Rush Poker: Reading Opponents

Sure, the structure of Rush Poker makes it tough to get reads on your opponents. Tougher than in a regular-paced game of poker, at least. However that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should rule out reads altogether.

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There are a few useful pieces of information you can look out for when scoping out players. There are also a few standard betting lines you can keep in mind when making decisions. Some of these are:

• Screen names: Screen names can tell you a lot about your opponents. Importantly, names can help you categorize a player’s general tendencies.

• Preflop betting amounts: you can generally tell a donk from a regular by the size of his bets preflop; that is true both in regular-paced poker and Rush Poker.

• Position: position is important in any poker game, and Rush Poker is no exception. Players who do dumb things in or out of position can reveal much about their games.

• Postflop betting lines: continuation bets and turn bets can tell you a lot about a player’s hand. Don’t ignore them.

Screen Names in Rush Poker

Remember what your mother always told you? That thing about not judging a book by its cover? Throw that out the window. In Rush Poker you’ve got to take what you can get.

Look out for names made up of online acronyms and keywords. More often than not, players with these sorts of handles post on poker forums, and fancy themselves pretty good. More often than not, they aren’t really that good, and are playing a highly robotic game. Names might include things like: “LOL_Donk”, “zzzzzzRAIZE”, or “StackdUHard”.

Players who use online lingo in their names are usually bad TAG players. This means they’ll raise preflop with the strongest 17-22% of hands, and will c-bet almost always. Raising c-bets on dry flops against these players will often take down the pot.

Notice that successful online high-stakes players rarely, if ever, have forum lingo in their names. As a matter of fact, very few long-term winners do. Take from this what you will.

Preflop Bettors in a Rush: Robotic Betting

Watch for donkish or weird preflop bets. Someone betting 8xBB on the button is probably up to something; whether or not you want to take him on is up to you. But realize that it’s probably spew. A player betting the normal 3xBB or 4xBB can go either way.

On the low end of the extreme, a lot of Rush Poker players like to bet the minimum preflop with almost any two cards. The theory behind this is that they’ll be able to take down lots of blinds without risking much. Somebody betting 2xBB preflop is not aiming to extract value; take advantage of this by raising it up.

Rush Poker Doesn’t Eliminate Position

There’s still a button and a cutoff and an under the gun seat in Rush Poker. Why players think position doesn’t matter in Rush is beyond me. Position matters just as much as it does in a normal-speed game of poker; in fact, it might matter even more.

Watch for players doing typically stupid things, like limping in early position. Raise to isolate these players, because they’re bad; you want to play pots against them. Likewise, don’t assume that a raiser on the button has a hand. He might just be abusing position.

Hint: Use screen-name tells in combination with betting tells. Players with obvious forum-culture names are more likely to steal than timid newbies.

Postflop Betting Lines

Stick to the ABCs when playing postflop Rush Poker. Try and synthesize all the information you can about your opponent when making decisions. If a guy with a poker-specific screen name raises preflop on the button, then continuation bets a dry flop, you can be reasonably sure that he’s running a standard routine.

Likewise, certain time-tested mantras remain as true in Rush Poker as they were in regular-speed poker. The Beluga Theorem is one: if someone check-raises you on the turn, your overpair or top-top is no good. In the same vein, a river bet is rarely, if ever, a bluff.