Can you learn anything from zynga poker?

I got the basics of the game down playing poker on my phone (Blackberry curve), against computer opponents, started with $500, busted out a hundred times before I finally worked my way up to 13.4 million and figured that the AI must be really bad.

So then I get on facebook and find they have a poker game that is against real people. I thought this is great, now I can see how I stack up compared to real people without risking real money.

Im finding these people are also pretty bad at the game, I started with $500k and within a week Im up to $1.4 million.

Now I wouldn't expect it to be this bad at a real table with real money on the line, maybe its because Im playing at the lower stakes tables that Im winning chips hand over fist, but Im curious now to see what happens if I play for real money.

I am pretty good at reading the cards, players not so much, I run a tight ship unless I got a good hand.

There is going to be a poker night at a fraternity Im thinking about joining, $50 buy in. This will tell me if Im actually good at the game or not, because I will finally be playing for real money.

My question is, should I continue "practicing" on zynga poker, or is there some other way to get better experience at the game?

BTW, Im unemployed so gambling at the casino with the few dollars I do have, is not an option.

If anything Zenga/ play money is going to make you a worse player. I don't know what to tell you if you dont have funds for poker, just read a book or something.

Join some poker sites (links in this forum) and play some freerolls.
when you win something , start playing micro limits.
read about bankroll management.
move up in stakes as your BR allows.
if you want to deposit, then put in what you can afford to lose and
play at the appropriate level.
good luck.

Besides the bombardment of ads, and a near total lack of ergonomic comforts, FB is the worst thing you can waste your poker time on.

If you want decent play money poker do pokerstars, at least there you have people who were interested enough about poker to go to a poker site...not to a social site.

Many around here will tell you to avoid play money poker altogether.. I am not one of those.

well maybe I should move up to higher stakes games. Problem with pokerstars is it explicitly states no US residents allowed. I don't want to break the law, Im looking for a job in criminal justice so I don't need any marks on my record.

regardless of your low opinion of zynga, its got to be better than playing against a computer, where I turned $500 into 13.4 million, now thats unrealistic.

I am one who says avoid play money.

My experience was all ins 3-5 way as a regular event.

Cant learn to play real poker like that.

JimmyS1985 said:

well maybe I should move up to higher stakes games. Problem with pokerstars is it explicitly states no US residents allowed. I don't want to break the law, Im looking for a job in criminal justice so I don't need any marks on my record.

regardless of your low opinion of zynga, its got to be better than playing against a computer, where I turned $500 into 13.4 million, now thats unrealistic.

Click to expand...

You can still play play money poker at Stars. If you want to deposit $$ and play real money poker, there are still several sites where you can.

Zynga Poker is own by facebook right. Well I heard facebook wants to take it to real money instead of just play money. I think I read it on poker news boy.

I got introduced to poker through Myspace's Zynga a looong time ago, and I play real money now, it's not even close to the same game. Zynga gives away tons of chips all the time so they really have no value and people don't care about them. Especially if you're talking about ring games. You will get no good experience playing fake money ring games, especially on Zynga. It will most likely just make you a worse player.

I would recommend signing up for a real money account and just playing freerolls because in those at least you're competing for something so most people will actually try to play good. There are only a few options if you are in the U.S. though. I personally use intertops, but I think BetOnline has more freerolls.

And if you insist on playing for play money then download Pokerstars.net, they actually have multi-table tournaments and you don't get a bunch of free chips so you can actually track your progress, it can be decent practice for tournaments, but as far as ring games, I would just stay away from play money ring games because they are so different from real money ring games.

And just stay off Zynga if you actually want to get good at poker, it will seriously make you a worse player. It really is a joke, the only reason it exists is to make huge $$$ with their advertisements, they could care less about providing a realistic poker experience.

i would suggest that playing the absolute micro stakes is the best way - you do get micro stakes grinders who take it very seriously and you also get crazies who you can rape for their whole $1 BR if they get the 2nd best hand.

as soon as money is involved people take it more seriously. including abusing you for being a donk at the micro stakes!

also there are a few sites that do a free deposit bonus that seems legit, one of them is 888, i have not taken advantage of it but if its free it would give you the taste

depending on how you feel about these things you could even sign up on someone elses pc who is never going to play poker and practise on their, so they dont get your details and IP if you ever feel like signing up for your own account. if you did play it on your own phone/computer then they might link them to you if you create a proper account

It's possible to build a BR through freerolls, especially private ones (CC hosts quite a few, check the calendar at the top of the page).

I think that the play in freerolls is generally bad enough for any average player to deteriorate but the play on zynga is extraordinarily atrocious.

Instead of entering a live MTT with 1 buy-in I'd consider depositing that.

Last point... get a job.

I honestly don't think you can learn much with these free poker games. I remember that when I started, I play on a free poker game site for 1 day then a friend told me about everest and never more played free poker. You can't learn in my opinion because the players are too loose in these free games.

Well what do you think of bodog casino? And can I use my paypal account to transfer funds to and from my poker account?

So what if all the players are bad? Poker is poker no matter who it's against. It's about being able to adjust to the skill levels/styles of the people around you and taking advantage of it. Problem with zynga is that you'd probably be playing against just 2 styles and 1 skill level(maniac/calling station and bad) most if the time so you wouldn't really know how to play against other kinds of players.

Lucky for you, live players are lolbad

I dont think I can impress real poker players with fake chips, but Im up to 3.6 million chips as of this posting. So Ive made 2.2 million in chips in just a few days, and about a million alone last night.

Since Im unemployed I dont want to play for real money with a lack of income, but these facebook poker players are so bad, if I dont run into better players, I could make a business selling fake chips to facebook players.

Im working my way up to the highstakes games, I started at the 2k/40k tables and have worked my way up to the 10k/200k tables. It may be, because the chips aren't real that people just dont give a shit about them, but Im happy to take them. I think I gotta work up to the 10m/200m tables to see some decent poker play on facebook.

Jimmy, I started learning to play with the fake money games on party poker and Pokerstars ...and the won millions of fake money too.
The level of play vs real money isnt even close.....
Even wuth .01/.05 cent micro tables the real money tables players are way better than any hi play money tables
When ppl play for real money vs fake money .....it like kids playing monopoly vs Trump buying and selling real estate ......its not even in the same cateogory.
have fun and play on facebook.....no harm in it.
but dont have delusion you can face the same type of players in the real money tables

Well your probably right, but Id like to get up to the high roller tables with play money because zynga chips, when in the multi millions, can be transferred for good amounts of dollars. There was a guy who stole $12 million USD of zynga chips, 400 billion of them, and sold $80k before he was finally arrested. I know they are fake, but at the higher levels there is some monetary value in them.

Keep in mind that zynga is the most popular poker site in the world, and there is a market for their play money chips because of that. I busted out once, I didn't realize they were actually hard to obtain once u busted out (which is why i busted out, i didnt take them seriously at all) and you have to spend real money to get them back. Ive turned $2 worth of chips (675k) into $10 worth (3.8 million) f I were to pay the same amount for them so it is kinda like micro stakes.

To play at the high roller tables you would have to spend like $50 USD just to get enough zinga chips for a single buy in, which is the main reason i have behind thinking that the skill level does go up, even when its play money, when it costs a good amount of money to recover a bad beat at a high roller zinga table.

LOL dude no offense but it is so easy to get chips on Zynga you have nothing to be proud of for making 3.8 million. And I guarantee you most of the sites offering to buy your fake chips are scams....not to mention it's against Zynga's terms of service. (unless they updated and let you sell through them)

If you're going to keep playing on Zynga I don't know what your doing on a poker forum because that isn't poker. No one is going to help you with strategy or go over certain hands that were for fake chips, especially on Zynga. (oh yea you can't even look at your hand history)... If you really like the game, you are making a huge mistake by continuing to play on that site, it is literally going to make you a bad player, and it's a huge waste of time.

I managed to build up almost $300 in like 2 months without making a single deposit. All you have to do is cash in a freeroll and build up from there, no money has to come out of your pocket.

And if you're going to play for fake chips at least play on Pokerstars. Because it is an actual software you have to download, most of the people on there are going to actually be somewhat in to poker. AND they have MTT's (multi-table tournaments) that have 18,27,45,or some that are like 3000 people. Playing those is how I started when I was underage and it can be really fun and decent practice for tournaments. And when you're playing ring games you can multi-table(play more than one table at a time) Just note that fake money ring games are NOTHING like real money ring games. Even at micro stakes. All you have to do is rail a real money ring game for a little bit to realize this.

And if you play on Pokerstars, when you tell us your fake bankroll it will actually mean something (sort of) because hundreds of thousands of chips aren't just given to you for logging in like in Zynga.

Plus you'll find the software to be much more enjoyable than the little square surrounded by 50,000,000 ads you get to play on with Zynga.

At least try it out, and if you feel the need to go back to Zynga....then there's probably nothing CC can do for you, you're just destined to be a bad player. Good Luck.

Lol Zynga poker) i had 1 milion chips only once but i was getting tired of it so i lost it all in 20 minutes)

JimmyS1985 said:

Well your probably right, but Id like to get up to the high roller tables with play money because zynga chips, when in the multi millions, can be transferred for good amounts of dollars. There was a guy who stole $12 million USD of zynga chips, 400 billion of them, and sold $80k before he was finally arrested. I know they are fake, but at the higher levels there is some monetary value in them.

Keep in mind that zynga is the most popular poker site in the world, and there is a market for their play money chips because of that. I busted out once, I didn't realize they were actually hard to obtain once u busted out (which is why i busted out, i didnt take them seriously at all) and you have to spend real money to get them back. Ive turned $2 worth of chips (675k) into $10 worth (3.8 million) f I were to pay the same amount for them so it is kinda like micro stakes.

To play at the high roller tables you would have to spend like $50 USD just to get enough zinga chips for a single buy in, which is the main reason i have behind thinking that the skill level does go up, even when its play money, when it costs a good amount of money to recover a bad beat at a high roller zinga table.

Click to expand...

My sister has Zynga poker on her I-phone. She has a few million chips and she couldn't even beat 2NL on pokerstars. I played on it once for her on a table where she only had about 2 BI and I'd quadrpled up in half an hour due to people basically being moronic and shoving 100BB deep. Zynga is popular simply because people can play through facebook. A guy I know told me he was an amazing player after he was playing on the top BI on zynga so I offered to play him for real money on PS HU and crushed him for about 20 BI (in like 25 matches). If you want to play there don't try and delude yourself that players have any skill, they don't.

Zynga. ..:rofl:


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Take the advice about playing freerolls, and then trying your hand with the winnings. You will know if you are decent player if you can turn your 10 bucks into 50.

i got my start on zynga and thought i was ready to go and quicky found out i was mistaken. took getting actual analysis on my hands to realize i did nothing right. put twenty on a money site and see how ya do at the lowest micros and many might disagree but with deposits getting harder micros are also. also let these forum folks rip your game to shreads , it hurts at first but it really helps esp as the lightbulb gets brighter. get some real online practice u should do well in a frat game atmosphere

You can learn stuff on Zynga or any play money site. Your learning curve will probably be much faster when actual money is involved though. If money is an issue for you, then play freerolls instead of play money tables.

Well Im gonna work on gettin a billion chips and then selling them for $60 per 100 million like they do on *link removed* since you guys keep telling me how bad the players are.

Theres money to be made if the game play is subpar and the chips can be exchanged for real cash.