Feel the rush!

Full Tilt's "Rush Poker" is an interesting concept, but it's easy to get lost in the action and the pace of play... which is exactly what Full Tilt wants to happen, right?

In preparation for my usual summer playing time, I experimented with Rush during the last few days, and here are my observations as they apply to how I think I should play Rush:

1. Set a timer. Opening up two tables and rushing through a few hundred hands Sunday, I realized that an hour had passed in no time at all. If I don't set a timer I could play way longer than experience tells me I will play optimally.

2. Expect a low percentage of hands played. After an hour of play on two tables I was playing less than 17% of the hands. That's pretty low. Even playing fairly tight I usually play well over that.

3. Don't set the auto-rebuy function. It's really easy to lose a buy-in and then another and then another while the money magically appears in my chip stack. I prefer to be prompted to re-buy. That way I can keep track of exactly how much money I have on the table. Evaluating how many buy-ins I have on the table helps prevent tilt loss.

4. Play my game. I know I'm a winning player and I know how I like to play. Just keep playing that style.

5. Jack/Jack. Pot raise the hand and drop it when pushed, especially by two players. In the rock-fest game that Rush inspires, jack/jack is way behind the push!

6. Swim with the fishes. The fish are still out there. I hit a set of 3's on the flop, bet it, turned quads which also brought a flush board, checked, bet all-in on the river and was called by TWO PAIR. There was a possible flush on the board, a pair on the board, and the caller didn't even have a good kicker, and he called down quads. Yikes.

7. Keep evaluating...