How to deal with Rush bullies?

So I've been playing 5NL Rush basically multi-tabling two tables and playing nitty TAG poker usually folding my blinds against raises. Raising from position with premium hands or pairs, etc, etc. It works fairly well to grind things out.

I've noticed a breed of player now on Rush. I call them the "Rush bullies." These are the guys that love to 3bet pre-flop when you make standard raise. Say I've got 10-10 in MP and raise the standard pot raise which is $.17. They'll do a pot raise which is about $.52 or something, often from the blinds. Usually I'll just fold.

But I'm wondering, since it's hard to get a handle on players in Rush, if anyone has any thoughts on countering this kind of play. Often these guys have big stacks which makes them more intimidating. But I wonder if they are padding their stacks by making guys like me fold by 3betting light. I called one guy up one time and took him out. But that's a risky play as a standard measure.

I do think that is how they gain their stacks to make them more intimidating, I have only played rush a few times and play it very tight, but it never fails that I end up all in PF with AA or KK and lose whatever I have on the table. Rush I think is short for Russian roulette, which is what I feel like playing after a session in it.

Just like any other game, if they really are 3betting you light (and I wouldn't assume that they are without stats/reads) you should start 4betting lighter with a willingness to stack TT+ (maybe 99+) / AQ+ with a few bluffy type 4bets mixed in (SC type hands have the best equity should they call the 4bet so I prefer those hands for those rare 4bet bluffs).

Stacking that range won't be super profitable but overall the 4bet should show a profit because they will be folding to your 4bets a decent amount (again assuming you are right about their 3bet frequency).

GCB said:

So I've been playing 5NL Rush basically multi-tabling two tables and playing nitty TAG poker usually folding my blinds against raises. Raising from position with premium hands or pairs, etc, etc. It works fairly well to grind things out.

I've noticed a breed of player now on Rush. I call them the "Rush bullies." These are the guys that love to 3bet pre-flop when you make standard raise. Say I've got 10-10 in MP and raise the standard pot raise which is $.17. They'll do a pot raise which is about $.52 or something, often from the blinds. Usually I'll just fold.

But I'm wondering, since it's hard to get a handle on players in Rush, if anyone has any thoughts on countering this kind of play. Often these guys have big stacks which makes them more intimidating. But I wonder if they are padding their stacks by making guys like me fold by 3betting light. I called one guy up one time and took him out. But that's a risky play as a standard measure.

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You can still take notes on a player in a rush game...just have to be a bit quicker about it!
Pick a colour you wouldn't normally use to tag them and keep a record firstly of how many times they 3 bet your min raises, secondly how often they raise in general (you'll only know this on the occassions you're on the same table and acting after them obviously) thirdly of their willingness to call 4 bets, and finally of their holdings on the occassions you reach show down against them.
There are a lot of players in the rush games who exploit the fact that the opposition changes every hand and that its hard to get a handle on their overly aggressive playing styles. Take some notes and exploit THEM instead!

I take lots of notes on players while playing Rush. Usually if I see something interesting before I Quick Fold then I will sit out the next hand so I can watch the hand play out entirely.

Also, with the 3Betting light, I do this pretty often from the blinds coming from a LP raiser because you'll get a lot of players who will fold because they are raising with ATC from position and will fold 75% of the time. From an EP or MP position raiser though, I don't mess around with very often unless I have at least suited connectors.

GCB said:

But I'm wondering, since it's hard to get a handle on players in Rush,

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I don't know if you have a HUD, but if you do you can see pretty wide ranges and then apply what WV suggests. When I see a player who is 10/8 with 3 bet of 0 over 100 hands, I fold almost everything (especially since I raise almost everything from late so most is crap).

But when I see someone who is 30/25 and a steal of 75% and 3 bet of 20% over 30 hands (not unreasonable stats at $10nl FR Rush that I've played) those are probably the "bullies" that you're talking about, and I'm more likely to 4 bet almost everything except when I flat with decent hands knowing that their range is huge.

NineLions said:

I don't know if you have a HUD, but if you do you can see pretty wide ranges and then apply what WV suggests. When I see a player who is 10/8 with 3 bet of 0 over 100 hands, I fold almost everything (especially since I raise almost everything from late so most is crap).

But when I see someone who is 30/25 and a steal of 75% and 3 bet of 20% over 30 hands (not unreasonable stats at $10nl FR Rush that I've played) those are probably the "bullies" that you're talking about, and I'm more likely to 4 bet almost everything except when I flat with decent hands knowing that their range is huge.

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How does a HUD even work in rush poker if you are changing tables so frequently?

soncheebs said:

How does a HUD even work in rush poker if you are changing tables so frequently?

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It scrapes the screen(takes a picture of the screen and then pulls out the names) and then pulls the stats from your DB from there. You still get a HH with Rush, so it just reads the file after it's written when the hand is completed, even though you might be a couple hands down the road.

absoluthamm said:

It scrapes the screen(takes a picture of the screen and then pulls out the names) and then pulls the stats from your DB from there. You still get a HH with Rush, so it just reads the file after it's written when the hand is completed, even though you might be a couple hands down the road.

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Yeah, I need to keep better notes on these guys. Rush kind of pushes you to play at this frenetic pace and you really don't have to. I like sit out the next hand to see how the current one completes, too. But often with 3bets the the action is over there.

Ugh, I 3bet-shoved twice today. Both times came up against AA. Oh, well. All part of education. Phil Gordon said 4 bets means Aces.

This is why rush poker sucks. You can't get a read on anyone.

Even with a hud, it's going to take way longer for the stats to converge. It's possible they can have a hand every time they are three betting it's also possible they are three betting light. There isn't really a way to tell.

If you are playing slower, not hitting the quick fold button that fast or even sitting out to watch hands play out, you'll be seeing way less hands than other players. So it's possible that after an hour of playing one rush table, villain x could be seeing like 20% more hands than you. If he is playing four rush tables at the same time and you are only playing one table. He could be seeing almost 5 times more hands than you. Which means he could actually be pretty tight and appear to be very loose. There isn't really any way to tell, because even the stats generated on a hud may make him seem loose. You are going to miss a lot of the actions he makes on tables you're not sitting at. So it will take a crap load of hands to really see what he is doing.

You can gain more info by looking him up in the rush lobby and see how many tables he's playing, but just the nature of rush makes looking other players up difficult and also limits the amount of hands you see in a rush session. Which defeats the purpose of rush poker.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you'll never really have solid reads on anyone while playing rush. It's bingo poker imo.

I've dabbled in rush a little bit and maybe I just don't get it. But I'd rather play 8 to ten normal ring tables at once instead of playing two rush tables at once.

I've been playing NL Rush more than I ever thought I would, if only at the lowest 2 levels. I've run into these folks as well, and am impressed by the 3-bet play and how often it seems to result in folds by the others. It's a really good move in Rush right now, and I am trying to incorporate it into my own play -- judiciously.

Understand, the effective Rush strategies keep changing. I'm astonished, actually, at how it has become more of a post-flop game -- this sure didn't seem likely at first. Regular ring games at the same levels are far more aggressive.

I'm not sure if these guys are just building stacks on these plays or actually have a 3-bet-worthy hand. As you say, most of the time, the hand is over right then and there.

Since I'm one of those who puts in a fairly consistent preflop raise from 2-4xBB based on position if I'm going to play (no limping except in blinds), I will call or reraise these folks if I have a premium hand. I am fully aware that we are both likely to be allin whatever the flop is due to their aggression, so I will only play back at them with a premium hand that I don't mind getting my chips in with. It's stack or get stacked. (When I am feeling really nitty and kinda anxious, I don't mix it up with them and get my chips at other times, when I am more sure of how my hand will hold up.)

And, you ask, when they play it out, what do they have? Sometimes they have AA or KK, sometimes they have garbage that they never intended to show.

I have to think that some of the 3 betters are tracking 3bet folds and are using any high numbers of opponent folds to do this. I am not sure how the HUDS work on RushPoker, but if they can track them, it should be a real advantage with the fast folding on this game. Then again, they may all be getting big pairs.

Today's Rush poker freeroll... was bored

full tilt poker Game #21793015144: $150 Freeroll (167997075), Table 220 - 400/800 Ante 100 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:04:58 ET - 2010/06/22
Seat 1: Driek1217 (116,190)
Seat 2: burnabee (86,973)
Seat 3: appaz86 (88,035)
Seat 4: allenwango_o (47,289)
Seat 5: IPLAYRAGS2WIN (135,952)
Seat 6: BigChickDimnds (21,256)
Seat 7: pokert420 (68,769)
Seat 8: texascowboy70 (57,729)
Seat 9: Enfermero1 (78,579)
Driek1217 antes 100
burnabee antes 100
appaz86 antes 100
allenwango_o antes 100
IPLAYRAGS2WIN antes 100
BigChickDimnds antes 100
pokert420 antes 100
texascowboy70 antes 100
Enfermero1 antes 100
burnabee posts the small blind of 400
appaz86 posts the big blind of 800
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to appaz86 [Ah] [Ac]
allenwango_o folds
IPLAYRAGS2WIN raises to 2,000
BigChickDimnds folds
pokert420 folds
texascowboy70 folds
Enfermero1 folds
Driek1217 folds
burnabee calls 1,600
appaz86 has 15 seconds left to act
appaz86 raises to 8,000
IPLAYRAGS2WIN calls 6,000
burnabee folds
*** FLOP *** [8d] [2h] [7s]
appaz86 bets 18,900
IPLAYRAGS2WIN raises to 127,852, and is all in
appaz86 calls 61,035, and is all in
IPLAYRAGS2WIN shows [Js] [Jh]
appaz86 shows [Ah] [Ac]
Uncalled bet of 47,917 returned to IPLAYRAGS2WIN
*** TURN *** [8d] [2h] [7s] [10h]
*** RIVER *** [8d] [2h] [7s] [10h] [9h]
IPLAYRAGS2WIN shows a straight, Jack high
appaz86 shows a pair of Aces
IPLAYRAGS2WIN wins the pot (178,770) with a straight, Jack high

the joys of a freeroll!

i was 30th with around 130 left, would of put me in the top 10

GCB said:

Ugh, I 3bet-shoved twice today. Both times came up against AA. Oh, well. All part of education. Phil Gordon said 4 bets means Aces.

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Don't take that as gospel. I'll 4 bet or shove over a 60 bb stack or less with a big portion of my range when I see that my opponent is 3 betting 20%, which is not an uncommon stat at $10nl Rush Poker. Or sometimes if my opponent is someone that I know from CC.

I recall 5 bet-shoving AK over a certain mod's 4 bet with JJ in a hand that's in a video somewhere here.

soncheebs said:

How does a HUD even work in rush poker if you are changing tables so frequently?

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Yeah, it works exactly the same as a regular cash game. When you fold and go to another table, the hand history still gets saved and your HUD program gets the information.

You can see these hands if you pull up the Tilt last hand. I do this often when an interesting hand seems to be developing but I fold. I'll flip back through the replayer to see if it really was two big hands or not.