Rush Poker: Initial Analysis and Tips
The recently introduced Rush Poker is currently talk of the town. A selection of PokerStrategy.com coaches have taken a closer look at the tables and put their first impressions and strategic tips together for you.
A few days ago, Full Tilt Poker introduced Rush Poker. Here players can play up to four times as many hands per hour at one table whereby the opponents change every hand.
A selection of PokerStrategy.com coaches, lead by Team PokerStrategy.com player and hasenbraten, , huckebein and clemens, have tested the tables extensively. In following you will find their first impressions and the strategic tips as a result thereof.
Tips for beginners
- Pay attention to your position!
In contrast to the game as it was known up till now, the positions no longer rotate in succession but are set randomly during each hand. This makes the determining of your own position somewhat more complicated. You therefore need to pay particular attention to your position and only play the correct hands based upon the starting hand charts!
- Don't play at more than one table!
Due to the high speed, multiple tables will result in too many expensive mistakes.
- Protect your money from tilt!
With a tilt-attack you can lose even more money in a very short time. Please make sure you read the article in the psychology section. Stay away from Rush tables if you are prone to tilting!
- Leave the table when your stack is bigger than 150BB!
The play with big stacks requires a special understanding of the game and special knowledge. If you are unsure, leave the table and re-join it. That way you can play with 100BB as usual with nearly no delay.
Further links about these suggestions:
- Strategy: How to Play Before the Flop?
- Psychology: How can you protect your money from tilt?
- Psychology: Tilt: Introduction (from
Silver Status) - Strategy: How to Play Deep Stacked. (from Silver Status)
Silver Status)
Tips for advanced players
The following shows the difference between Rush poker and normal tables:
- As the opponents change in each hand, reads are not given and can only be built up with difficulty. You basically play every hand against an unknown.
- Your patience is strained less. You will get more monster-hands on average and can fold weak hands before it's your turn.
- The hand histories are created by every hand but you won't have HUD stats of your opponents at the table. As the opponents constantly change, none of the currently known tracking tools is able to display the stats fast enough.
- The game becomes tighter as fishes are more prepared to fold their hands and even better players make less loose steals from late positions. A preliminary investigation based on the data supplied by the lobby of Full Tilt Poker confirms that Rush games are on average tighter. At a snapshot of more than 100 tables, the amount of players at the flop was 6 percent lower compared to normal tables. Here a table:
| Percentage of players at the flop at normal NL tables | |||||
| Table size | NL10 | NL25 | NL50 | NL100 | Total |
| 6 max | 36% | 38% | 31% | 28% | 33% |
| 9 max | 28% | 24% | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| Percentage of players at the flop at Rush poker tables | |||||
| Table size | NL10 | NL25 | NL50 | NL100 | Total |
| 6 max | 28% | 26% | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| 9 max | 20% | 19% | 19% | 19% | 19% |
Based upon these facts, certain assumptions can be made about how you can adjust your game to Rush tables. As the flow of the game can vary over time, you always need to keep an eye on whether the existing assumptions remain correct.
- Loose steals in late position are often successful!
A lot of opponents will activate the Quickfold button, especially on the SB. A small steal-raise of 2-2.5BB is often successful. If a 3-bet follows, then it has cost less.
- Loose 3-Bets are currently profitable!
Even if a lot of opponents will open-raise less, the vacuum that bluff-4-bet cannot be made against unknown opponents exists. First game analysis have shown, that there are a lot of folds to 3-bets.
- Beware of pushes and pushes against you!
In general: 3-bet loose but 4-bet tight. Against unknown opponents you will generally play an honest game. It's not a mistake not to provoke an all-in pre-flop with hands such as JJ and AKos.
- Balancing bears almost no relevance!
With Rush poker, opponents are initially unable to determine if you are open-raising 100% or only AA. It is therefore definitely an option to slow play hands such as KK and AA pre-flop. In addition you can also attack certain flop textures that are prone to bluffs, in an unbalanced manner, again and again as the opponents are unable to build up a history.
Tips for experts on NL100 Rush Poker:
Especially on NL100, you will also find strong players from higher stakes who are testing the tables. With these it is likely that they will apply the adjustments described here automatically. To counter this, you have the following alternatives!
- Pre-flop less bluff-3-bets, more cold-calls!
If you want to bluff, than attack good board textures, as it is even more difficult to adapt to such tendencies post-flop. Often, the entire stack is at play. Something with which even strong players have problems.
- Observe the game flow!
Pay attention to the fact that the game flow in Rush Poker is not static and can change over time. Always watch for what is happening at the tables around you and make use of the existing databases to get information about the average values of your opponents(for example push ranges) and make use of that!
- Learn more about Rush Poker!
If you wish to discuss the topic in further details in the forum or exchange experiences, use our thread in which , hasenbraten, , huckebein and clemens will take an active part in the discussion!
