Rushes!

[Yawkey]

After being in nearly a month long slump, I went back to some of the books that I thought made me successful in the first place. The one that I feel helped me break out of my slump (I cleaned up in the most difficult game I play in last night) was Doyle Brunson's Super System, and in particular his writings on Rushes (pages 450-451 for those following along). The first thing I though was, here's a concept that has been lost due to the scientific approach people are learning from playing online, especially to multi-tablers. So I thought I would present this topic and see if we can get a good discussion on pros and cons, success stories and maybe some disasters.

Concept:

To summerize DB (note: the section this is found on is specific to NL Texas Hold'em), after he wins a pot he plays the very next hand no matter what two cards he gets, until he finally looses. This gives you the opportunity to set yourself up for a rush (winning a bunch of hands in a row).

Some of my thoughts:

Seizing Luck:

As a moderatly superstitious person I will do things to improve my luck. Now lets say for sake of argument that there is luck and a person can have it at some times and loose it at others. Then playing for a rush is really seizing luck when you have, similar to seizing the opportunity to play pocket aces.

Table image after a successful rush:

Lets pretend we had a good rush of about ten hands, and we show everything from pocket kings, 9 3 off, suited connecters, Q 6 off, the works. Hopefully with a ten hand rush we have taken a good number of chips from most of the people at the table and have a menicing stack in front of us. At this point we have a table full of people who think we just got lucky and want vengence. Once the rush is over we tighten up and play monsters against a table full of people on tilts who have grossly underestimated us. Now we've done two things here, we've made a table image that can be used to our advantage, and we've mixed up our play from tight to loose, to tight again, keeping our oppenents off gaurd.

Net vs. B&M

This is really a concept where you can shoot yourself in the foot if you are not careful. I think more so online because of the shear nature of online where a slider bar can put your whole stack in, in less than a second where as in the real world you need to actually pickup and count the chips you are putting in. All around I think this is a better play in live games, and it simply comes down to people paying attention to what's going on. If I win ten hands in a row online two people notice, however if I win just three hands in a row in a real game everyone at the table is aware of this fact. This makes for a psychological factor that really helps progress your rush into more than science and mathematics says it should be.

Let me know what you think about this topic, does this make sense or am I not quite playing with a full deck of cards.

[tubbyspencer]

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As a moderatly superstitious person I will do things to improve my luck. Now lets say for sake of argument that there is luck and a person can have it at some times and loose it at others.

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I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps I could just ask what name you use online, so I can sit at some of your tables and watch you try this out. Who knows, maybe I'll even join the table. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[TonyBlair]

Brunson's attitude to rushes stinks.
Look at it how you want, but sometimes you'll get a run of cards and sometimes you'll just get cold hand after cold hand. I'm with the scientists.
The effect that your continued raising can have in NL is another matter. If you hit a run, you're in for a payday against players who have any self respect.

[Yawkey]

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I don't even know where to begin. Perhaps I could just ask what name you use online, so I can sit at some of your tables and watch you try this out. Who knows, maybe I'll even join the table. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Haha, unfortunately the on-line version of the slump cleaned me out so I'll be free-rolling for a little while. But if you would like to make a donation to the Yawkey Research Foundation I would be more than happy let you sit-in on my games and will provide you with at full report at the end of my studies.

[Rudbaeck]

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Brunson's attitude to rushes stinks.

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I'm with the scientists too, but if there is anyone who can be forgiven superstition it's Brunson. The entire deal with his wife's prayers would probably make me fairly superstitious too.

[Yawkey]

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Look at it how you want, but sometimes you'll get a run of cards and sometimes you'll just get cold hand after cold hand. I'm with the scientists.


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TonyBlair brings up the opposite side of rushes and that of course is the cold cards. This reminds me of the movie Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. If you havn't seen it Jackson is a wheelchair bound man with brittle bones who sets up these senarios to find someone who is the complete opposite of him, someone who cannot be hurt. Now we read every day 10's of dozens of people on this forum having long streaks of cold cards. So my question is why can't a person have a hot streak with the same cards. A simple bell curve would satisfy a scientific proof that they should exist.

Most of the cold streaks described are not idiots playing 7 2 off, followed by 10 4 ... These are legitamite hands consistantly loosing over a period of time. Is it so hard to believe that a person can do just the opposite and play strong hands to get the ball rolling followed by lousy hands that either hit their mark or get folded to. I think the point that Brunson is trying to make here is that if you don't play after a win you'll never be able to hit a rush. Certainly you have to use your own judgement when different situations arise, playing 2 7 off when a tight player pushes a good stack of chips in the middle is a bad idea no rush or rush.

[Louie Landale]

Its bad luck to be superstitious.

And the following is a fact proven in casinos: when rolling dice there are a sixth as many "7s" 6-in-a-row as there are 5-in-a-row. This means that the next roll really has nothing to do with the last rows. This means that there is no such thing as "being on a rush", but there IS such a thing as "have been on a rush".

However, being on a rush ..err.. having been on a rush tends to cause havok with the opponents and they play more predictably. This means that you can play more hands profitably.

- Louie

[afreeman]

There are rushes, but they don't have anything to do with luck.

While cards have no memory, opponents do and its a lot easier to semi-bluff and generally bully the table around when you pulled down 3 of the last 5 pots.

[Greg Zabawa]

I think one of the positives of rushes is the table image of a maniac you might generate. After you rush you tighten down and get a lot of action with premium hands. However it is too difficult to generate a table image online with people constantly coming and going and maybe not even paying attention. Thus, Doyle's advice is far more suited to a B&M game than online.

[Yawkey]

[ QUOTE ]
I think one of the positives of rushes is the table image of a maniac you might generate. After you rush you tighten down and get a lot of action with premium hands. However it is too difficult to generate a table image online with people constantly coming and going and maybe not even paying attention. Thus, Doyle's advice is far more suited to a B&M game than online.

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Well put Greg. My follow up question here is do you think a effects of a rush would be more successful online at a 6-person table as opposed to a full table? The smaller table means that a large precentage of people will notice what happened, or are we still just playing with too many people not paying attention? You can also think about high vs. low stakes, are the effects of a high stakes rush online going to be noticed (I think low stakes is an obvious no)?