Fast Fold is the latest sensation to hit the online poker world where you get to play more in less time – if you don’t play at least once you’ll really miss out on an amazing literal rush! Let me tell you how it is played very quickly.

In poker, a steal is a type of a bluff, a raise during the first betting round made with an inferior hand and meant to make other players fold superior hands because of shown strength. A steal is normally either an 'ante steal' or 'blind steal' (depending on whether the game being played uses antes or blinds). You can track this using the poker stat “Folded to Steal Attempt” (FB). Stealing the blinds against weak, tight players with a high FB is the closest thing to printing money in online poker. If you are on the dealer button and are facing two players that have over 65% FB, you can open almost any two cards profitably.

How to Play Fast Fold Poker

They say that Fast Fold Poker is like poker on meth. You’re plopped down into a virtual poker table and immediately dealt a hand. If you click the check / fold button, the very second a bet is made, even before the action gets to you, you’re whisked away to another table and immediately dealt into another hand. Theoretically, you could still be back at that last table, waiting for your turn to fold a hand, and fold 4 more times or so before the action ever gets to you.

There’s no sitting around the poker table waiting for a hand for an hour with each hand taking up a minute or more of your time, especially with players letting their time clocks run down while they go to the restroom, answer the telephone or do whatever it is they do when they’re wasting your life as you wait for them to get around to taking their turn.

Where to find Fast Fold Poker Tables

Speed Poker from the iPoker Network – You’ll find super fast cash games when you hit the Speed Games button in the iPoker rooms lobby’s – there’s a choice of Speed No Limit Holdem or Speed Omaha. iPoker Rooms scrutinised, reviewed and recommended by us include: Bet365, Titan Poker and William Hill Poker.

Fast Forward Poker from Party Poker – Skip straight to the action with new Fast Forward Poker by hitting the FastForward button, flashed NEW, found along the toolbar in the lobby. These fast fold cash games can be enjoyed in No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha formats, you can even play on the move with their free app.

Blaze Poker from the Microgaming Network – At the moment the Blaze games are only played in No Limit Hold’em format. Download the Mobile Poker Smartphone App and play Blaze Poker whenever you want, wherever you are! Microgaming rooms recommended by us include Ladbrokes and 32Red Poker

Rush at Full Tilt Poker – The original and some say the best. Offering both cash games and tournaments in the Rush format. Full Tilt have fast fold covered, not surprising as they were the first site to offer the new concept back in 2011.

PokerStars Zoom – Zoom cash games have proved to be very popular with players and can be played in your favourite Hold’em ( No Limit and Fixed Limit), Omaha and Five Card Draw. Just hit the ZOOM tab in the lobby – you can play Zoom on your iPhone, iPad or Android device.

Now let’s talk about Fast Fold Poker Strategy

First we’re going to talk about cash game strategy in Fast Fold Poker games. The most popular strategy is to play the nuts and only the nuts, queens in the pocket or better or fold. In fact, many say that you should actually fold AK, TT, JJ, any of those hands pre-flop and move onto the next table waiting for your shot. That’s one way to play it and it’s a perfectly respectable way to play it.

Cash table Strategy, Steal ‘em if they’re there for the Stealing.

However… as I usually do, I have another perspective on that strategy. I say; if it’s not queens or better, don’t get ‘involved’. What that means is, try to buy them all, for at least the minimum bet as most Rush players have already pushed their check/fold buttons. So if you bet, it’s very common that the cards will all be flash folded around you and you’ll be moved on to your next table.

But don’t get ‘involved’; don’t get your heart set on stealing the blinds, just give it a shot, often. If the above is not the case, know going in that you’re behind. Don’t get fancy, there’s no reason to. Don’t try to buy the pot, or play this hand at all with your opponent, you were there for a pre-flop buy, if someone called, that mission failed. Hope for a miracle flop, and/or move on. If you hit a weak hand on the flop, again, don’t try to do anything fancy, fold fold fold and save your gold. If you do get that miracle flop, over-betting is usually a very successful move in Fast Fold Poker.

Now keep in mind however that when you first start out at Fast Fold you’re a new guy with no real reputation. People aren’t going to know how to play against you and you can therefore get away with more. If it seems like other players are re-stealing from you more and more often lately, then it’s probably true. Someone’s caught onto your fast fold poker strategy, and you’re going to have to adjust, for a while at least. Perhaps give up on stealing for a few days, so that you can trap the guy that thinks he has a read on you. Stick to those queens or better and bust his ass with them.

If you get re-raised after making that initial pre-flop steal bet, drop it like it’s hot. Don’t be cute, don’t think about it, just get rid of it and get moved on to your next table. You can get a hand every couple of seconds and the game is chock full of loose playing donks so there’s no need to try anything fancy at all, use a plain and simple preflop raise = standard followed by an all-in/fold type strategy.

Every once in a while, the game will slow down, while you and someone else seem to have a legitimate hand, after all don’t get to thinking you’re the only guy online that reads Fast Fold Poker Strategies, as it might very well be me you’re playing against! Take it easy if you don’t have the nuts, and there’s not much on the line, and he seems to want the pot more than you do, decide if the risk is worth the reward. If you have AK for instance, and you’ve bet into it pretty deep pre-flop and are called, and the flop is AK3, could he really have a 3? Is it really worth your entire stack to find out?

Now, if we were talking about a regular cash game, I say shove your chips in there as fast as you can get them over the line, but we’re not, we’re talking about Fast Fold Poker. Proceed with caution and carefully pick your spots. You’re probably going to be able to get all your chips in with aces or kings two or three times a session pre-flop heads up.

The most-taught strategy for Fast Fold Poker players is fold fold fold fold. Strategists all over the Internet suggest playing nothing less than pocket queens. What that says to me is … steal steal steal steal.

When you have Those Salty Nuts – Snatch the Sugar!

Fast Fold Poker is all about adrenaline. If you have the nuts in a hand, bet big. The minute you know you’re the winner get your opponent to get his chips onto the felt. It’s truly not often when an opponent with any part of a flop or two big cards in a fast fold poker game folds to an over bet, so don’t be shy. If shoving all in isn’t working then adjust to what is working but, when you’ve got the nuts, be sure to bet the highest callable bet.

Fast Fold Poker is a simple game – don’t complicate with Fancy Strategy.

You don’t need to do a lot of thinking to play this game. There’s no need for you to be looking for shots at showing off your fancy skills and do things like float the river. There’s no good check-raise in this game. It’s a simple straight forward game and, by playing the game that way, you’re going to earn money. It’s that simple.

Taking Detailed Player Notes is Good Fast Fold Poker Strategy

When you first start playing Fast Fold Poker it’s going to seem a bit intimidating, you won’t really see yourself keeping track of all of the players. It’s not the same as NL-Cash games you’ve played before where you can make a mental note of the player in seat 4 that constantly raises the button or how the player in seat 2 never plays his button.

Over time however you’ll find out that Fast Fold Poker Players tend to frequent the tables and many of them even sit at more than one table at a time. So, if you keep very detailed player notes and start really looking at the avatar of every guy that does something notable, and you make note of what he did, you’ll be able to use the information you’ve garnered in earlier games later on.

Be sure to note the date that you made the note and that way, in a year from now, you’ll know that that player has had a year to learn and improve his game. Also note the level you’re playing at as it’s likely at the micro-stakes tables for players to play a bit more loosely then they might at a higher stakes table. Also be very descriptive – What happened? What flopped? Who bet? Who called? Who raised? Why is this player notable? Don’t just say ‘good player’ or ‘bad player’ because your own opinion of what a good and bad player is changes over time in this game for one thing and, for another, bad players get good cards. Give your future self as much information about the situation as possible.

The Best Strategy is to Buy in at Max

As I said before, you can steal a lot of pots in this game but the big money is in getting hands like AA all in pre-flop heads up (if there are by chance 4 callers b4 you’re risking a large portion of your stack, go back to poker 101 and fold those pocket aces if you can’t narrow the field). When you do get someone all in with your monster hands heads up, you want to have enough chips to make a big hit.

Always keep yourself armed with a full stack at a Fast Fold Poker table, don’t let it go to your head, or turn you into a calling station, since you can afford it… but just wield that chip stack there menacingly as a weapon and use it when it benefits you the most.

Fast Fold Poker Tournament Strategy

When you’re playing a Fast Fold Poker Tournament, things are a lot different than in a cash game. Instead of clicking their check fold buttons, players are more fond then ever of going all in. If that seems to be the case, stay out of their way while they narrow the field for you. If it’s not the case and you can steal some blinds, then by all means, swoop them up.

Remember however, that in a tournament it’s not what happens in the beginning that matters, honestly, you can win the average tournament by actively playing no more than 4-5 hands. It’s fine to play conservatively in these events, in fact I recommend it. If the tables tighten up, then you loosen up.

Once you’ve cashed then, as Phil Ivey says, it’s time to have some fun. Play some poker and enjoy. You can also go the other route and hope that the players in the game will get a little froggy and go after each other, giving you a better position in the money.

If you find yourself in last place, wait for suited connectors or a big ace (don’t go all in with a3 or some other Ax card if you can help it, you’ll likely end up hoping for one of 3 outs…) and shove your chips until you’re no long the short-stack.

There’s one way to look at riding the short-stack. You’ve already got a lock on last; you can only go up from there, especially if you’ve already made the cash.

Stealing the blinds is an extremely profitable technique for online poker. If you haven’t mastered blind stealing, you are leaving plenty of easy money on the table.

I’ll explain blind stealing here, and offer you some strategies I’ve developed by investigating an database of 2 million poker hands from a range of player types.

Blind Steal defined:

You have a blind steal opportunity if:

• You are on the button; and
• Everybody so far has folded, leaving just you, the big blind, and the small blind in the hand.

Some people consider that if you are in the cut-off (one position to the right of the dealer button), you also have a blind steal opportunity, but in this article, we’ll stick with the stricter definition.

The small blind can also try to steal the big blind, but in this guide, we’ll just deal with the button’s blind steal opportunities, as this is the most common scenario.

When to steal

So you are on the button, and all the players before you have folded. You now have three options:

• fold. This leaves the blinds to battle it out between them.
• call. This gives the big blind a free ride to the flop. No matter what hand he has, he’ll see the flop, where even 7–2 could become a powerful hand. Furthermore, the small blind only has to call half a big blind more, to see the flop. As the pot already has 2.5 big blinds in it, this is an easy decision for the small blind. So your call has most likely let one player see the flop for free, and another player see the flop cheaply. And you have almost no information about what hands they may have.
• raise. If you now raise, you’ve made a blind steal attempt. The big blind will fold most hands to a raise.

Generally, you should almost always fold or raise in this situation.

I’ve done some calculations over a very large database of hands, and discovered that:

• In tournaments, 53% of the time, the big blind folds to a steal attempt.
• In ring games, 62% of the time, the big blind folds to a steal attempt.

Think that through: more than half the time, a blind steal attempt will give you the blinds without any further play. This suggests that you should make blind steal attempts with a large range of hands.

But it gets even better, as I explain in the section below on playing the flop. Keep reading.

What size should my blind steal attempt be?

A typical opening pre-flop raise should be 2.5 to 3 big blinds. More than this would be an “overbet”, that is a bet far too big in comparison to the pot, and your potential gain.

What if the big blind calls pre flop?

Here’s where the beauty of the blind-steal attempt comes in. On the flop, you have the best position and you were the pre-flop aggressor. So you have a big advantage. The villain needs to act first, but is in a bad situation. Typically the villain will check on the flop.

Why? Most times when the big blind calls your blind-stealing raise, he doesn’t have a strong hand. I know this because he folds to a blind steal attempt only about 60% of the time. 40% of the time he called, which implies the player calls with an extremely wide range of possible hands. So more often than not, you should make a continuation bet on the flop. That is, bet again. How much? Between 50% and 100% of the pot. Less than that makes it cheap for the villain to call. More than that and you are risking too much for the size of the pot.

Let’s look at what my big database of tournament hands tells us about making a continuation bet after a blind steal attempt:

53% of the time when the big blind defended against a blind steal attempt AND faced a continuation bet, they folded.

In ring games, the big blind who tried to defend folded to 44% of continuation bets.

Let me put pre-flop and flop percentages together: in tournaments, the big blind folds to 53% of blind steal attempts. When he defends, he folds a further 53% of time when facing continuation bets. In the second case you’ve won the blinds and the big blind’s attempt to defend against the steal. Less than 25% of the time, you’ll need to play against a villain who is brave enough to make it past your continuation bet.

A blind steal attempt followed by a continuation bet is an extremely rewarding technique in the long run.

What if the big blind villain reraises preflop?

You now have tough decisions to make. Here I can only give vague tips. You’ll need to appraise what you know about your opponent, and take into account the strength of your own hand. I’d tend towards folding non-premium hands, and calling with premium hands. Unless I had observed that this particular villain liked to reraise blind steal attempts. In short, you have the type of decision-making situation that makes poker so enjoyable and difficult.

Fold To Steal Pokertracker

Blind steal caution #1: Don’t be foolhardy

If you try to steal the blinds with terrible cards, you could end up at showdown. You’ll reveal to the table that you tried stealing without the cards to back it. Do this a couple of times and the table will stop respecting your blind steal attempts. Even if that is the case though, not all is bad. You’re still at a pure mathematical advantage. Such is the beauty of the blind steal attempt.

Blind steal caution 2: Play the player

Remember the old poker mantra: “play the player, not the cards”.

Some players will enjoy reraising your blind steal attempts, putting you in a complicated situation. Be more cautious with blind steal attempts when sitting to their right. Losing a big portion of your stack in a blind-steal attempt gone wrong is not fun.

Other players will fold almost anything to a raise. So if they call, give their hand respect on the flop. Chances are, you’ll have the worse hand on the flop. But you can also increase your stealing range against these players.

Blind stealing and Poker Copilot

Fold To Steal Poker Card Game

Poker Copilot’s poker HUD offers statistics on:

• how often a player makes a blind steal attempt (BSA)
• how often a player folds the big blind to a steal attempt (FBB)
Use these two stats well, and you’ll be able to adjust your blind stealing strategy against each player.

Poker Copilot has a Blind Stealing leak detector. Use it to find out your blind steal rate, and your take from big blind stealing. Poker players are often surprised when the leak detector shows them how profitable blind stealing is.

Pokertracker Fold To Lp Steal

Summary

Fold To Steal Poker Games

• Blind-stealing is profitable. You should be doing it, and doing it well.
• You should attempt to steal roughly half of all your blind steal opportunities.
• Be prepared to often continue the blind steal attempt onto the flop, when the villain defends.

Fold To Steal Poker Video Poker

When you are on the button and everyone so far has folded, consider the blinds to be your personal property, and play strongly to grab them as often as you dare.