From Super System 1: "After I've won a pot in no-limit... I'm in the next pot - regardless of what two cards I pick up. And if I win that one... I'm always in the next one. I keep playing every pot until I lose one. And, in all those pots, I gamble more than I normally would. If you don't play that way... you'll never have much of a rush. I know that scientists don't believe in rushes..."

"There's only one world-class poker player that I know of who doesn't believe in rushes. Well, he's wrong... and so are the scientists."

What the hell is he talking about?

He is talking not about the phenomean of luck, but one of relentless aggression that appears as incredible luck to the opponents that should be fearful of what he might have. The "rush" doesn't exist in a convential manner, but is either fabricated with intent or accidentally. It can't be there with out some real reinforcement of having shown down some good cards.

I've announced rushes and proceeded to play it accordingly, with out of position raises and steals. If it works out right they are folding when I have nothing and hopefully by the time they play back I've hit a hand. I think it is fun to say, "I'm on fire.", and proceed to play like I'm on fire. It sure is more fun anyways. I'm fond of breaking my rush by showing a bluff, and hope that it is well timed enough that I can catch a monster in the next round.

This doesn't work at every table texture, calling stations who will call you down with bottom pair and chase every Ace to the river and might make a crying call completely destroys thinking about playing a rush that isn't card based. If you are thinking about trying to apply this to low stakes you should probably have cards to back it unless they are overly tight passive vs. loose passive.

The longest rush I've ever been able to sustain was near 18 hands in a row, I folded two middle pairs that I should have held on to as they would have filled up. I didn't have a hand 80% of the time.

The largest rush was playing six max and breaking 4 opponents in three passes of the button. When I got played back I had something to push with and was getting called, and only had to play one really scary one pair hand with AQ in my raised pot that the opponent refused to exercise pot control with a weak kicker ace with a stack near $400. This rush I had a hand every time. The only other person left at the table was patient and not giving up action so I left after ten minutes of playing him heads up.

He's talking about getting rushes of "luck". Now while it's obvious that scientifically speaking, every hand you play in will give you the exact same odds regardless of whether you won the previous pot or not. It's based on a theory called binomial distribution, which states that the probability of either a true or false outcome is independant of any previous occurences. For example, the probability of hitting a straight on the turn or river when you have an open-ended straight draw (9 outs) = 31.5%. Now lets say you hit the straight on the river, and then decide to play the next hand. If you're given another open ended straight draw, the probability of hitting it on the turn or river is exactly the same (31.5%). DB is suggesting however that because you won the previous pot, you have a supernatural or cosmic "rush" which means that although scientifically speaking, you have the exact same chance of hitting the draw, since you won the previous pot "luck is going your way" and you have a better chance of hitting your draw.

That's what I get from those passages at least. I myself haven't read SS1 or 2 or any poker book for that matter (I live in Australia and it's quite difficult to find poker books down here). The second quote is simply saying that almost every world-class poker player agrees with this statement, and that the one he knows of who doesn't is wrong, as are the scientists.

Hope that helps.

I dunno. I had a tournament a month ago when I knocked out 5 or six players in SIX minutes. I won 11 out of 13 hands. Whatever you want to call it, it was a rush.

im pretty sure he means after you've won a big pot, especially after a showdown, you should play in the next pot and bluff your way through. this gives the impression that you are "unstoppable" or what not, i guess you could say the opposite of "tilt" and opponents may get out of your way.

brunsons wrote the book on power poker, this is simply another play from the book. if youve been winning alot of pots you can push people around more, as ice says. of course there might be a little bit of superstition involved to what doyle is thinking, after you read his comment on scientists, but the reason he's taking down pots after he's won a big one is because people are afraid of him.

I dont think it works in todays online capped buy in games. I have to admit that the LAGs do give me a headache. I have to really concentrate on the LAGs table and not watch my other tables as much, but when i do, I almost always get the best of them.

I left a table last night because of a LAG. I couldnt play a hand and he was dicatating the tempo of the game. He was there today, while I was only playing 1 table and I ripped him a new one.

Point being that Doyles constant push push pushing wont really work in the games we play.

I played a tourney on UB once and it got late and I kept falling asleep so I decided the hell with it since it was a free roll anyway and decided that I would just go all in and end it no matter what I had on the next hand. Well, as it turned out I had to do it 27 times, yes I did say 27 times, in a row before I was finally knocked out of the tourney. After the first 10 all in hands people stopped being mad at me for doing it and started to cheer me on. It was quite interesting to see people calling my all ins almost every time for that many hands in a row. I would win a few and then lose one or two and then win some more, at one point it put me up to the top of the heap as far as chip stacks for the tourney went, (of course I had to call the wife in to watch at that point, we were both laughing pretty good for awhile there) but in the end I did finally get knocked out. Anyway, I don't know if that would be called a "rush" in DB's sense of the word or not but I sure got a rush out of it.

I heard it said that in the run up to the final table, one of the years he won, Johnny Chan won 16 consecutive coin flips.

I think ol' JC might be a world class player that believes in rushes.

Then again we all know it's that orange he has that really does it

Molina