Friday was a big day for PokerStars, the world’s largest online poker site. Zoom Poker, which provides similar game play to Rush Poker, launched in real money beta form. Players can open up to four Zoom Poker tables at a time and, as text found on PokerStars’ Blog notes, “As soon as you fold a hand on one table, you are taken to another table for a new hand. With three different animation options and a chance to hang around and see how the hand plays out after your departure, Zoom Poker is the answer to anyone who hates to wait.”

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One member of the PocketFives community who tried out Zoom Poker for real money on Friday was wackyJaxon. The PocketFives staff member told us, “I thought it ran very smoothly. I hoped my HUD would work there, but I’d imagine Holdem Manager will come out with a patch soon. I probably won’t play there again until the limits go up, though.”

Speaking of the limits, several small-stakes games are currently available. You can elect to play $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold’em, which when we looked had 1,500 players seated at six-max tables and another 1,500 seated at full ring tables. Added early Friday afternoon was $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold’em, which had 1,900 six-max players and 2,500 full ring players.

Omaha fans aren’t left out in the cold either, as $0.01/$0.02 Zoom Poker Omaha was running and featured 600 players. Play money games are available for those who just want to give Zoom Poker a try without any monetary risk and the cap for each game appears to be about 2,500 players.

According to PokerStars, Zoom Poker tournaments are on deck to be added, although the time line for their inclusion in the client remains to be seen. wackyJaxon was looking forward to Zoom Poker expanding in limits and game type: “It’s a great thing when you only have 30 minutes to play. I hope for the sake of tournament players that PokerStars rolls out Zoom Poker tournaments really soon.”

Are there any fundamental differences between Zoom Poker and Rush Poker, which took place on the now inactive Full Tilt Poker? “Zoom Poker seemed to look smoother than Rush Poker, but the concept is identical,” wackyJaxon reviewed. “You can click a button to sit out the next big blind and another to sit out the next hand. In the Full Tilt version, the only option was to sit out the next hand. You had to guess when you’d be going into the big blind.”

Anyone who finds any bugs during their Zoom Poker beta experience is encouraged to e-mail beta@pokerstars.com. PokerStars cautions that due to the software still being in beta, bugs will likely occur. This is the primary reason for the site only offering low-stakes and play money games at this time.

Two weeks ago, wackyJaxon told the community in a Poker Sites thread that he was using PokerStars’ test client to play Zoom Poker. He remarked at the time why the Rush Poker concept was so enticing: “Rush Poker cash games were a lot of fun. If you only had 20 minutes to play at a time, it would be a lot better to join a Rush table than a regular table. To each his own. I will get my PLO fix once this comes out and continue to play Mixed games on non-Zoom tables.”

Another member of PocketFives called Rush Poker tournaments one of the greatest poker innovations in recent memory: “Rush MTTs were without a doubt the best thing Full Tilt Poker contributed to the poker industry, probably the most popular new form of No Limit Hold’em there has been. PokerStars not copying this would be dumb, to be honest, and I’m surprised it took this long.”

Rush Poker was originally introduced as patent-pending. Visit PokerStars to play Zoom Poker in beta form.