Cain is Abel

Rush poker was introduced by FTP less than 1 month ago.  Due to the terrible shortstacking problem causing bad game-selection at Stars, I’ve put much more time in at Full Tilt experiencing their new Hold’em variant.  The first ~40-50k hands have gone very well, and I’ve learned enough to write an article about the positive and negative differences in Rush Poker.

For those who have not played it, or do not quite know what Rush Poker is,  here’s a brief explaination:

The rules/layout are the same as normal Texas Hold’em. 6 or 9 players at a table,  same betting order, etc.  The only difference is – at the end of every hand, the table is broken up, and a new randomly generated table of players is created for your next hand.  Every hand will be played against a different random table, from a random position.   You are also allowed to “quick fold” a hand if you are planning on folding anyway and do not want to wait for other players to act.  This allows you to immediately see a new hand at a new random table without having to wait 1+ minute for the current hand to end. Because of this, Rush Poker players generally get 200+ hands per hour, which is 2-3x more than any standard table.

This change may look somewhat minor to someone who has not played before.  The rules are the same, the cards are the same, so why is it so revolutionary?  Here are the differences from my experience.

RUSH Positives:

• Faster hands per hour across the board.
• Faster load-up time.  Usually, 16 tables at FTP would take a good 15+ minutes to load up and be playing 1000 hands per hour.  At Rush poker, you can immediately load up 4 tables, and within the time it takes the software to say “3…2…1…” you are in the action! The same 1000 hands per hour is achieved at 4 tables with 10+ minutes of load time saved.
• Weaker and Tighter regular players.  The strong players who have put in time at Rush Poker tend to 3-bet way less, steal and defend way less, and play a much more ABC game that can be exploited more than their usual game would allow.
• Faster rake/FTPs generation. For those working towards Iron Man status, 4 tables of 100NL rush poker will take about 15 minutes to qualify you for the day.  This is about 50% faster than loading up 16 tables of the equivalent stakes and waiting for the blinds to come around.

RUSH Neutral:

• No HUD / Reduced HUD.  Both Hold’em  Manager and PokerTracker have trial versions of Rush HUDs available, and they both are functional.  Eventually both of them will have a working version and there will be very little difference.  Basically, as the tools are developed, experienced players will be able to use them.  A slight positive aspect of this point is that fish feel safer at the moment – due to HUDs being less available.

RUSH Negatives:

• Fish are significantly tighter.  There are still plenty of loose weak players, but they have much less incentive to play those bad preflop hands when they can just fold and immediately see the next one.  There are still plenty of weak players in the field, but their preflop mistakes are being corrected by their ability to quickly see a new hand.
• It is more suited towards Mid and Low stakes games. The 1/2NL games have about a 3rd the players of .5/1NL.  Experienced players get a huge portion of their edge from game flow and personal reads, so it seems unlikely that we will see a large audience for higher stakes Rush Poker games.

SUMMARY

I predict Rush Poker will have a moderate following in 2010, but I don’t see it overrunning the standard 9-man tables.  It is a fun, simple variant of Texas Hold’em that moves at a faster pace and encourages a tighter style of play.  In the long run, I expect it will be somewhat less profitable than standard games, but not by much.