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Since a few months, Full Tilt poker introduced a new revolution in poker with Rush Poker.

For those who don’t know what Rush Poker is, here’s a short explanation.
Instead of a normal ring game, you’re playing against more than 100 opponents. In the low stakes a Rush Poker game can exist of 400 to 600 users.
Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a tournament, but you’ll be seated at a table together with others and as soon as you quick fold, fold or end the hand, you’ll be seated at another table with other opponents waiting for cards.

The name Rush Poker is the right name for this kind of game. The first time I played it I was thinking what the hell??? This game’s so freaking fast. You’ll be playing around 250 hands an hour which is much more than a normal ring game.
This also implicates that you could win or lose your money faster.

So what tactics should you apply in this kind of game?

With the fact that you’re playing so many hands per hour, you should be aware that just calling isn’t the right move. 4 times out of 5 there’s always one player that will raise the BB. So if you’re going to enter in the pot, make a raise instead of just a call.
This also means that if you want to be successful in Rush Poker, you’ll won’t be playing hands like 7 2 of 8 4, …
Don’t get me wrong, you can play them occasionally, but mostly you’ll be playing tight.
My experience is that everyone that enters the pot is having a decent hand to play, so with a bad flop for good hands you can take a swing for the pot. You should only have to watch out for the blinds if there was no pre-flop raise. They could hold any cards for nothing.

So whenever you’re holding good cards, make a raise. I prefer to raise 3x the BB and mostly play just against 1 other player, which raises my chance of winning the pot. Depending on the flop I always make another raise to see what my opponent will do. Only if the flop is really in my disadvantage, I check.

I also try to get as much out of the pot as possible, no matter if I get the ‘nuts’ on the flop or not. It hurts to see everybody fold if you’re holding one of the best hands at the time, but when someone does decide to gamble, you’ll be winning big. This is why I also find it necessary to play tight.

If I’m on the blinds I mostly call a small raise, even when I’m holding deuce seven. I only do this for seeing the flop, if I hit big, I can wheel in a lot more cash and I won’t be hitting my head at the time I folded 4J for a few cents, with a J4J flop.

I only can say, try Rush Poker on Full Tilt, see if it’s a game for you, because I can imagine that the fastness of the game isn’t playable for everyone. I can only say that I really like it and that I find it much easier to win money then in normal ring games.

In normal ring games, 70% of the times I leave the table with more cash than entering. In Rush Poker I currently have a 85% winning percentage. Also, I win more at a time than when I’m playing a normal ring game.

There’s only 1 important rule I learned not to ignore: Whenever I’m under half my initial stack, I leave the game to cut my losses and keeping me on my bankroll management.
This could be overly careful of me, but it’s a rule I pushed myself into after a few losses that where completely my own fault. I saw that when I lost more than the half of my stack, I played too loose en was making stupid calls. I was under the impression that I could bluff out my opponents, but got hit in the face. So to avoid this I told myself to stop at 50% of my initial stack.

For leaving the table with winnings, I have an almost identical rule, whenever I win 50% of my stack, I prefer to leave the game. But it happens often that I don’t do it, because I’m keep getting big hands and keep on winning. This is risky, because you could again be playing much looser and could make wrong calls as being one of the big stacks and try to fold you’re opponent with big raises. If they don’t, you’re losing that precious earned cash. So quit while you can then

See you at the Rusk Poker tables on Full Tilt!!!

It’s that time of the year once again. PokerStars just announced the schedule for the 2010 PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) , starting the 2nd of May 2010 and ending on May 16th.
With SCOOP Poker Tournament, being one of the biggest online tournaments with millions of guaranteed prize money, this could be your chance to win big.
This year, there’s a total guaranteed prize pool of $45,000,000 to be divided over 38 events. With a lowest buy-in of $11 and a highest buy-in of $10,300 there’s a play for every bankroll. Every event is divided into 3 different buy-in levels, low, medium and high with their own prize money.

As always, there’s the possibility to qualify for big events like SCOOP with satellites that are running right now. Click on the Events section in your PokerStars client and then select SCOOP to see the full list of satellites.

And to top it off, PokerStars.tv will be covering the SCOOP series, with articles and tweets from Team PokerStars Pro. Wouldn’t it be cool that a pro player like Daniel Negreanu or Joe Hachem could be commentating your play?

Here are some stats from last year’s SCOOP series, the first ever.
49,029 unique players (199,958 Buy-ins) played in 22 different events, totaling a total prize money pool of $38,324,830. The SCOOP 2009 Series played in 163 different countries, with 118 countries who cashed.
In total there were 33,639 players (not unique) who cashed and the United States was the country with the most cashes (13,418), followed by Germany (3852 cashes) and Canada. Belgium, my home county had 238 cashes and ended on place 20. This year, I’m going to make sure I’m one of those cashes and hopefully more than once

Are there any particular events in the SCOOP series you’re looking forward to?

Just a few months back I finally made my first $100 starting from scratch and now I already have the $200 mark in sight.
Actually if you take into account that I also won a $16,50 PokerStars SCOOP ticket, I’m over $200 right now
But that ticket is to use in the next SCOOP games on PokerStars only so I can’t cash it in for the value of the money. But On the other hand, what if that ticket wins me a lot more cash
At the moment I’m only playing tournaments with a buy-in of maximum $4, so a $16,50 tournament will earn four times as much if I’m in the prizes.

Cash games are going great lately, with winnings 80% of the time I play cash games. And the times I loose I’m still able to minimize the losses for that particular game.
The best session was when I bought myself in into $0,10/$0,05 game for $10 and ended up winning $35 in about an hour later. In that session, I almost immediately read the table and knew when to bet or to fold. And another nice thing was that I also got the cards I needed if necessary.

Besides cash games I also started playing in the Double or nothing 1-Table Sit ‘n Go’s with a $1+$0,15 buy-in. Till now with great success, 10 sit ‘n go’s played, winning in 9 of them.
But the playing experience I don’t like in this particular sit ’n go. As soon as there 6 players left, everybody starts to wait for the one that makes an error. So I start steeling blinds by then, but it almost cost me the victory in a few occasions. Most of the times when at this stage there are only 2 or 3 players who are still actually play poker then and it’s cruel that one of these players have to lose because they’re actually playing. I hate PASSIVE players.
True it’s a tactic to wait for others to make errors, but the one time I didn’t win in the Sit ‘n Go, I was really pissed, not on the player who beat me, but on the wanker that always folded. He got lucky in the round before when he almost lost on the big blind, but hit an Ace on the river, doubling him up for a few extra rounds.

I’ll keep you posted.

If you just started out to play poker, you can think poker is just a game of luck. But when you play more often and start reading some book from well-established poker players like “Ace on the River” from Barry Greenstein or “Power Hold’em Strategy” from Daniel Negreanu, you start to think otherwise.

Just last week I argued about it with a colleague of mine. He said that poker is pure luck.
So I started out giving him example after example to prove him that skill is more important than luck.
No matter what I told him he always came down to: “Yes, but you still where lucky you got the card you wanted, etc…”

So in the next week we played poker, I introduced an extra rule into the game I once saw being used on “High stakes poker” episodes. If you win with Seven Deuce (72) in your hand and show them, you get extra chips from every player at the table. But I didn’t tell him that this rule would prove to him that skill is more important than luck.

So we started playing hand after hand, nobody got the Seven Deuce hand. Then I saw a big raise pre-flop and immediately started thinking could he playing the Seven Deuce or does he have a big pair?
My hand was bas so I folded. The ‘luck’ guy called with a KJ suited. With a rainbow A49 flop, his king wasn’t good anymore. The other guy made a big raise and he folded his KJ. The guy who won the pot laughed and showed his Seven Deuce, cashing in some extra chips from every one of us and making my point clear. But I kept quiet, it wasn’t time yet to prove he’s wrong.

A few hands later another guy again won with Seven Deuce, not against him, but he did manage to bluff his hand.
The next day another 2 guys won with Seven Deuce. I just wanted to beat him myself with that hand and still said nothing.
The last day of the week, I finally got the Seven Deuce hand and faced myself playing him and another guy. So One of them had to go before the Turn-card. With AK2 on the flop and me on the button I raised big to get one of my opponents out of the game and letting them think I have an Ace or a king.
Success, me against the guy who believes poker is just pure luck. With another K on the turn, he made a small raise. I kept my cool, looked at him and didn’t put him on an Ace or a King. So I went All-in to try and bluff him out. He hesitated and started think the hand over, I raised pre-flop, I raised after the flop and I raised again after the turn. He looked at me and folded, showing his pocket jacks.

Before I showed him my hand, I asked him, “Hey, remember our little discussion about poker being luck or skill from last week?” He knotted his head and told me: “yes I sure do, why?”
“Well…” I said, “The hand I’m going to show you right now, proves which is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill!” putting my Seven Deuce on the table.
I also explained that by introducing that Seven Deuce rule, I could prove that no matter what you’re holding in your hand, you could bluff everybody out of the game. It’s just a mind switch you’ll have to make and don’t hope that your card will fall on the river.

You tell me, what do you believe, Skill or Luck?

PokerStars is celebrating a milestone, 40 Billion hands dealt!!!

And they’re celebrating it with you. They’re organizing great value tournaments and tons of exiting cash games. 

F40 Milestone hands

Poker players dealt in every millionth hand will win a cash prize of $40 for every VPP they earned in the previous 40 hands played on that table. Every player that’s dealt in will be awarded a VPP and the winner of the hand will get their cash prize doubled.
Example: Play at a $1/$2 table and get dealt into a milestone hand. PokerStars calculates that you have earned 31VPPs in the last 40 hands + the extra VPP = 32 VPPs. This means 32x$40 = $1280!!! If you win the hand it will be doubled to $2560!!!
And to top it off, at the time the 40th Billion hand will be dealt, all players will be awarded $400 for every VPP earned in the previous 40 hands.
Example: 32VPP x $400 = $12800. Win the hand and earn a whopping $25600!!!!

Multi-Table tournaments (MTTs)

F40:Sunday Million $4.000.000 guaranteed on February 21st, the biggest prize pool EVER, with at least $1.000.000 for the winner!! Buy-in $215
F40: $40 Micro Million $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament

A special F40 tournament takes place at 14:30 ET on Sunday, February 14. For a buy-in of just $40 you can play for your share of a guaranteed $1,000,000 prize pool.

F40: 40 FPP - $40,000 Specials

You can also play in a series of special F40 FPP tournaments. Each has a buy-in of only 40 FPPs and a prize pool of $40,000. Start times will alternate between 13:40 ET & 21:40 ET each day.
To register for the Sunday Million or any of the other F40 tournaments, open the PokerStars lobby, click ‘Tourney’ & ‘Special’.

Sit & Go’s

F40: Super Sit & Go tournaments

A series of 40-man Super Sit & Go torunaments will be helt 24/7 from February 14 till February 21.

F40: First Depositor Freerolls

Every player whit a first real money deposit on PokerStars using the code F40 will be awarded a ticket to all 40 of PokerStars free-to-enter tournaments with a $1000 prize pool.