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Zynga has grown quickly by providing an gaming site that allows players to interact with each other while playing a broad variety of online games. Especially poker. The company has done well by catering to the online poker crowd that has been booming for the last few years.

Now Zynga has created an iPhone Poker application so players can keep grinding it out even when forced to venture out into the bright light of day. Actually the company is releasing two versions of the application through the iTunes App Store, one for free and the other for $4.99.

Both applications allow users to access Zynga’s poker rooms from the iPhone, but there’s just one major difference. The free version of Zynga’s poker game starts you out with just your daily allotment of $1,000 in virtual chips as compared to $40,000 in virtual money. Either way you’ll receive an additional $1,000  per day so you won’t stay busted.

There are other poker applications for the iPhone, but Zynga’s network includes over 4.8 million active daily users. More importantly, Zynga members will be able to take their persona and network of online friends with them on the go. This is a great extension of the Zynga brand onto the mobile platform.

The iPhone gaming market is starting to heat up in recent months. While many people are releasing simpler casual games to promote brands such as Audi’s sponsored driving game. The Zynga iPhone poker application is really engaging because it taps into a player’s existing network. It will be interesting to see how this strategy of extending the experience to the mobile platform works for other types of games as well.

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