Brad Feld

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Zynga Live Poker Launches

Nov 13, 2008
Category Investments

Two years ago if you had told me that I’d be playing Texas Hold’em Poker with my Facebook friends on cell phone and enjoying it I would have snickered.  Well – that’s what I’m doing right now (actually – I just took a break from this blog post to play a hand – of course I lost all my chips on a pair of aces.)  And it is awesome.

Our portfolio company Zynga just released Live Poker on the iPhone.  Live Poker is a beautiful implementation of Texas Hold’em poker on the iPhone.  More importantly, it uses Facebook Connect to let me play Texas Holdem with all my Facebook friends (and anyone else on Facebook that happens to be playing.)  Zynga currently has over 1.4 million people playing Texas Holdem each day the free virtual casino is now enormous.

My good friend and one of our co-investors in Zynga – Fred Wilson – has a great description of how Live Poker connects the iPhone to the social web.  Mark Pincus – the CEO of Zynga – has an amazing vision of how casual games intersect with the social web and all kinds of different devices.  Mark and the gang at Zynga are doing a superb job of implementing this vision.

If you’ve got an iPhone, go give Live Poker a try – it’s free.  If you are a serious poker player and want more chips, grab the upgraded version for $9.99.