Tampa Bay Poker Group

OK, so it's not completely misleading, but it is possible to think that they are talking about the speed of your play.  The single most important thing about Rush poker is NOT to rush at all.  You want to play the most patient poker of your life.  This doesn't mean not playing any hands at all, to the contrary.  Once you are up a few bucks, you can try to hit straights and flushes knowing that many opponents are playing exactly how I outline here.

These are NOT hard and fast rules, but I find most of the time I do poorly on Rush poker it's because I broke one or many of the below suggestions.  These suggestions are only if there is no raise in front of you already.  You basically want to play as few hands as possible where sometime raises in front except to set mine.  Even then, set over set is possible and since you can see 300 hands/hour playing Rush Pokler , why bother risking what's unnecessary?

Calling Hands

EP - none.  Don't be calling in EP, just move on.

MP - Any PP under JJ, AQs+ (unless you're already stuck, then just fold everything you won't raise)

LP - Any PP under JJ, AQs+ (unless you're already stuck, then just fold everything you won't raise)

Raising Hands

EP - JJ+, AKo+

MP - 88+, AKo+

LP - 22+, AQs+ (beware AQ, but raising with it can take the blinds down more often than not)

Re-raising Hands

EP - You should have already raised since you're already in a hand an in EP ... in which case you have JJ, QQ, KK (flat call and set mine, lead out with KK) AA (push, obvoiously ... the other player probably has QQ ,KK).  Fold AK to re-raise.

MP - JJ+

LP - JJ+

(Sample) Folding Situations

CB re-raised, you hit nothing

re-raise (or re-re) after leading out your TT/JJ on a 9 high board

Anytime you REALLY don't have it.  I mean REALLY.  Move on to the next hand and make the money back you lost on that hand.

What you're dealing with:

Just like in standard ring games, you will still find people are still calling in middle position with 9To, JQo, I mean truly horrible rags.  You're going to get a bad beat or two even following a methodology to a T.  Obviously we want to have a few buy in's to deal with in order to be successful at first.  A healthy bankroll would be even better - but we know not everyone has that luxury.

You're losing money by not CB'ing your preflop raise People are folding to CB's all the time ... the next hand is a click away, something I believe a majority of players are thinking about.

In short, these are merely guidelines, but good ones and Rush Poker makes it much easier to be patient, I suggest you take advantage of it.

Personal Strategy

Worthwhile to mention, I take the Sklansky short stack approach with such a limited roll so that I can control my losses.  You're much likely to get a caller with a lousy hand when you're holding your aces and such than if you had a full buyin.  You can buy into $1/$2 for $80 instead of getting a full buy in at say $.50/$1.  Whether or not this actually helps is subjective until someone did some meaningful research - but it certainly helps curb net losses.

This is merely my personal strategy ... the +EV is there if you can play like this all the time, so buying in full is never a bad idea.