Q: I would love to hear your thoughts on zoom poker. It seems to me, at low stakes anyway, that the level of play is much higher than at regular cash tables at the same stakes. For some reason, it seems to attract much fewer fish and many more regs.
At the same time, it enables you to play many more hands/hour very without having to multitable.
How much of an edge do you feel like you’re giving away, if any at all, when playing zoom poker, instead of regular cash games? Would you recommend that those trying to build a bankroll stay away from it?
A: We generally measure win rates in bb/100, or average number of big blinds won for every hundred hands you play. If you’re a professional or trying to play like one, though, then the metric you really care about is your hourly rate, or the average amount of money you can expect to win for every hour you play in a given game. This is why it can make sense to move up in stakes, even though the higher stakes game will be higher: you can afford to have a lower bb/100 if the big blinds you’re winning are worth more.
When you’re playing online, there are other ways of increasing your hourly rate besides playing higher stakes. You can play multiple tables at once, or you can play “fast-fold poker”, such as Zoom Poker, which many sites now offer. These options similarly offer the potential for a higher hourly rate, generally at the expense of your bb/100.
When multi-tabling, it’s easy to see why more tables means a lower win rate: you can’t pay as much attention to any given game, and so you miss out on forming reads and sometimes can’t focus on a single important decision because you have to act on other tables.
Fast-fold games also tend to mean lower win rates, because they appeal to professionals who are eager to maximize their hands (and winnings) per hour. It’s important to note that these games also appeal to recreational players looking for quick action, because they don’t have to wait around watching others play. I think the biggest problem you’ll find in these games is not that there aren’t fish (though maybe that’s changed over time, as losing players find that they lose money more quickly in these games), but that the pro:fish ratio may be less good, and that the best players are better than their counterparts in regular speed games.
That still doesn’t really answer the question of what’s best for you. Hopefully it helps you to frame a bit differently, though. In all likelihood, the comparison you should be making is not “Should I play regular speed or Zoom $.25/$.50?”, but rather “Should I play regular speed $.25/$.50 or Zoom $.10/$.25?” You’ll have to see where you feel more comfortable and where your hourly rate seems to be highest.
Two other considerations: depending on what you mean by “building a bankroll”, you may also care about reducing variance, in which case, out of two games that offer comparable hourly rates, you’d probably prefer the easier game where your win rate is higher. However, you’ll play more hands and get more experience at the Zoom tables. So again, there’s still a subjective decision you’ll have to make!
This is interesting. I have heard Carroters in his podcast say the fish are beginning to move towards fast fold poker because a lot of the recreational players are now playing on mobile devices, and fast fold is more “action” than single-tabling a cash game and mobiles are not ideal for conventional multi-tabling – even on sites that will let you stack a few tables on a mobile – so it’s a good experience for them but its taking a bit of time for recreational players to work it out.