The game of Rush Poker is unique to Full Tilt Poker and allows players to join a community game. Once a player picks a table at a particular stake and game, they are entered into a pool. Players are dealt a hand and, as soon as they fold in turn or through the “Quick Fold” button, they are instantly moved to a new table with all new players. Rush Poker tables are estimated to give a player three to four times the number of hands compared to a normal cash game table.
One of the major points that brought a lot of people to the Rush Poker tables was the fact that although hand histories could be tracked, there was no use of a Heads-Up Display (HUD). This means that players would simply be making table reads, which led to a wild and unpredictably loose game for anyone who ventured into the fray. As of last week, however, Holdem Manager supports Rush Poker by allowing a player to write stats to the Full Tilt Poker notes file. This allows a player to check their opponents’ stats even if there is no HUD. PokerTracker did one better by releasing a fully functioning HUD with the latest beta edition.
With the game now having been around for a fair amount of time and tracking programs catching up, would Rush Poker’s momentum as the hottest new thing in online poker die off? After a month during peak hours, it seems that the interest in Rush Poker is beginning to wane. Consider that when Rush Poker first came out, the 10nl ($0.05-$0.10 blinds) and 25nl ($0.10-$0.25 blinds) each had well over 1,000 players in each game. Now during peak hours, the micro-stakes games at 10nl continue to be populated, with full ring games around 1,200 players and six-max games at 500.
Moving up the ladder means reduced player pools, with 25nl six-max around 300 players and full ring games at 700. The next level up, 50nl, had 200 players at six-max, while full ring games at the same stakes had about 600 players. Finally, the 100nl tables had 200 at six-max and 400 at full ring.
That’s not to say that the tables are dying off, but the introduction of higher stakes and other games have thinned out player pools at each level. In addition, with some of the novelty of a new game wearing off, players are learning that Rush Poker is a very unpredictable and swingy affair.
Many of the posts on popular forums saw conclusions about Rush Poker finally being made. First, the game will probably stick around for at least the first half of 2010, as interest remains high. Full Tilt Poker remains committed to an advertising campaign on many websites promoting Rush Poker, keeping it in front of the general poker public.
The second conclusion that many are making is that the games, even at full ring, are very volatile and players are subject to much greater swings than they are at traditional ring games. Another shared opinion about Rush Poker is that the games are juicy and, if you can withstand the wild swings, the potential for a bigger win-rate will inevitably increase your bottom line. Finally, the sentiment is that Rush Poker will suffer as a result of HUDs being activated for the game. Players will be able to make solid reads instead of play wildly, reducing the amount of action.
Rush Poker is found exclusively at Full Tilt Poker, which has a Mac OS X software client available for download.
Comments are closed.