When Full Tilt Poker released Rush Poker in 2010, it was an idea that was so good it was difficult to understand how come no one had thought of it before. Rush Poker was the first “fast-fold” poker game, a simple concept that swiftly caught on among impatient poker players. The concept was this: As soon as you folded your cards at one table, instead of having to hang around and wait for the rest of the hand to play out, you were instead reseated at a new table and dealt a new hand. The result was that players were able to play around four times as many hands during online play as they had been able to do previously.
A lot of water has flowed under the poker bridge since 2010, including PokerStars purchase of Full Tilt Poker, but fast-fold poker has remained a popular variation on the poker theme. Most of the leading online poker rooms now have fast-fold versions of their own, including iPoker's Speed Hold'em, Microgaming's Blaze Poker and Party Poker's FastForward.
All these blazing fast poker titles have sat comfortably with each other over the past couple of years, but as usual, in the US market, things seem to be working out a little difficulty.
ONLY POKERSTARS WILL BE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO OFFER FAST FOLD IN THE U.S.
In preparation for the continual and expected relaxation of poker regulations governing the United States, PokerStars has applied for and has been awarded the U.S. patent for fast-fold poker. This means that once legalised poker-playing begins to spread across the States, only PokerStars will be legally allowed to offer a fast-fold poker variant.
Naturally, most of PokerStars' rivals, including Party Poker, are not best pleased that PokerStars has been, effectively, awarded exclusive rights to fast-fold poker in the United States. Gaming experts have hinted that legally, the award of a patent to PokerStars seems pretty water-tight, but they still expect a significant number of challenges to the patent award before the U.S. catches up with the rest of the world to sit shoulder-to-shoulder at all the most popular speed poker tables.
With around one in eight poker hands online now being dealt at a fast-fold poker table, the awarding of the U.S. patent for fast-fold poker is obviously a significant coup for PokerStars. Unless any challenge to the patent award is a successful one, it seems likely that once U.S. players get the go ahead to start seeing the deals at fast-fold poker, the logo in the centre of the poker table is most definitely bound to be PokerStars'.
A lot of water has flowed under the poker bridge since 2010, including PokerStars purchase of Full Tilt Poker, but fast-fold poker has remained a popular variation on the poker theme. Most of the leading online poker rooms now have fast-fold versions of their own, including iPoker's Speed Hold'em, Microgaming's Blaze Poker and Party Poker's FastForward.
All these blazing fast poker titles have sat comfortably with each other over the past couple of years, but as usual, in the US market, things seem to be working out a little difficulty.
ONLY POKERSTARS WILL BE LEGALLY ENTITLED TO OFFER FAST FOLD IN THE U.S.
In preparation for the continual and expected relaxation of poker regulations governing the United States, PokerStars has applied for and has been awarded the U.S. patent for fast-fold poker. This means that once legalised poker-playing begins to spread across the States, only PokerStars will be legally allowed to offer a fast-fold poker variant.
Naturally, most of PokerStars' rivals, including Party Poker, are not best pleased that PokerStars has been, effectively, awarded exclusive rights to fast-fold poker in the United States. Gaming experts have hinted that legally, the award of a patent to PokerStars seems pretty water-tight, but they still expect a significant number of challenges to the patent award before the U.S. catches up with the rest of the world to sit shoulder-to-shoulder at all the most popular speed poker tables.
With around one in eight poker hands online now being dealt at a fast-fold poker table, the awarding of the U.S. patent for fast-fold poker is obviously a significant coup for PokerStars. Unless any challenge to the patent award is a successful one, it seems likely that once U.S. players get the go ahead to start seeing the deals at fast-fold poker, the logo in the centre of the poker table is most definitely bound to be PokerStars'.
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