Volume, Volume, Volume

Full Tilt debuted "Rush Poker" this week. Rush Poker allows players to play more hands per hour (and Full Tilt to rake more hands per hour) by creating tables on the fly from one giant pool of players. Join a game and you'll be randomly placed at a table. As soon as you fold your hand you're moved to another random table with eight new opponents. Rinse, repeat. You can even fold out of turn -- though your opponents won't see your fold until the action gets to you -- by using the "Quick Fold" option. You know you're not going to play that 9-4 offsuit from middle position; why should you have to wait until the action gets to you before moving on to your next table?

For the moment there are only four limits of 6-handed and 9-handed NLHE available: $0.05-$0.10; $0.10-$0.25; $0.25-$0.50; and $0.50-$1. It may be that there's a minimum threshold pool of players necessary to make the game viable and that pool doesn't exist at higher limits. Or it could just be that this is a "soft" roll-out to make sure there aren't any issues with the new product. Multi-tabling is still possible; you just join the player pool multiple times.

I monkeyed around with Rush Poker at the smallest available limit, $0.05-$0.10 (which didn't stop me from running queens into aces for a buy-in). Your position at each table is completely random. If you were the button last hand, there's no guarantee that you'll be the cutoff this time. Only the big blind is not set randomly -- that position is given to the player at the table who has gone the most number of hands without being the big blind.

This twist on the game has a few implications that are readily apparent from my quick foray.

1. There is no such thing as table image. When you are playing against eight new opponents every hand it's impossible to create a table image. It also becomes impossible to assign an image or style to any of your opponents.

2. The amount a player should bluff changes. This follows from point one. Bluffing is best used when it supports your image and the story you are attempting to tell in the hand. My initial impression is that Rush Poker favors more bluffing since players are forced to put more stock in "playing the cards" in the absence of any other information about their opponents.

3. Data-mining is impossible. There are no "tables" for a data-mining site to monitor. There's just a giant pool of players. As soon as you fold a hand, all of your opponents are whisked off of the table to the left and new opponents are whisked into the table from the right. In reality, there are dozens of hands playing out at any given moment but it's not possible to see any other hand but the one into which you've been dealt.

I suspect this new form of poker will be a big hit with players if for no other reason than it vastly increases the number of hands they can play in an hour. It will be interesting to see how it changes what has become accepted as "standard" play.