Fast-Fold Zoom Poker | Learn What Online Sites Host the Best Games!
Fast-fold poker, first made popular by Full Tilt and its RUSH poker product, has proven to be one of the most popular variants among the online player community. Unfortunately, there's a shortage of sites that spread fast-fold games and are open to Americans. Nevertheless, we've identified three sites that do offer this rapid-paced form of poker and accept residents of the United States as customers:
How Does Fast-Fold Poker Work?
If you've never played fast-fold poker, then you're truly missing out. This format lets you fold your hand at any time and be immediately moved to a new table to begin another round right away. You can therefore see many more hands in a given period of time than you would at more traditional poker tables. Gone is the boredom of having to plod through minutes or hours of 74o, K2s, and J3o waiting for the coveted AA or KK. Now you can dispense with subpar hole cards instantly and hope to receive a better hand within seconds.
The Best U.S.A. Sites for Fast-Fold Poker
The spectrum of internet poker rooms that offer fast-fold poker games in the United States is very narrow indeed. Fortunately, they're all upstanding organizations that meet with the full approval of us here at Professional Rakeback. Thus, we have the answer to the question: Where can I play fast-fold poker in the United States? When you decide to play at any of the sites listed below, you can be assured of fair and honest dealing algorithms, the prompt payment of your winnings, and excellent customer service. Read up on the info we have gathered, and then select your fast-fold poker home.
#1 U.S.A. Fast-Fold Poker Site: Ignition Casino
Ignition Poker, on the PaiWangLuo Network, has been the largest poker site for Americans in terms of total traffic numbers for a while now. This carries over to its lobby for Zone Poker, which is what it calls its fast-fold offering. Zone Poker is compatible with Ignition's 100% up to $1,000 poker bonus, and in fact, you'll probably clear this bonus a lot faster in Zone that you could at old-school cash games.
The Zone stakes available at Ignition run from $0.02/$0.05 through $2.50/$5.00, and there's usually action at four or five different levels at once, amounting to hundreds of players active at any one time. Most of the games are NLHE, but PLO Zone exists up to $0.75/$1.50, and there are pools for split-pot PLO8 as well. You can enter a Zone game up to two times, and the cap on total tables played simultaneously is four. If you wish to fold your cards but still watch the remainder of the current hand play out, then you can click “Sit out Next Hand” before folding. When ready, press “I Am Back” to rejoin the game.
Lobby Showing the Zone Poker Pools at IgnitionIgnition Poker has download installation files for Windows PC and Mac. Additionally, you can play through a mobile web client, which fully supports Zone Poker. Find out more about Ignition and all the games you can play, including casino titles, in our detailed Ignition Casino Poker review.
#2 U.S.A. Fast-Fold Poker Site: Sportsbetting.ag
The Chico Poker Network, of which Sportsbetting.ag is a member, incorporated fast-fold poker into its platform with the addition of Boost Poker at the beginning of 2018. While you grind out the Boost tables, you'll benefit from a 100% up to $1,000 bonus that clears at a 20% effective rakeback rate.
The blind levels for Boost used to begin at $0.02/$0.05 and go up to $1/$2; however, all of these stakes have been removed with the exception of $0.05/$0.10. Boost is for NL Hold'em only; PL Omaha is entirely absent. In general, there are a few dozen players sitting in Boost. The software permits you to specify the number of tables you'd like to join, up to a max of four, but this functionality appears to be disabled, and so you can only sit at one single Boost table. This undoubtedly contributes to the low population numbers for the format. Your fold button in Boost has an icon of an eye on it; by clicking on the eye, you can muck your cards and observe the present hand play out to completion before continuing on to another table.
Sportsbetting.ag supports the following interfaces for poker: Mac, PC, iOS, Android, and web browsers. You can log in and relish the Boost scene from any of these systems. To find out more about why SB.ag is such a highly rated online poker destination, read our comprehensive Sportsbetting Poker review.
#3 U.S.A. Fast-Fold Poker Site: Bovada
Bovada is a sister site of Ignition Casino, so the poker choices are identical at the two sites, and this includes Zone Poker. However, at Bovada, the poker bonus is limited to 100% up to $500 rather than the $1,000 that you can claim at Ignition.
What may give Bovada.lv the edge in the minds of some users is the fact that it manages a thorough gambling portfolio, including poker, yes, but also casino games, a sportsbook, and a racebook. It's these last two divisions that are absent from Ignition, leading many well-rounded real money gamers to prefer Bovada as their one-stop betting house.
Zone Poker works the same at Bovada as it does at Ignition, so we won't repeat here what we've said before. Suffice it to say that the decision to play at Bovada or Ignition is one that will depend on the types of gambling that you do and your personal preferences. For further assistance in making this determination, our review of Bovada's poker, casino, sports, and racing possibilities may prove helpful.
Why so Few Fast-Fold Options?
Given the fact that plenty of poker fans enjoy the fast-fold poker experience, it may seem unusual that it hasn't proliferated more widely in the U.S. market. The answer lies in the thin player counts at the U.S.-facing sites. Simply put, most sites don't have the traffic to support the deployment of another form of poker, and they're worried about cannibalizing users away from their existing tables.
We saw this effect first-hand when the Horizon Poker Network decided to implement its own version, called simply “Fast Fold,” in late 2013. While hopes were raised about being able to play hundreds of hands per hour, making it easy to earn bonuses and collect massive rakeback payments, the format never really caught on. Indeed, it wasn't uncommon to see the Fast Fold lobby contain a single-digit number of players, and at some times, it was completely deserted. International sites, like PokerStars with its Zoom Poker, have the ability to draw on larger player pools than most U.S.-oriented poker operators possess.
The only other U.S. network that seems as though it might institute a fast-fold product is the Winning Poker Network, headlined by its flagship brand, Americas Cardroom. Concerns over player liquidity, game quality, and promotional issues have been raised by outside observers, and while we're not party to the deliberations of the WPN's inner circle, it's likely that these factors have kept the network from proceeding with fast-fold poker.
Though your available sites for fast-fold poker in the United States are nowhere near as numerous as those serving the rest of the world, you still have a few sensible places to play. You can't really go wrong with any of them, so select one and begin your fast-fold adventure today.
Fast-Fold Poker FAQ
The first rollout of fast-fold poker came at the old Full Tilt Poker, which began offering RUSH Poker in January 2010. While Full Tilt had its problems, many of which were exposed in the aftermath of Black Friday about a year later, the invention of fast-fold poker stands as its enduring gift to the poker community. It has spawned many imitators, such as Zoom Poker at PokerStars, Go Fast at Winamax, and Fastforward at PartyPoker.
Play tends to be a bit tighter and more reasonable in fast-fold formats than in normal ring games. This is because players can discard mediocre hands and replace them with hopefully better cards a few seconds later. Thus, there's less of a temptation to overplay second-best starting hands. The winrates achievable are therefore reduced slightly. You'll likely make less per 100 hands in Zone or Boost poker than you are accustomed to, but the overall effect should be positive because you can play many more hands within a session.
Yes, it's not uncommon at all for players to mix and match in this manner. If you're having trouble finding enough action in one format, feel free to open up tables of both styles of cash games. They won't interfere with each other as long as you yourself don't get confused while playing them.