PokerStars alpha testing innovative Poker Power-up game

PokerStars has released a new game, PokerStars Power Up, for technical testing. PokerStars Power Up is a combination of traditional, enjoyable No Limit Hold’em injected with powers that give players the ability to influence how hands play out and change up game play in a variety of ways. Full list of possible Power Ups is available at the end of the news.

A select number of U.S.-based play money players have been invited to join an Alpha test group to play PokerStars Power Up, which is currently in the very early stages of development.

View the game here (click to enlarge to full screen):


Severin Rasset from PokerStars commented: "Today, the latest of our innovations, PokerStars Power Up entered Alpha testing. It's a combination of traditional enjoyable No Limit Hold'em injected with powers that give players the ability to influence how hands play out and change up game play in a variety of ways with boards, cards and chips.
This project introduces a lot of new features to poker that we have built from scratch and it's taken a lot of time and effort to get to this stage in the game's life.

We balanced the game for six months in a sandbox environment with a group of very high volume experienced poker players and gamers to attempt to break the game in every possible way. We integrated a new engine within our software, created animations and powers, and put a lot of time and thought into how poker players will have fun with the game. "

Possible power-ups:

where is the power up to reduce rake to 1bb/100?

finally revealed the good old rig version 1.2

Cool for requruiting new players I guess. But I wonder what the rake is going to be, oh fuck it has cool effects

next step they introduce card banning pre flop

I want to play

oh man this is actually pretty genius on their behalf. But I also feel this is gonna add a whole extra layer of tilt.. Like constantly singling out one player that you use all powerups against etc. Sounds fun as hell and something people are gonna make very suboptimal decisions with - both of these are currently missing from online poker, so good job. Honestly I could almost picture myself starting to play a little again, probably not enough for me to ever deposit, but still..

They might as well just open Pokerstars Casino.

Pretty much a casino game as is... Not poker any more.

I thought this was a good idea as well but I have seen a lot of people just shitting on the idea so I'm not sure what to think... I guess depends on what the rake is/if it's even beatable.

brilliant idea, gamifying poker hard is a big gamble but one that needed to be done soon

This needed to be done 5 years ago. Poker needs to evolve from a closed loop game, into an evolvable game where people must continue to grind to learn the new intricacies. Then the rake needs to be balanced. Thats a sustainable ecosystem thats needed. Poker as a closed loop game, which just gets to being more solved every day, is not.

Spy: swap hands with your enemy
Thief: steal your enemy's bet
Hypnotize: completely randomize action to the eyes of your opponent

Cool idea. Hopefully it will be playable non recreationally

stack: take one enemy's stack
identity: enemy is forced to type their name, address, date of birth, and social security number into chat

hacked: you get opponents login info

So this is a copy of Hold'emX or whatever it was called? Promoted a bunch by the Global Poker League people I think... Never tried it but looks the same. Though theirs was HU only I think.

Anyway, I approve. Poker needs to embrace gamification and streaming stuff (speaking of which, they should have featured twitch tables with no rake and in turn maybe hole cards are shown or something like that and it's streamed on twitch or whatever with x min delay).

On February 16 2017 07:18 TianYuan wrote: So this is a copy of Hold'emX or whatever it was called? Promoted a bunch by the Global Poker League people I think... Never tried it but looks the same. Though theirs was HU only I think. Anyway, I approve. Poker needs to embrace gamification and streaming stuff (speaking of which, they should have featured twitch tables with no rake and in turn maybe hole cards are shown or something like that and it's streamed on twitch or whatever with x min delay).

Looks a lot like the plannem HoldemX, but its PokerStars so they've put a lot more work into it, seems like.

W T F

I can imagine people "taking a new river" with 22 to hit a set f e. It will be a feast

On February 16 2017 02:18 asdf2000 wrote: stack: take one enemy's stack identity: enemy is forced to type their name, address, date of birth, and social security number into chat

lol

Srs though this game has potential, Hope I can play it in the US