Playing Rush hands

Adam said he was thinking about straying back into Rush poker and was looking for advice so I figured I'd just go ahead and publish my hand standards.

I basically fold everything except:

AK raise or call a single raise then play if I hit A or K. Possibly cbet a miss in position but usually not, but that's just my style. I know I'm giving up some equity here but it is just easier and faster for me to bail on the hand and move on to another.

AA raise, re-raise, or shove pre. I don't try to play these tricky because anyone who will go broke with their hand post-flop will usually do so pre. If there is already isolation I might flat instead of four bet so I don't scare off JJ or QQ but that's rare. Usually I just shove when I find someone that interested because some many donks shove AK trying to look strong and other players know it so a shove can induce a call from even small pairs even though, if they'd think about it, they are a flip *at best* but once you make a big pot people get greedy.

KK, actually more likely to shove pre here than with AA because I don't like getting bluffed out by an A on the flop.

22-QQ raise if first to pot and in MP or later. TT-QQ raise if first to pot in any position. Small or mid pairs limp if previous limper(s) and set mine. If there is a raise in front of me I'm pretty much dumping 22-QQ and moving on. They end up playing much the same since anyone who is getting frisky has AA, KK, or AK and there is no substantial difference between ducks and queens at that point. Every so often you'll catch someone with JJ or TT but not enough (in my book) to justify stacking off in coin flips or with an underpair. I used to get real defensive about getting re-raised with QQ and get stubborn with them then stack off to AA or lose a coin flip with AK. It's taken a lot of lost hands and money to finally just condition myself to ask "would I put money in here with 22?" because that is basically the same hand.

Steals. I used to steal a lot more in the hi-jack, cutoff, or button when it was folded to me. A min-raise is not going to cut it. Yes, some people will have the auto-fold button on but a min just ends up getting called and you'll have to play poker. If you're going to steal then just pot it. However, steals are so common from there that re-steals from the button or blind makes stealing a hassle sometimes. Nowadays I pretty much don't bother because of the playback and the fact that you need to wait for everyone to fold to you all around the table (I play full ring Rush) until you can try to steal.

I also buy in for minimum and cash out after doubling up as long as I double up to more thank 150% or so of my stack. You have to close your window but once you do you can buy in for min again. Rush is a rat holers paradise. As such their min buy is larger than at the normal ring tables, 40bb instead of 20bb. As the saying goes, I'm not here to make friends.

I know that this is suboptimal play but those are the guidelines I use because my goal is merely to break even and plow through as many hands as possible in the shortest amount of times. Playing four tables in the Rush format also means that I do not bother trying to get reads on players. I focus on my cards and my cards only. When I'm making origami and folding everything due to either nitting up or being card dead I'll clear 2000 hands/hour (500 hands/hour/table). Average though is closer to 1600 and on a slow day because I'm having to play hands out it can dip down to even less than that.

Other tidbits:
For whatever reason, re-raising the very deep stacked players pot sized bets very often gets them to fold. I don't know why.

I have found that the stereotype of aggro Europeans, especially eastern, is true enough that I will knock my standards down half a notch for them. i.e. stacking off with QQ or AK.

According to HEM and my (admittedly not huge sample size) numbers, stacking off with AK pre-flop is EV-. I forget the exact numbers but QQ was either EV- or only slightly EV+ that I also have stopped doing that in favor of finding spots where I am a substantial favorite. The only winner when playing tons of coin flips is Full Tilt.

.02/.05 is, not surprisingly, softer than .05/.10 which I normally play since players will stack off lighter. If I am looking to do a little bankroll repair I might move down to playing nickels but usually I stick to dimes because it takes so long to accrue points at .02/.05.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Comment or email if you have any questions.