I’m doing very well so far in The Great NameCheap Twitter Trivia Contest – Free Domain and Hosting Giveaway.

@Dreamer08 missed a win yesterday, so i now stand alone with most daily wins (16 = $155.04). 16 wins in 19 days (84.2% win ratio); 14 have been first correct answers, with only 2 random-pick wins. I already used one of the $9.69 domain registration credits, hence the $145.35 figure in the image above.

Currently i’m in third place overall for correct answers (top 3 spots win an iPod nano). I’ve correctly answered 346 of 450 holiday-related trivia questions (76.9%). I’ve attempted 400 questions, which means i’ve only missed (didn’t submit an answer, usually while sleeping) 50 questions as of #450.

What’s my secret?

Good question. I’ll be publishing a screencast in a couple days of what i do at the top of each hour when going for a first-place answer, aka: how i win. Make sure you follow me on Twitter (@miahz), and subscribe to my feed here at miahz.com, so you don’t miss it.

Want a tip?

Everything i’ve done to “get good” at this contest follows some logical strategies. The first tip i’ll share, which goes for pretty much any contest, is: you have to play to win. NameCheap is tweeting questions every hour on the hour for 25 days — that’s 600 opportunities to play. And each question has 3 winners — that’s 1800 chances to win. But you gotta be ready to answer when the new question is posted. And for me that means an alarm clock.

I found the free Alarm Clock 2 app for Mac, which let me set hourly alarms on my MacBook Pro at 3 minutes before the hour (enough time to get set up and ready — more on that later). Pretty sure there are similar alarms for Windows. You also want to make sure your system’s clock is synchronized and accurate. I also set up some extra reminders on my phone.

If you’re late to the game, your chances drop dramatically. The odds of snagging one of the two random wins each hour are pretty bad with hundreds of players answering within minutes. A first correct answer is the only way to guarantee a win.

I’m gonna be posting more tips, and don’t forget about the How To Win Screencast coming in a few days. Now go play!

[This is Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]