Everyone has their favourite format of the game and for me there is no contest. In ZOOM
cash games, you do not choose your own seat with a permanent selection of opponents,
instead you join a pool where you are randomly dealt into a hand with five other
players. Each time you fold, you are instantly placed on a new table. Here are some
reasons why I personally love ZOOM cash games and would choose them all day long over
regular cash tables.
One of the most annoying aspects of playing cash games in the
pre-ZOOM era was the eternal battle to find a table. Waiting lists have always made me
shudder. At some point a table looks juicy so 18 regulars pile on to the waiting list
and by the time they get a seat, the table has died as these players only want to play
with weaker players. What a waste of time!
I remember sitting down at tables that
supposedly contained four players to find all four sitting out, waiting for someone
unknown to join because they were all scared to play one another. They would sit back
in, play a few hands with me, realise that I was not a beginner, and sit back out. This
manual table selection was annoying enough, but then there were also many players
running seating script programs that have now rightly been banned.
In ZOOM games there
is none of this messing around. If you want to play poker, you click a button and off
you go. This is how gaming should be in the age of technology.
A truly unethical poker
practice that existed for a long time even at the low stakes, and still exists to some
extent today is sniping. In other words, regular players, who were usually
semi-competent, but never great, would wait around all day, occupying empty tables in
the hope that a weaker player would sit with them. Snipers label a weaker opponent who
is probably just playing for fun and follow him around wherever he goes. If the player
moves up to the next stakes, these snipers will hop into the game to take a shot at
him.
In my opinion, there is no room for this vulture behaviour – it ruins the
integrity of the game and makes poker players look like hustlers instead of
skilled-competitors. ZOOM eliminates this ugly practice. You will play the same number
of hands on average with all players in the pool and so your only edge will come from
your ability to play cards, not your ability to stalk people in the lobby.
For the
professional and the serious amateur, alike, it is important to put in volume to build
a bankroll and ascend through the stakes. Since the professional wants to make a good
living from the game, and since the amateur does not have time to log eight hours of
play a day, ZOOM is the perfect way to increase volume while minimising time spent
playing. This gives the professional more time to study the game and take breaks, while
allowing the amateur the ability to make progress in the game without devoting every
ounce of his free time to it.
Playing two tables of Zoom will yield you close to 500
hands per hour – this is around 15-16 times more hands that you will play in a
full-ring cash game in the casino or local cardroom.
I distinctly remember one night
about eight years ago now when I was playing at a table with a very angry and vocal
player, who spoke notably little English! Because he was having a losing session, he
decided to demonise his opponents and wage an all-out verbal war on us. Every time I
won as pot from him, he ranted: ‘DIE RAT’ ‘DIE PIG’ into the chat. Don’t get me wrong,
I’ve been called worse than a rat before and pigs are quite admirable animals, but this
sort of behaviour puts a sour taste on the beautiful game of poker.
In a ZOOM pool, you
can still type abuse in the chat, but your opponents will be gone from the table
momentarily as it ceases to exist, and a new table is made full of different players in
its place. Moreover, it’s much harder to form a vendetta against someone when you only
play one or two hands with them each session. In larger ZOOM pools, you simply don’t
encounter the same opponent very often – there’s no time to form a grudge.
One of the
most boring elements of regular cash games are when your are card dead and must sit
back and watch pots going on around you. Maybe you end up loading up a video to watch
or a game to play on the side. In Zoom, these distractions are not even a temptation
due to the fast and furious action that keeps you occupied. Fold one hand and get dealt
another one – there is no time for side activities that detract from focusing on the
game.
There is a common misconception that ZOOM is simply a case of playing against
unknowns and being readless. If you are observing your opponents carefully and taking
notes in the note box, then this is far from true. On the other hand, you will be in
many more pots with unknowns than a regular cash game player is used to. This means
that understanding both the theory of the game, and how the average player at your
limit plays different situations is very important.
Because I coach the game, write
books about it, and am fascinated by poker theory in general, I quite enjoy not
fighting an exploitative war of ‘he thinks, I think…’ Getting to apply strategies that
work well in theory and against the population is also satisfying and the exploitative
battles will still come as you build up reads from playing more and more in the ZOOM
pool.
Of course, ZOOM is not for everyone and players who mainly derive enjoyment out
of gathering and using reads might prefer to stick with regular cash games. I do think,
however, that ZOOM games will become more and more the norm in the years to come and
for good reason.
