucky he didn’t have more chips. He check-raised me, and that is a powerful move when you are out of position like my opponent was. If he shoves all in before I act, it gives me a chance to fold and get out of the way. Unfortunately for him, he was low on chips. It’s a very easy call of 20 into a pot of 280 to see how badly I’m beat.
Quads beat a full house the last time I checked – so much so that I’m actually dead.
The TURN and RIVER are irrelevant… though the T on the river is an especially poignant poke in the eye. I have the third best hand with just two people playing.
In my opinion, he should not have limped in pre-flop with a horrible hand like that, but he hit his board and he gets paid. It’s easy to say after the fact that I would have folded facing a check-raise of more than 20, but again that check-raise says a lot. He wanted to set a trap for me, and he sprang it. If I don’t respect that kind of move when it is played, there’s a great chance I’ll be losing more than what I did.
Capture your awesome hands with Play of the Day. I'll see you at the tables!
