PokerStars’ version of former rival Full Tilt Poker’s Rush Poker has been in beta-testing at the site’s play-money tables for close to a month now, and late last week PokerStars announced that ZOOM Poker is still in the beta-testing phase, but would now be available at select real-money tables.

Players interested in ZOOM Poker can now find the game being spread at $.01/$.02 PLO and NLHE games while PokerStars puts the finishing touches on the new format. As of now, the ZOOM Poker player pool is capped at 1,500 players, with PokerStars preparing to add more games and stakes (possibly even tournaments) in the coming weeks.

So what exactly is ZOOM Poker? If you are familiar with Full Tilt’s Rush Poker than you’ll find the two almost identical, but for those of you who never had the chance to try Rush Poker here is a look at what ZOOM Poker has to offer according to PokerStars:

* Choose your game and stake level in the Zoom lobby, located under the ‘Zoom’ tab. Click ‘Join Game’ to get started.

* You’ll be asked to choose your buy-in amount and the number of tables you would like to play. Zoom is much faster than our regular tables, so we recommend you start with just one. When you get more comfortable, you can join up to four Zoom tables at once.

* When you click OK, you will be randomly seated with a set of players from your chosen game. Your first hand will usually be from the big blind. For every subsequent hand you will be seated randomly.

* If at any time you don’t want to play your hand, and you are not facing a bet (i.e. you have an option to check) then use the ‘Fast Fold’ button to fold instantly. If you clicked ‘Fast Fold’, or fold at any other point in the hand, you will instantly be dealt into a new hand, with new opponents.

* Players are seated randomly for each hand, and the blinds are then set depending on who among the players has been the big blind least often.

* You can also watch the end of a hand by holding the CTRL key when you the click Fold button. If you use ‘Fast Fold’ however, you will be unable to remain on that table and watch the end of the hand (the ‘Fast Fold’ button is specifically there to move you quickly to another table).

* There are also options available to try different Zoom table animations. You can find these by clicking ‘Options’ > ‘Table Display Options’ > ‘Zoom Animation’.

So far the poker community has responded very positively to ZOOM Poker, with the vast majority of people who have been toying with the game on the PokerStars play-money having very few complaints about the software. The ZOOM Poker thread on 2+2 has hundreds of reviews, questions, and responses and now that the game is starting to be offered for real-money I expect the number of people that have tried the beta-version of the game to explode.

In fact, I would say the biggest complaint voiced so far is that players aren’t in love with the name, ZOOM Poker.

The concept, first developed by Full Tilt Poker, is starting to spread across the online poker world, with several other sites also developing their own version of ZOOM Poker. However, it will likely be PokerStars that will be at the forefront, since the game requires a large player base to function as it was intended.

You can learn more about ZOOM Poker by visiting the PokerStars ZOOM Poker page.

Tags: Bet, Beta Testing, blinds, Finishing Touches, Full tilt Poker, Games, Money Tables, Opponents, Play Money, Player Pool, Plo, Poker Game, Poker Player, PokerStars, Pool Players, Real Money, Rush, Stake, Zoom, Zoom Player

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2012 at 7:53 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.