By Rocco Havel | April 16, 2010

The most impressive innovation in online poker over the last couple years has arguably been Full Tilt’s fun invention, Rush Poker.  For those who haven’t tried it yet, Rush Poker, in a nutshell, is a poker game in which you are instantly moved to another table the moment you fold.  And as soon as you are moved, a new hand starts.  It is fast paced and nowhere close to boring.  Today, Full Tilt Poker has expanded Rush Poker beyond cash games, introducing Rush Poker tournaments.

The concept of a Rush Poker tournament is similar to a Rush Poker ring game.  You fold, you switch tables in the blink of an eye.  Thus, unlike in a regular tournament in which you may be at one table with the same players for a long time and therefore have the ability to make reads and setup plays for later in the game, you will constantly be seeing different opponents every hand in a Rush Poker tourney.  On top of that, since you move as soon as you fold, you won’t get to see how other people played certain hands (I should note that you actually can see what happened if you go into the hand history window.)  

One concern players might have, especially since it’s a tournament, is how the blinds are figured, since tables change every hand.  Full Tilt Poker will keep track of how long it has been since players have been in both blinds and will assign the blinds to the players who have avoided them the longest.  Both the number of hands since the blinds and time since the blinds will be factored into the equation – this ensures that players can’t avoid the blinds by stalling.  The other positions at the table will be randomly assigned.  

When a Rush Poker tournament gets down to 28 or fewer players, the tables will become short-handed to assure that play remains fast.  Once there is only one table remaining, play will change to standard tournament structure, as the Rush Poker format would no longer make any sense.  

Rush Poker tournaments can be found under the “Tournament” category in the Full Tilt Poker lobby, not the “Rush Poker” category as the Rush Poker cash games are.  Rush Poker tournaments are listed with a black “R” symbol next to them.

Full Tilt has also implemented Steps Sit-and-Go tournaments, as other poker rooms such as Party Poker, PokerStars, and UB have done in the past.  At Full Tilt, Steps start at $3.30 and go all the way up to Step 7, which has a $2,100 buy-in.  Step 7 prizes vary, but the first prize for the winner of Step 7 is currently a $12,000 World Series of Poker prize package.  In comparison, Party Poker’s Steps tournaments start at $3 but only go up to Step 6, which has a $500 buy-in.  PokerStars’ Steps start at $7.50 and increase in buy-in more quickly.  The last Step is Step 6 with a $2,100 buy-in and a prize package for one of a number of live worldwide tournaments.  

One nice thing about Full Tilt’s Steps tournaments is that those who advance to the next level are awarded a tournament ticket (Full Tilt has switched its system from tournament tokens to tickets, by the way) that is good for any tournament on the site.  Thus, if you win Step 4, you don’t have to use the $75 ticket for Step 5; you can use it for any tourney on Full Tilt.  This is great for those who decide they want to get out of the Steps ladder, an option not found on the other sites.

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