Should You Make the Switch to Rush Poker?

[Slo'mo]

Should You Make the Switch to Rush Poker?


By: Daniel Skolovy

It's fast and exciting but is it more profitable? Weigh the pros and cons of Rush Poker before deciding to make the switch.

For those that have been living in a cave for the last few months Rush poker is a new game introduced by Full Tilt Poker which allows a player to eliminate all downtime between hands, keeping them in the action for the duration of their session.

The idea is that when you fold your hand you're moved to a new table with new opponents and instantly dealt a new hand.

you can imagine, the game is action packed and a lot of fun but that doesn't necessarily mean you should make it your regular game. Before you quit traditional poker and make the switch you should really weigh the pros and cons.

Three Pros

1. Hands per hour - In a regular online Texas Hold'em game you're lucky to be dealt eighty to ninety hands an hour. Compare that to the thirty you get in a casino and you're laughing. But in Rush Poker you can be dealt over two hundred and fifty hands per hour, depending on how fast you click!
change

With more hands an hour comes more good hands and more hands where you can exploit your edge. Furthermore with more hands comes more rake, with more rake comes more bonuses and rakeback, which for many players is a very high percentage of their total winnings.

2. No history - You're moved to a new table with new opponents every time you fold your hand. Playing different opponent each hand makes it extremely difficult for your opponents to get a read on you.

You can use that as an advantage any way you like. If you only want to play Aces and kings, your opponents probably won't catch on. If you want to three-bet every single and small blind, same deal.

Rush poker evens the playing field and takes out the read and tells aspect of the game, which you can use it to your advantage.

3. It's fun - The biggest advantage to Rush Poker is that it's action packed and fun. It makes grinding less of a chore and the fun factor helps bring more fish into the game.

More hands vs fish is a good thing. The only problem is that it's sometimes difficult to spot the fish until its too late.

Three Cons

1. No history - This one's pro and a con. It's a negative because as a good player you should be formulating reads. You should be observing your opponents and figuring out how they play and then using that information against them.

When you change tables after every single hand it's impossible to truly understand how your opponent plays. You have to treat everyone the same and make abc, generalized, decisions against everybody.

If you're a better player than your opponents, Rush Poker forces you to give up a percentage of your edge.

2. Tilt factor - Because you're playing so many more hands an hour, you're also dealt more bad beats and coolers than you would in a typical session.  Add in the fact that players are often turbo folding waiting for aces and kings and coolers happen seemingly all the time.

If you can't control the emotional side of your game and are susceptible to tilt you may have problems with Rush Poker, and it's even easier to tilt when you can play 1,000 hands an hour on four tables.

3. It stunts your poker growth -  Maybe the biggest disadvantage to Rush Poker is the fact that it stunts your growth as a poker player. If you're happy grinding rake and winning a little and making a decent earn at $1/$2 then Rush Poker is great.

If however you would like to move up in stakes and improve as a poker player Rush Poker is not for you.

To succeed in middle stakes and beyond you have to develop reads and use your reads against your opponents. Rush Poker teaches you to treat all of your opponents as equals. If try and treat everyone that same at medium stakes and above you're going to bust your roll pretty fast.

Rush Poker is a great game and can be really fun to play. But you have to know what you want to be as a poker player to decide whether or not you're should switch to the game full time.

Use my list and think of pros and cons of your own before deciding whether or not to make Rush Poker your full time game.

[Koda]

Interesting post, but its obvious this guy hasnt played much.
heres my anaylse of the situation.

PRO's

1. rakeback: you can easily make $40-$50 in rake a week (playing .02/.05 - 0.25/.50) or a day (0.25/0.50+)

2. All the above

CONS:

1. The history thing is a myth. If you are playing enough, you will build up tendancies, especially regarding stealing/folding blinds on players. If you use a tool like POkerTracker or Hold em manager it is ver easy to do this. I play around 2000 hands a day and have over 100 notes based on 300 or 400 hands played by these people (not alot but enough to get a fair read on what their raises mean and whether or not you can get easy blinds steals or expect to get stolen from) I expect this to only get larger. The more you play, the more you will see the regs. The higher limits sees less people playing, so more opportunity for notes.

2. the reads is limited and obv you can not progress to above 1/2 atm. Thisis not tradituional poker, and there are differences, just as there are differences between Live and standard online play.

3. Pro or a con, but Rush poker can not be tracked by PTR or any other tracking sites as you can not observe tables.

thats my 2cents!

[111-THEMAD-111]

Bla Bla Bla lol..................
You think to much lol..................
burp

[Villadiego]

I like the swings period!

[kidflopadelic]

For anyone who doesn't know, you can indeed write notes on players in the history window during rush, I've been doing it and it def pays off to keep track of who the fish are and who the players are.