Ever since Full Tilt Poker closed, perhaps one of the most unfortunate things has been the absence of Rush Poker, an uber-fast online poker game that let you fold the hand you were dealt if you didn’t like it and instantly seated you at a new table with new players and a brand new hand. Repeat. PokerStars, however, has finally come out with their version of Rush Poker, similarly named Zoom Poker. While playing online poker avidly could never become “boring,” variations to the old school game can make playing online poker new and exciting again. Plus it gives you something to do while you are taking a break from regular poker.
PokerStars’ Zoom Poker groups players together in larger “clouds” of players. You remain in this cloud whether you fold your hand or not. When you start a session of Zoom Poker, you are seated at a table within your cloud and dealt into a hand. If you like your hand, you stay and play. If you don’t like your hand, you fold and the magical poker software seats you at a new table with other players within the same cloud, and you are dealt a new hand.
To give you an idea of just how fast this game is, a player can see as many as 300 hands of poker per hour, on average, because you can be active in up to four clouds at once if you so desire.
After existing on PokerStars’ beta testing site for play money for about a month, Zoom Poker is now live for real money, though it is technically still in the testing phase. Zoom Poker was an instant success when it went live for real money a few days ago, and while there are limited variants and only very low stakes currently available, more options will be introduced likely sooner than later, as the software is performing as expected with no major wrinkles.