How I won at the shootouts

I played Zynga poker shootouts for a month and won it three times. I actually won it twice within 2 days because I had won my first tournament 12 hours before the IPAD raffle qualifiers. The first win however took a week of trying.



I entered the shootout tournament mainly because my brother kept on ribbing me that I can not win there. I made 5 million chips in the hold 'em cash game, but that he said is heavily stacked in favor of the big-in-the-bank players. Fair enough, that is true for the most part. Playing shootouts (and sit-n-gos) are more of a challenge. Every player gets 1,000 chips at the beginning and no re-buy-ins allowed. So everyone is even at the table. No big stack bullies. At least not at the get go. 


So I tried -- and failed much of the day on the first day of trying. I can't seem to get past the second round. First round was easy enough since I've already developed a more or less effective strategy against the bingo players. Oh there will be a lot in the first round. It is fairly common for half the players to go all in on the very first hand. Don't bite into this. Well... ok, if you must. It is only 2K buy-in after all. But chances are you will lose even with pocket aces. If you are lucky enough to win, then great. But if you choose to fold and play catch-up, then you really have to play poker.


Lesson learned on day one; I can get to second place on the first round without winning a single hand. FOLD. Yup. It's that simple. Keep folding. Just call when you've got an ace and a face card or a medium to high pocket pair. And just play the blinds (meaning raise or call raises that are as high as the blinds), at least until the heads-up or the final three. 


When you reach the final three on the first round, folding is no longer a viable strategy as you will eventually get blinded out. But continue playing the blinds. Don't let the big bully dictate the betting. 1,000 chips versus 8,000 chips in a heads-up is not an impossible-to-win scenario. Just relax and continue playing your game.

If the big-stack bingo player goes all-in, unless you've got a pocket pair or an ace and a face card, fold. But call if you've got the pocket pair or the ace and a face card. It is not a 100% fool-proof strategy, but this gives you more than an even chance of winning the hand. Winning two times all-in from around 1,000K will even the table out, as you will now have 4,000K, more or less. If you're lucky enough to get here, the table is now in your control. Bingo players, mostly, get desperate at this point and are ripe for the picking. But just keep playing the "reaction" game. That is, to just keep calling if you've got the cards and not raising until the river. Never re-raise and only go all-in at the river when you are sure you've got the winning hand. An ace-high flush would be a perfect example. A really strong hand but not a sure-win hand, like a 7-J straight, merits, at most, a bet-pot action. But if it is the opponent that raises you all-in, if you've got a strong hand, by all means gamble -- just pick your spots well. If he's been raising you all-in for the 3rd time in a row, that means he's become impatient and probably is just bluffing.


Yeah, I know. This strategy takes a lot of patience. Even I can not follow this all the time. My trigger finger gets itchy when I get an ace and a low card, or sometimes even just a mid-level suited connectors (like 5-6 suited). But if I have enough patience to stick to this strategy, I find that it gets me through the first round at least 1 time out of every 5 tries. 


Winning round 2 and 3, is now all about poker. Which shall be discussed in other entries. But hey, this strategy works there too. But you will need other tools to be really effective there. And remember, bottom-line is, there is NO PERFECT way to play poker. Good luck! You are going to need it.


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I don't play much shootouts anymore since the payouts are not that lucrative chips-wise. Only 500K to the winner, something that can be won in one sit-n-go game at 100K buy-in.

And hey, if you've got winning poker strategies, share them at the comments section below. I hope my tips aren't too nooby for the experts out there.