Rush and Zoom Poker strategy – Gamblista’s guide to winning fast fold poker games
Rush poker is the “fast fold” poker game format first seen on Full Tilt Poker and adopted and popularised as Zoom Poker on PokerStars, there are now similar speed / fast fold versions of this game on many sites online.
Zoom on Pokerstars, Fast Forward on Party Poker & Speed Poker on Titan and other iPoker Network sites and of course still Rush on FullTilt.
What is Rush / Zoom Poker ?
It’s a fast and furious online variation of Texas Hold-em which allows players to play for more hands by folding and moving onto the next hand without waiting for other players to finish the hand.
It’s designed to cut out the lag time in between folding and waiting for everyone else at the table to finish playing the hand out. Many players multi-table for this very reason, manually switching from one table to another as they wait for a good (or at least playable) hand. While it doesn’t require patience to wait for the next hand it does require discipline and a different strategy for Zoom poker needs to be developed.
Strategy for a winning Rush Poker player
Winning at Rush Poker is a matter of sticking to a clear strategy and making consistent decisions quickly and effectively. Getting used to the fast pace and style of a rush game will come more naturally to some players rather than others.
The fast and aggressive players will find great appeal by learning to win at Rush Poker. It’s also a game that will appeal to action junkies. Becoming a winning rush game player is not overly difficult if a player keeps in mind a few key ideas and if you play it in a disciplined and methodical manner without getting sucked into the crazy pace of things.
Rush Poker key strategies
Take advantage of a few key strategic moves in your Rush games …
Don’t bother playing marginal hands, stick to strong starting hands and fold everything else.
Use the fold feature to move quickly and decisively into a new game with better odds. The pool is large enough that you’ll find good action all over your tables.
In addition, when you make decisions, make a decisive aggressive play without second-guessing yourself. If you make mistakes and you will, don’t let them sabotage your game. The pace moves too quickly, and you’ll have a chance to learn from them and do better in the next hand within minutes.
Remember that your opponents are changing at every table and sometimes within hands. Avoid being stuck on a certain opponent’s style or what happened at the last hand. Every new start is just that … a new, fresh start.
Play with a clean slate in every hand.
Bet wisely in Rush Poker
Within this rapid fire rush online format, extremely loose play will not help you become a winning player. After much tighter hand selection, correct betting sizing and wise betting is the next single best zoom poker strategy.
Bear in mind the majority of reasonably competent players will be folding obviously weak hands and moving on to the next hand in search of a monster – therefore you DO need to have strong hands to play in rush poker.
Be very aware of your bankroll when you start and manage it well over the course of your games. When you’re first starting out playing in rush format, the best recommendation is to play much more tightly than you would ordinarily.
Once you have the feel for the betting strategy at the table, use the standard strategies to maximize the pot when you have good cards and limit your investment when you don’t.
Get into the flow of Rush Poker
Part of what makes this format so intriguing is its fast pace and flexibility. The ability to move and restart in a new game within seconds is incredibly enticing for action junkies, making Rush Poker what it is. Getting used to this kind of flow, however takes a player a bit of time.
Try playing several low stakes rush games first, to the best of your ability, don’t focus too much on your own wins as much as on learning the patterns and rhythm of play getting into making fast split second decisions on the strength of your hands.
The pace of game play wont allow you to make even mental notes of the styles of specific opponents in a rush game. Every hand is a new one with new players at the table from a pool of several hundred players in most cases.
Pay attention to how long you take to make decisions and when you feel rushed for time or just right on timing during the game.
Once you have an idea of the dynamics of rush / zoom format , then maximize your bets on winning hands. Play with your solid game strategy, it is possible to manipulate opponents, extracting maximum value on the turn and river but primarily its about pre-flop hand selection.
Rush Poker is like speed poker in hyper-drive … You need a Zoom Poker Strategy
Not everyone is going to like playing this format, many will enjoy playing it but be utterly terrible at this format because they like the speed but lack the discipline to play correctly for the style of game so be aware of your strengths and weaknesses …
Rush Poker is for you IF …
The rush / zoom / fast fold style will appeal to action junkies and the action junkie within all of us.
Most importantly if you can harness the inner action junkie and stick to really strict strong hand selection at ALL TIMES.
Rush is the game for you if you enjoy and search out turbo and ultra turbo SNG game. Rush is the game for you if you are capable of making basically sound quick decisions on your starting hands and pushing early and your prepared to commit to hands once your in.
Also Rush poker may be a good place for practising making those correct pre-flop decisions on your starting hands in double quick time so they become second nature.
But to keep driving this point home – because there is always another hand just round the corner – FOLD FOLD FOLD.
Don’t try to get into clever jedi level mindgames – beating zoom games is all about solid solid hand selection and discipline. The single biggest hole in your zoom game will be playing temping but marginal hands … so forget ALL unsuited 10Q 10 J 10K type combinations they will just lead you into bigger pot hands that you will lose.
Suited connected hands (including more off beat ones like 78 suited and 67 suited are a better prospect than off suit picture cards.
Suited Aces are worth pursuing if cheap, even suited kings – again the biggest hole in Zoom is overplaying the value of picture cards and lower pairs need to be played with caution … set mine carefully and if it doesn’t hit do not carry on.
Rush Poker is not for you IF …
Rush and Zoom formats are not going to be for everyone – in fact I would go so far as to say rush is not going to appeal to many of the well read, thinking poker player who uses their edge of experience, patience and strategy to beat less experience or impatient players.
In my humble opinion there simply isn’t enough of an edge in rush or zoom games for a good player compared to an action junky. There isn’t much in the way of tactical betting or any opportunity to make use of table image.
Noticing how a player played one hand isn’t going to be of any use as your straight onto effectively another table on the next hand. This diminishes some of the edge of a good player over a bad one.
The rush format while attracting inherently impatient poker players who want to play play play also means that in the event of a good hand finding action it’s likely that the hand will be facing a similar pocket pair or strong hand.
This then reduces the game to something akin to good hand turnover – and something of a crap shoot, with little of the finesse of a good poker players NL Texas Hold-em game.
