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.

REAL ESTATE BUSINESS:

For the past year, I’ve been learning from scratch how to repair and manage some low-income investment property.  From the beginning, I never really intended for them to be such a hands-on experience.  However, when your property manager is stealing from you, the few tenants aren’t paying, the repair men are conning, and the business is hemorrhaging money, a more personal approach becomes necessary.

In February of ‘09, we were at 21% occupancy, with ~16% needing complete rennovation, and the remaining 63% needing serious work. I fired the crooked manager, started overseeing the repairs myself, and started doing all of the legal/financial/management footwork that was needed.

1 year later, we’re at 69% occupancy, with all of those units in vastly improved condition.  10% still need repairs, 10% need rennovation, and 10% are rentable.

Despite the vast improvement, low income properties are still a giant pain in the ass.  This is a job that clashes heavily with poker, because there is almost always something that needs your time, effort, and patience.  The job wears on your patience especially, because you are constantly negotiating with people who either don’t want to work, or want to scam you.

I passed off the management torch this month, in order to give myself more time to focus on poker, family, etc.  Despite having a manager to deal with the majority of the issues, it still requires daily effort.

Fortunately, after this past year, the business has become close to self-sustaining.  I still need to put in the time, of course, but they aren’t nearly as much of a liability as they were last year. I have learned a ton about life in general by taking on the management of these buildings.  It has been a very growing experience, and while it came at the cost of other aspects of my life, these lessons will be very beneficial in the long run.

As I get more time in the future, I may write some more detailed articles about my experience.  From a crazed schizophrenic tenant I inherited, to a crooked manager, to a conman contractor, I’ve got quite a few interesting stories built up.

The best advice I can give to anybody who is considering real estate investment is: Either do the management yourself, do most of the repairs and manual labor yourself, or don’t get into the business. If you aren’t hands-on, you are going to get robbed and things are not going to run the way they should.

Back to poker!

2010 has been running just fine for me.  I put too many of my resources into the RE business in ‘09, so by the time I got serious about poker again in January, my bankroll was left a bit shorter than I would prefer.  I’ve been crushing the 100NL level as always, and building back up to a comfortable bankroll.  Just this month, I started mixing 200NL in there as well (and killing it, of course).  By the end of February, I should easily be where I’d like in terms of bankroll.

SHORTSTACK EXODUS:

Full Tilt Poker made a huge update in January that increased the minimum buyin from 20BB to 35BB on standard tables, and created “shallow” tables for the shortstacks to play against each other.   To an average player, this may not seem like much – but it is a huge deal.

“Shortstacking” is a strategy that involves buying in for the minimum, playing a watered down strategy, and enjoying a strategic advantage against other full-stacked players at the table.  A couple shortstacks here and there are not too terrible to worry about, but this strategy has spread heavily in the past couple years, and has caused games to be less enjoyable and less profitable.

FTP finally did something about it, and as a result, their games have been more profitable than ever.  Many people are encouraging Stars to make the same change, and we are still awaiting an official response.

The issue is so strong that I have already moved the majority of my play over to FTP in order to enjoy this great update.  If Stars does not make a similar change in the coming months, after I’ve cleared my bonuses there, I wont have much reason to continue playing anywhere other than FTP.  I’m not the only high-volume regular who has made this transition, so it is a pretty big deal.  As good as Stars has been to me for the past couple years, they need to embrace this change or they will have a hard time getting my business back.

Unfortunately, shortstacking has become so popular on Stars, that I think they may be reluctant to make a similar change in fear of scaring away a large part of their player base.  I look forward to hearing their official response.

I plan on writing a longer article about what I consider the benefits and drawbacks of shortstacking on a personal level, and how I believe it effects the game of poker in general.

“Rush poker” has also been recently introduced by FTP.  It is a unique way to play Texas Hold’em where you are matched up against a random set of opponents every single hand – sort of like changing tables in a tournament.  It eliminates a lot of the player reads you can make, and vastly changes the dynamic of the game due to not having any table history to work with.  I’ve put in quite a few hours of Rush poker over the past month, and will also be writing an article about my experiences there.

Look forward to more updates in February!