Zoom Poker, the fast-fold poker variation on PokerStars, has been available at the world’s largest online poker room for almost a year, but only in cash game format. Now, as the year 2013 begins, Stars is rolling out Zoom Poker into the tournament realm.
It came with little fanfare, but Zoom Poker tournaments were quietly added to the PokerStars tourney lobby on December 31. Zoom tournaments are just in Beta mode right now as the poker room irons out any kinks that may exist. Currently, they are available only at the micro-stakes – $1, €1, and $1.35 – and start every two hours on the 7’s. PokerStars is testing a number of different game types including good, old No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, short-handed games, turbo, and knockout.
Every Zoom Poker tournament has hit its maximum registration cap of 5,000 players today.
Zoom Poker was introduced on PokerStars in March 2012, essentially a copy of the extremely popular Rush Poker that had been offered by Full Tilt Poker before the beleaguered poker room was temporarily knocked out. The game is known as “fast-fold,” as it differs from standard poker in that players are whisked away to another table to play another hand as soon as they fold. Players can even head off to the next hand before it is their turn to act, though their opponents will not know that they did so until action actually makes its way around to the player.
The funky poker variant appeals to both recreational players and pros alike. The recreational players don’t typically have the patience to sit and wait out every hand, so the constant action is appealing. Professional grinders can play tons more hands each day, allowing them to not only potentially win more pots, but also rack up those Frequent Player Points on their way to higher loyalty levels.
When Zoom Poker launched last year, PokerScout.com reported that about one-quarter of all cash game players on PokerStars were at the rapid-fire tables just days after the game was introduced. On top of that, because Zoom Poker hands are estimated to be three times faster than standard poker hands, almost half the cash game hands on PokerStars were Zoom Poker hands at that point.
It was clear back then that Zoom Poker was helping PokerStars draw players away from its competitors. Now that Full Tilt Poker is back along with the Rush Poker tables that started the “fast-fold” poker craze, it is possible that Zoom might not be the draw it was last year (then again, it also might not matter to Stars, since it owns Full Tilt). The addition of Zoom Poker tournaments, though, may very well cause players to migrate over to PokerStars just as the new Zoom Poker cash tables did back in March.
PokerStars is the 800-pound gorilla of the online poker industry, with a seven-day average of 22,000 cash game players according to PokerScout.com. The recently revived Full Tilt Poker is a distant second with a seven-day average of 5,100 cash game players.
