How Not to Lose Two-Thirds of your Chips in 1 Night

Play tournaments that cost 3% of your chips or less. If you prefer to play the game tables instead of tournaments, read the list below.

1. When you're not in a tournament, make sure you have a fixed amount of chips in your head that you are willing to part with. If you pass this amount, quit.
2. If you lose a lot of chips on a table and go to a more expensive table to recover your chips, quit when you recover them.
3. If you lose a lot of chips on a table, go to a more expensive table and lose more, refer to #1.
4. If you are on a 'big table' and are surrounded by players with millions more chips than you, win early then leave, or just leave.
5. If you think you are having an unlucky night, end it early.

I was once warned by a friend that Zynga's Texas Holdem game has a tendency to favour players with the most chips. I was not convinced, and I kept winning. I did not think about it again until I lost 2/3 of my chips in 1 night.

When we play tournaments, we should play the ones that we are good at. These are the ones where the buy-in is a 'comfortable' amount. When you look at the profiles of the other players in the tournament, you will be one of the ones with the most chips. I knew this but I didn't connect it with what my friend told me...

Tournaments are a controlled environment, and as a result, they are more predictable. When we are not in a tournament, and playing on the big tables, there is less structure. You must always be aware of who you are playing against because if they have much more chips than you, then you have much more to lose than them. 

When I play on big tables, I am usually one of the ones with the most chips at the table. I also knew this, but I didn't connect it with what my friend told me...

Also, we have a natural desire to try and get back what we lost. But if what my friend says has any truth to it, this may not be possible against rich players. Go to a different table, and be the big fish there. Make your living taking chips from those with less or about the same amount of chips as you.

This may be the most important lesson you learn about facebook poker.

How Not to Lose Two-Thirds of your Chips in 1 Night

Weekly Tournament Part 3

Notification sent to me at 5am (76 hrs later): "Congratulations, you won $2,666,999 in last week's tournament."
See what happens when you put pressure on em? Flex those muscles!!

So it appears that you receive an amount equal, or close to, what you earn in the weekly tournament. Not bad I suppose. Maybe good for some, but I just made almost half of that in 35 mins (Look at my twitter feed to the right).

I'm still wondering what happened to the rest of that 685 Million chip pot....

Weekly Tournament Part 3

Weekly Tournament Part 2

I've been updating this post in real time through last weeks Weekly Tournament. Check it out.

I got 60k pretty effortlessly so far. (lol @ effortlessly).
I said that I probably won't be playing the weekly tournament again, but I think I figured out something.

Yes, I think I did. I now have 100K.

Now I have 200K.

270K.

400K...

600K.. 

800K.. 

900K..

1 Million...

1.2 Million...

1.5 Million... 

1.8 Million...

2 Million...

2.3 Million...

2.4 Million...

I finished the Weekly Tournament with 2,623,316 chips, November 8 - 15, 2009.
I ranked #16 in the world.
Do you know what I got for it? Nothing.

Unfortunately, 48 hours have passed. If only I knew I was wasting my valuable chip taking time...Now I have confirmed my original thoughts on the weekly tournament.  See what I said here .

This is what a difficult to find section of Zynga's website says,

"Only the top 20% players will receive 20% of their tournament earnings which will be added to their regular poker account balance. The rest of the players will start the new tournament with 1.1k again.  It typically takes 24-48 hrs after the Weekly Tournament ends to distribute the purse and send out congratulation e-mails."

"Congratulation email"??? That's a joke. The only congratulations I got were from a few friends. So after a long week of taking chips from my opponents, I discover that I will receive a pitiful 20% of what I made (if they ever decide to reward me). Therefore, I am supposed to get 520K for ranking 16th in a  
685 Million (685,000,000) chip pot!!!! That equals about .08% for 16th place.

Is that fair? Will you play the weekly tournament after reading this?

Tell me what you think.

Strike Strategy

Weekly Tournament Part 2