Monkey Butts

I'm still playing Rush poker, and it's still a love/hate experience for me. I'm up about $140 overall in the hold'em games, which is a great thing, obviously....

....but....

.... like I wrote in my last post, it sure doesn't feel like real poker. I'm just a monkey banging away at the keyboard, making some money....

....but....

.... I'm not sure if I'm really enjoying the experience or not. It's like a mindless video game. Worse, it's affecting my "real" poker playing in a big way. Operation Hindenburg has ground to a complete halt because of the Rush games, and I'm not playing any SnGs or MTTs, either. Instead, it's just Quick Folding over and over until I have a playable hand, and then it's off to the races. I'm making money....

....but....

....Rush Poker is eroding my hand- and player-reading skills. Because I have no HUD on my opponents, and because I won't see them for 30 or so hands downstream, and because once I've folded I can't see what the opp has played, and because the whole thing moves so fast I can't take notes, the game devolves into level-1 that a trained chimp could master....

....but.....

...this may not be an entirely bad thing. If everyone is playing level-1 poker, it means my opponents have the same handicaps. In other words, if I can't exploit my opponents, it also means they can't exploit me, either. Which in turn means I can do things that are taboo in a normal ring game, like varying my bet sizing based on the strength of my hands. For instance, if I raise PF and get a caller, I can then c-bet, say, half the pot if I miss the flop, thereby minimizing my risk. On the other hand, I can c-bet 2/3's of the pot or more if I hit, therefore maximizing the gain....

....but....


....it's still level-1 poker, which means the post-flop edge a skilled player has is nullified. The game is fit or fold poker, which isn't really poker....

.....but....

....this got me thinking about the whole concept of Rush poker. Winning consistently at hold'em is strongly dependent on reading the opp's hand ranges. Ergo, hold'em poker, played Rush-style, is probably not a great fit....

....but....

...maybe other forms of poker do make a good fit when played Rush-style. For instance, when played at low stakes, Omaha poker is really just a game of waiting for big starting hands, seeing if you hit the flop hard or not, and ramming and jamming, especially if you have re-draws to nut hands. Whereas hold'em has only 169 unique starting hands, and therefore you stand a decent chance of putting the opp on an fairly specific range of hands, Omaha has literally thousands of unique starting hands. In other words, putting the opp on a narrow range of hands is really hard. Omaha is also a game of the nuts, or near-nuts. While hands like two pair may be a monster in hold'em, it is often a no-brainer folding hand in Omaha. If the board pairs in a multi-way Omaha hand, you're probably best off just folding your straight and waiting for a better situation to arise....

....but.....

....isn't this one of the key advantages of Rush poker? I.e., you can Quick Fold your marginal hands and quickly get dealt another. In other words, Rush poker seems like a nearly ideal fit for Omaha.... which is why I played 300 hands of $25PL Omaha tonight and made $30 without really trying too hard....and....I'm not really a very good Omaha player. Hmmmm.... maybe I'm on to something here.....

.....but.....

....maybe not... Maybe I just got lucky. Hell, who knows? I'm all over the map on this whole Rush thing. I love the monkey, I hate the monkey.... and.... I will keep you posted.

All-in for now...
-Bug