Tuesday 20 March 2012

Strategy for Zoom Poker

Pokerstars has recently came out with its own version of Rush Poker. They called it Zoom Poker which is an improved version of Rush Poker. In Zoom, players are able to "sit out next blind" or watch the entire hand after folding by simply pressing the "CTRL" button while clicking on the fold button.

I guess the strategy required for Zoom Poker will be essentially different from normal ring games. In ring games, especially for small stake NLHE, sharks are always on a look out for fishes. And these fishes are the main contributor to sharks' win rate.

I would regard myself as a winning player for 9 max 25NL, having played more than 140k hands with a winrate of about 3 big blinds/100. My strategy? Simple... ... Exploitation and more exploitation - With the use of HUD . Without HUD, I can't simply play 6 tables at a go. I am blind without HUD so to speak.

In Zoom Poker, without HUD, players will no longer be able to identify fishes from the regular sharks. Without HUD, it becomes almost impossible to exploit others because there are no ways sharks can exploit the tendencies of opponents. Even though HM2 and PT4 have indicated the possiblity of incorporating HUD in Zoom, the usefulness of HUD in a fast changing table dynamic of Zoom Poker is questionable.

So what do all these boils down to?

ABC poker seems to be the way to go in Zoom Poker. Since we do not know who are the fishes, we no longer can  call an UTG raise with any  hands profitably, hoping to bluff and take away a hand easily.  We are no longer able to distinguish bluff from value betting since we can't tell that from their betting pattern. With all these in mind, here's my version of a simple strategy to win in Zoom Poker.


  1. Tight is right at Zoom. Fold all speculative hand UTG. Given that everyone plays tight, playing speculative hand OOP is no longer profitable. 
  2. Given the nature of Zoom Poker, expect everyone to fold thrashes and everyone to raise any premium hands and pocket pairs in any position. Therefore, respect all mid position raises since they are likely to have some hands given they they need to wait for the action to get to them (Assumption: They are likely to fold lousy hands and move on quickly to the next table). 
  3. Make full use of Button and CO position. These positions are gold in Zoom. Sharks no longer are able to tell if anyone is abusing the power of the position. Don't fold too quickly at BTN and CO position. Instead. Steal relentlessly with any decent hands  if action is folded to you. This will ensure that the red line is kept up and thus, boosting the non-showdown profit.
  4. Call any raises with speculative hands in position since the implied odds is greater now since everyone is playing tighter. 
Well, these are just my ideas. Not yet proven but to me at least, it sounds feasible and logical. 

I would welcome any comments on this. 










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