Rush’s Future?
Full Tilt has been closed for a while now. The LA Times is reporting a group of European investors has agreed to a deal with them. It will be interesting to see if they continue running as Full Tilt or whether they will merge with an existing Euro site. If the latter, will they employ the Rush software/concept? Fingers crossed.
MiniFtops Rush Schedule
#3
| $30 + $3 NL Hold’em Rush Multi-Entry Tournament |
#9
| $24 + $2 PL Omaha Hi Rush Knockout |
#12
| $20 + $2 NL Hold’em Rush Super Turbo |
$100,000 |
#32
| $20 + $2 Hold’em Limit Rush |
$50,000 |
#41
| $10 + $1 NL Hold’em Rush Rebuy |
$300,000 |
FTOPS XIX
FTOPS XIX is underway. Saturday has a $216 rush FTOPS that I think will be very soft. Looking forward to it!
Rush Week Begins
FTP has rolled out another Rush Week. It starts today and ends Sunday. The last one was in July and it resulted in a lot of new (less skilled!) players giving it a try. The rewards are:
Bronze day = 10 pts / Silver day = 100 pts / Gold day = 1,000 pts
4 out of 7 bronze days = $5
7 out of 7 bronze days = $10
4 out of 7 silver days = $25
7 out of 7 silver days = $50
4 out of 7 gold days = $125
7 out of 7 gold days = $250
FTOPS Rush Bonanza
This month’s FTOPS features seven Rush events, ranging from HORSE to PLO to various rebuy tournaments. I played the $100 rush rebuy on Saturday with no luck. But I plan to play at least a few more… it’s a great chance at a big score in a limited time period (most normal speed FTOPS take 10-15 hours). I think my tournament strategies will be useful in these events… good luck if you’re playing 
New Andy Bloch Rush Strategy
Andy Bloch released some tips for Full Tilt’s new brand of poker. A transcript is available on their Poker Academy page. There was one tip that I had intuitively noticed while playing but never included in the strategy articles: when you raise from any position and get called/raised by the blinds, you will run into a better hand vs the small blind more often than the big blind. This is because the small blind has the option to quick fold while the big blind usually has to wait for somebody to raise, making it more likely they’ll wait around to call/raise with more speculative hands. I know I’m guilty of that on occasion!
Besides that, the advice was pretty standard: play solid, slow down if you need to, and take notes.
Rush Poker Mobile Is Here!
A Full Tilt representative has announced beta testing for Rush Poker Mobile. According to Sean, it will be supported on the following devices:
Acer Liquid Stream S110
HTC Desire
HTC Droid Incredible
HTC Evo 4G
HTC Google Nexus One
HTC Desire HD
Motorola Droid 2
Motorola Droid Pro / Droid 2 World Edition
Motorola Droid X
T-Mobile G2
“If you have a phone running Android 2.2 and Flash 10.1, you may still be able to participate…”
This is certainly an exciting development. It should expand the player pool and make it easier for us to play on the go!
Rush Promos
It looks like FTP is offering $50-300 in bonuses to promote their new format. In the FTP client go to the “Requests” tab and then “Check my bonus offer”. This, along with the commercials on Full Tilt should be great for cash & tournament player pools.
Basics from Howard Lederer
Found a good primer for those just starting out, new to the game:
More Rush Strategy
Last month I posted Rush Strategy, and I think following those four tips are going to be the cornerstones of your success in this format. However after playing a lot more I think there are a few more strategic considerations:
Identify the “regulars”
Full Tilt allows you to play up to four tables at a given limit. Typically you will find the better, more consistent players maxing out their number of tables to get the most hands in. If you can identify which players are showing up at your table the most (or just look them up in the lobby) you can safely assume they are at least semi-decent players that are not going to take bad or illogical lines.
Identify the fish
While a Rush Tracker is going to be the best way to discover who the weakest players in the game are, taking notes is also important. Any time you get a read on a player, be sure to right click on them and use FTP’s notes feature to jot down your analysis. Weeks and even months down the road you can now remember a player “likes to bluff river small” or “calls a lot from the blinds” long after you’ve forgotten the player’s screenname.
Keep mixing up your play
People wrongly assume that since you’re constantly switching tables nobody can pick up on how you’re playing, and therefore you wouldn’t need to change up your play. The truth is that competent players will easily pick up on, say, the ranges of hands you raise from early position. If you decide you’re only going to to raise KK and AA a majority of players will quickly figure you out and no longer pay you off. By mixing up your play, you will keep all opponents guessing… often wrongly!
Keep a strong tilt radar
One of the great things about Rush is how many more hands you can play in a short amount of time. On the other hand, this is a death sentence for players who cannot control their emotions and have bouts of tilted, erratic play. If you’re prone to tilt you must recognize when you’re no longer playing at your best and sit out. The beauty of this format is once you cool down and get back into your A-game mind frame, you can get back into the games immediately!
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Hopefully these strategies are helpful at the tables. I wish you all success!
