Full Tilt has a history of tinkering with the status quo of poker, and that reputation was bolstered with the introduction of what could be a game-changer for online poker: Rush Poker.
While Rush Poker shares the same fundamental rules as its non-Rush counterparts, it’s different enough that players have a number of questions regarding the format, questions we try to answer as thoroughly as possible in this Rush Poker guide.
Quick links:
How Does it Work?
Can I Multi-Table Rush Poker?
What Games Can I Play?
Are There Rush Poker Tournaments?
How Do I Start Playing?
How Should I Change My Game?
How Much Can I Earn an Hour Playing Rush Poker With Rakeback?
Rush Poker is such a simple concept that it’s a little surprising we’re just seeing the innovation at this stage of the online game. Here’s how it works, in a nutshell: when you sit down at a Rush Poker table, you’re essentially joining a large group of players and not just a single table. Let’s call that group the ‘cloud’.
For a hand of Rush Poker table to be dealt, FTP essentially picks nine (or six, if it’s a shorthanded table) players from the cloud, sits them at a table, and deals a hand of poker. Once any player exits from the hand, they immediately return to the ‘cloud’ and are eligible to be picked to play another hand.
That would be a drag if the player pool was small or the software was laggy, but FTP seems to have both covered. In testing of Rush Poker table, hands moved very fluidly from one to the next, and the average hands per hour you’d expect at a normal table are increased by several hundred percent at a rush poker table. It’s aptly named – in many ways you see more action than you do even during certain points of multitabling, because once you fold (or even chose a special quick-fold button) you are immediately moved on to a new hand.
Yes. You can multi-table Rush Poker, essentially holding multiple spots in the cloud. Obviously, the software never seats you with yourself.
You can play up to 4 tables of any given limit of Rush Poker.
For cash games, Rush Poker is available in NLHE, LE and PLO. Both full ring and 6-max games are available for no limit and fixed limit holdem. For Pot Limit Omaha, only 6-max tables are available.
Currently, the lowest available stakes for NLHE are .02/.05 and the highest are $1/$2. The lowest available stakes for PLO are .05/.10 and the highest is .50/$1.
Absolutely. Full Tilt offers Rush Poker MTTs. They’re listed in the MTT lobby with a black R symbol next to the tournament name. In the Standard view, you can either use the main filter (show below) to access Rush tournaments…
… or you can use the Advanced Filter:
There are some key differences between Rush Poker cash and Rush Poker MTT, as well as between Rush Poker MTT and standard MTT. You can read a more in-depth article about them here; a quick list is below:
- No hand for hand play
- Final table reverts to typical tournament format
- Blinds are determined both by hands and time since last blind posted
- Tables are not combined aggressively near the end of Rush Poker MTTs; tables stay short once the tournament hits 30 until a final table is reached.
You take a seat at the table in a fashion similar to taking a seat at a standard cash game table at Full Tilt Poker. First, find the games in the lobby:
Standard View:
Basic View:
Choose the limit you’d like to play from the lobby. That will bring up the ‘lobby’ for that particular cloud. To join, just click the join now button in the top right:
Once you click join, you’ll be taken to the buy in screen, where you decide how much money you’d like to sit down with. You can reload at any time from within Rush Poker.
Once you’ve bought in, you’ll move to a countdown screen. After a quick 3-2-1 you’ll immediately be dealt into a hand.
From that point on, the moment you exit a hand, you’ll immediately move on to another hand. It is the fastest poker you can play at a single table, hands-down. If you want it to move even quicker, you can select the ‘quick fold option’ that allows you to pre-fold your hand before the action gets to you and moves you straight into another hand.
The game is new and fairly dynamic, so rather than suggesting specific strategies we’ll instead recommend a couple of articles we’ve published regarding tools that can help you succeed at Rush Poker:
Tools for helping you beat Rush Poker
Custom HUD (heads-up display) for Rush Poker
CardRunners has a number of Rush Poker videos.
It varies per player, but we’ve worked out that about $20 an hour is a good estimate for someone 4-tabling a mix of .50/1 and $1/2 6 max games. Especially if you use Table Ninja, racking up hands in Rush Poker is disgustingly easy – the quick fold button allows you to cram in several thousand hands in just an hour or two.
As you may know Rushpoker is a type of poker at Fulltilt where you are whisked from table to table as you fold or as a hand ends. It is structured as a typical 9 player ring game and the rotating pool of players can reach over a thousand. As in typical ring game you are responsible for the big and small blinds. The blinds are a bit tricky to distribute in Rushpoker as there are always new players at each table every hand. Fulltilt claims that the blinds are random with it going to the player who has gone the longest without being in the blind. Now I would guess that sometimes I would be in the blinds quite often and sometimes I would be in the blind not so often. I would also guess that it would even be possible to go more than 9 hands without being in the blinds as it would be possible to go 9 hands being in the blind every hand. My problem began when I started to notice that I was in the blinds way to often and began to count using the hand history option available on fulltilt. In fact I was in the blinds over 10,000 hands every 4th hand. I play primarily 0.5/0.10 stakes. Very simple math can show you the tax I was playing to play Rushpoker. This was even greater when I played rushpoker for higher stakes. Thus I was paying double (or more) the amount of blinds I would pay at a regular ring game of 9 players.
I wrote to Fulltilt on a number of occasions to inquire and I furnished them with my hand histories. After a few back and forths they said the matter was closed and they would no longer answer questions ion the matter. My guess is that in order for the rushpoker to function properly the software chooses a few unlucky saps to suck up the blinds (everytime they play). I am unfortunately one of them. Over the course of probably 100,000 hands I am in the blind at least every 4th hand. The fulltilt rep even had the nerve to write saying that one could be in the blinds every hand over 20,000 hands. In the language of the internet LOL. Please beware of the blinds in Rushpoker. I am curious if anyone else has experienced the same. PLease post if you have.
Thanks
if there are 9 seats and 2 blinds, you would expect to be ‘in the blinds’ about one in 4.5 hands. your 1-in-4 isn’t far off that.
Hey Chris I think you misunderstand. In a typical ring game you hit the blind on the 8th and 9th hand (considering you started under the gun or to the left of the blind. I am hitting every 4th hand or so and thus double (at least) on the blinds. Thanks
I think Chris has it right Withheld.
While you hit the blind in the 8th and 9th hand in a regular ring game, you are hitting them twice in a row. Now you are hitting the blind once every fourth hand, instead of twice every nine hands.
I agree. Two blinds, nine hands. 9/2=4.5. Withheld: in a normal game you hit two blinds every nine hands. That’s an average of one blind every 4.5 hands. They aren’t cheating you.
Austin are you mad? How can you hit the blind 2 out of 9 times in a regular game. But then say that this is a blind every 4.5 hands. Hello!!!
you are basically splitting the table in two in your reasoning. Which isn’t the case. It is a nine man ring game. To simple for you? Try playing a ring game with 9 people then five.
In a 9-man ring game the best you can consistently hope for is to be in a blind (small or big) twice for every nine hands dealt, or 22% of the time. If a guy leaves or is busted and it becomes an eight-man game you would expect to be in a blind twice for every eight hans dealt, or 25% of the time. After that (7 players or less) you will be in a blind more than 25% of the time. So technically if you were in the blind 25% of the time, you basically played a bunch of 8-handed poker and were barely over the regular rate of 22% for a full ring. However I’m sure it is made up by the fact that had you on your own played 100,000 hands in regular ring games, you would have at some point been in 7-handed or less games. You should probably thank FTP for designing it this way to ensure that you will only be in a blind 25% of the time instead of say 40% on a 5-handed game. Hope this is clear and helps anyone else.
why is this not available for fun money games
because they make money off of you not knowing the best way to play, or utilize, the game- its always about money…..c.r.e.a.m.
how about playing 4 or 5 tables where you blind every 8 and 9 and stop crying, its a new format…..derrrrrrr
and they are out to get just you no one else has this problem lol …sucker
go back to counting cards in black jack
i think you all need to drink water first off
second off this sounds ridic and not worth playing
lastly if youre seeing twice as many hands twice as fast then youre hitting the blinds more STOP CRYING
How do you leave the game? Do you just stand up and check out anytime you want?