After the success of Full Tilt Poker’s innovative poker game Rush Poker it was a little surprising that more online poker rooms didn’t “Rush” to copy the new poker format that was taking the game by storm. One possible motivation for the other online poker sites sitting on their hands could have been Full Tilt’s insistence that Rush Poker was protected under copyright. Once Full Tilt’s copyright claims had been debunked the floodgates were officially open, and the race for Rush Poker equivalents was on.

PokerStars was the first major online poker room that developed a Rush Poker format, which they named ZOOM Poker, and it now seems that Party Poker is getting in on the action, as CEO of bwin.party Digital Jim Ryan announced that Party Poker will introduce their own version of the fast-paced game in the near future.

Ryan’s announcement came in an interview with the magazine CasinoChoice.co.uk where he stated, “I can tell you Rush Poker is in development now. Coming soon.” Unfortunately for players pining for a Rush Poker variant on Party Poker, Ryan did not specify how far along the project is, or when a potential launch date would be coming.

The announcement came during a “full-year earning call” according to CasinoChoice.co.uk, while Ryan described the company’s 10% decline in poker revenue during 2011, compared to 2010.

Ryan also described how the company is confident that they will have their two player pools combined, from Party Poker and bWin, by the end of the year. bWin was a part of the OnGame Poker Network, which bwin.party Digital sold earlier this year for €19.5 million to ShuffleMaster.

Rush Poker, and now ZOOM Poker, allows players to join a large player-pool instead of choosing a seat at a particular poker table. Once part of the player pool, each participant is randomly placed at a poker table and dealt into the game. As soon as a player folds their hand, or a hand is completed, the player is then sent to another table with other players from the player pool.

This makes the game extremely fast-paced, with little downtime in between hands, allowing players to get in three-four times the number of hands as at a typical poker table.

ZOOM Poker at PokerStars has been well-received by the poker community, and appears to run virtually as well as Rush Poker, despite still being in a Beta test mode (ZOOM Poker was initially only available for play-money but has recently been launched for real-money at penny limit games). ZOOM Poker’s acceptance by the poker community, and lack of any legal grumblings from Full Tilt Poker or its potential owners, most likely contributed to Party Poker’s decision to launch their own version of Rush Poker.

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