Check in the mail

It took an extra month more than the two months I was warned it would take for my first check from Zen Entertainment's Zero Poker to come. But after three months, it is finally here. Wooohooo! 

I win again

This time in a smaller field (just a little over 100) and for a smaller prize just a mere 10 USD (lol). It was good practice though as I am trying out this new poker theory. Well as you can see, it worked. Nearly got killed when my full-boat was beat by an even bigger full-boat. Good thing I was in the chip lead when that fluke happened. Even then, that chopped my chip count to half. Got to the final table ranked 8th. And so mostly I let the big-stack bully eliminate most of the table. Then I played catch-up in the heads-up with him having around 80% of the chips. Zynga shootout strategy worked like a charm. Played aggressive from the bottom to quickly even up, then one all-in bet was it took to bring him down.

Can't play as much as I want due to work demands. And as of now, I can't get past the donk-fest early in the tourneys. That's the real killer. Need to develop an even more effective strategy to get out of the gates. For as long as I can get mid-game with a healthy chip count, I am confident of getting into the final table. Donks do get lucky. As Phil Helmuth once said "If not for luck, I would win every tournament." But hey, that's poker.

Oh yeah, what's the new poker theory? Play less hands. Fold more. And when I raise, I raise it like a MAN! No sense raising if it can't hurt the other guy. Other than that, default play is still passive-aggressive. Let the other players commit the mistakes that will give me their chips.

Hacked

My Zynga poker chips has been hacked, all 25 million of them. And this is the second time. I believe I have followed every sensible precaution to prevent hacking so this is getting ridiculous. So yeah, if having that many chips on my Facebook account gives hackers the reason to screw with my FB account, I believe I will forego playing Zynga poker for awhile, until Zynga or Facebook set-up better security. 

Don't be a donk

General rule: never re-raise (except on the river). If you believe you have the best hand, and you got raised, call. Re-raising at any time except on the river is a donk bet. Re-raising potentially ruins the possibity of winning more chips in the end. Re-raising with the strongest hand invites the original raiser to fold. And will almost certainly make the rest of players on the table fold. Remember the first principle of poker, it is not how many hands you win but how many chips you get in the hands that you win.

An exception to the rule is when you flopped flush with small hole cards, and you want to end the hand before the turn. Personally, even in this scenario, I do not re-raise.

Bluffing

First, let us get this clear, bluffing is betting or raising when you have no hand. Calling a raise when you have no hand is not bluffing, that is stupid.

More on statistics

So you already know that a flush draw on the river is a 1 in 4 proposition. An inside straight draw 1 in 13 and an up and down straight draw 1 in 6. That is just half the story. Remember that poker is only half about your hands, the other half being the hand of your opponent. If you get your straight and your opponent has a flush, you still lose. So pay attention.

Hackers

My Zynga poker account has been hacked for over a million chips. That was a pain because that was my first million. I now have over 25 million on my big account and 2 million on my little account (I know you are not supposed to have 2 accounts, so sue me. lol).