Rush Poker - New Format and New Strategy

Full Tilt Poker has changed the face of online poker by introducing a new breed of game: Rush Poker. As if the pace of 6-max games weren’t already blazingly fast, the team at Full Tilt has taken it upon themselves to turn up the speed.

Sitting at a Rush Poker table is kind of like hitting the highway at 150 miles per hour. Except when you’re driving a car, you don’t have a chance to win some cash. Rush Poker gives you both the thrill and the money; it’s a revolutionary new way to play.

Rush Poker: What Is It?

Put simply, Rush Poker is poker without the waiting. You will be dealt new cards as fast as you can click fold, and you’ll only see hands you’re involved in.

Obviously, this changes the game dynamic in a huge way. If you’re the type who hates sitting through 2 minutes of boredom, watching two opponents play a hand you aren’t even a part of, then Rush Poker is the game for you.

How it Works

Here’s how it works. To play Rush, make sure you’re seated at a table under the “Rush Poker” heading in the game filter.  From there, it goes like this:

1. You’ll be entered randomly into a large pool of Rush Poker players.
2. You’ll be seated at a table with a random group of opponents, who are part of your pool.
3. You’ll be dealt a hand, and you’ll decide what to do with it. Here’s the cool part: if you decide to fold preflop, you’ll be automatically removed from the table, and re-seated at a fresh one with other players from the pool.
4. From there, you’ll be dealt a new hand immediately, against new opponents.

Needless to say, this allows you to play an incredible amount of hands in a very short period of time. You can go from having a crappy J5 offsuit on one table, to folding, and to having an awesome AA on a new table in less than 10 seconds.

If you hate waiting in between hands, you no longer have to wait. Simply sign up for a Rush Poker game, and let the hands flow at your convenience. Play as quickly as you like, whenever you want. This really does change the face of online poker as we know it.

Advantages

Playing Rush Poker instead of regular poker offers you, the player, some huge advantages. Here are some:

1. No more waiting! This is the big one. Are you the type of player who gets bored or distracted in between hands? Rush Poker solves that problem by making sure you always have a hand. This game format will help prevent boredom-induced tilt, making sure you’ve always got action!
2. No more datamining! Because you’re seated with random players after each hand, software like Poker Tracker and Holdem Manager become useless. Sharks who once relied on gathering player statistics will be forced to rely on their actual card-playing ability from now on. Rush Poker shifts the edge from the stat-bot players to the casual player significantly.
3. No more abuse from “regulars”! Since you never know who you’ll be playing against in any given hand, you can’t rely on personal reads to get you through a hand. This means that sharks who make most of their money by exploiting opponent’s strategies are out of luck; they’ll never be able to track down which player is using what strategy! Even if they do getsome idea of how you play, they’ll never be able to fully pin you down.
4. Overall, Rush Poker EVENS OUT THE PLAYING FIELD! By making poker faster and more anonymous, Full Tilt is making a statement to semi-professional HUD grinders: NO MORE EXPLOITATION! Rush Poker keeps the games FUN by giving the edge back to the casual player.

Tips for Winning

As you probably guessed, playing Rush Poker profitably requires some specialized knowledge. You can’t expect to sit down in a Rush game, using the same strategy you did at the normal tables, and win automatically. Here are some adjustments you’ll need to make:

• Know your betting patterns. Since you won’t be able to make player-specific reads like you could in regular games, you’ll need to know some general betting lines and how to interpret them. For example, a turn bet, no matter who from, is generally an indicator of real strength. A 3-bet from a player on the button can go either way, depending on the situation. Knowing betting patterns will help you make reads.
• Don’t forget about position. I’ve heard a lot of players on poker forums saying stuff like “oh, position doesn’t matter in Rush Poker”. Wow! That’s so wrong. You’ll still need to play position, and know how to exploit other player’s positional tendencies. Keep loose in late position, and tighten up in early position. Beware of people abusing the button raise after folds around. The standard positional rules apply; don’t forget about them.
• Tighten up! You’ve got no excuse for impatience in a game of Rush Poker. You’re dealt a new hand whenever you want one! Don’t play crappy hands. Fold the garbage. I’ve heard people on poker forums saying things like “rush poker will cause everyone to play tighter poker”. This is crap. The bad players will still play all their hands, because that’s how bad players play. They’ll just be playing bad hands more often. You won’t be playing at tables full of nits; therefore it will be profitable for you to stay tight.
• Know when to quit. This will be very important for Rush Poker players. The ability to be dealt a new hand every 10 seconds can be great, if you’re winning. However if you’ve taken a streak of bad beats, it can magnify the effects of tilt tenfold. Think about it: you haven’t been dealt a good hand all night, and you’ve had sets cracked by runner-runner flushes 3 times. You start playing sub-optimal hands (which you’re getting every 10 seconds instead of every 2 minutes). The potential for you to lose your cash very quickly is incredibly high. Thus knowing when to call it a night will be very important.

All things considered, Rush Poker is an incredibly exciting development in the world of online poker. This is not just another “version” of poker, like 6-max or full ring. This is an entirely new game. Now is the time to get in, to learn how to play, and to master the game.

Remember the Hold’em boom, after Moneymaker won the Series? Think of Rush Poker as the new poker boom. Everybody is loving this game, and the tables are absolutely jammed with players. You can only play at Full Tilt poker, and the time is now!