Full Tilt Poker’s Gold Rush promotion must be going swimmingly because the online poker room has decided to extend it well into the New Year. Originally slated to end on New Year’s Day, Gold Rush will now last an extra week and a half, ending Sunday, January 11th.
Gold Rush is a promotion designed to get people over to the Rush Poker tables, as if they needed the incentive (newsflash: Rush Poker is very popular). It is a crazy simple promo – just play in real money Rush Poker ring games for a chance to win. Players do not have to actually win in their Rush Poker games or play any certain number of hands; it is all the luck of the draw, so to speak. Of course, playing a lot will help one’s chances of winning a prize, but it is not necessary.
The lucky players who earn the favor of the random number generator gods will get whisked away to another table after the hand. Not another Rush Poker table like normal, but rather a special Gold Rush prize table. The player will be presented with three cards, laid out face down, kind of like a flop. That player will then choose one to turn over to see his prize. It is not known if the prize is predetermined before the card selection (meaning the prize will be the same regardless of what card is chosen), or if there really are three different prizes under the cards. Then again, it really is not important, as the outcome will be the same for the player in either case.
After the prize selection, the player is then taken back to a Rush Poker table.
Prizes include up to $10,000 in cash, Rush Poker ring game tickets, Full Tilt Points, tournament tickets for Gold Rush freeroll tournaments, and tournament tickets for Gold Rush freeroll satellites.
I mentioned earlier that the prizes are for players who play at the real money Rush Poker tables, but those who participate in the Play Money tables can also win prizes, though they are limited to Play Chip bundles.
Though playing poker is only real requirement to win a prize, only players who contribute to the pot (posting blinds counts) will be eligible for the drawing. Also, and this is kind of a weird one, the ring game table must have more than two full tables worth of players in the player pool.
Most of the Gold Rush freerolls have already been run, but Full Tilt Poker added two on Saturday, January 17th: a $2,500 freeroll at noon ET and a $5,000 freeroll at 12:30pm ET.
The freerolls are Flipout Tournaments, using a Rush Poker format. This means that they are shootout tournaments at the start, with one player from each table advancing. Those shootouts are also totally luck-based. Everyone is all-in every hand until just one person remains. After all the shootouts are complete, the rest of the tournament proceeds as normal. Players can re-enter up to nine times for ten entries in total, if they win that many tournament tickets.
