Power Up - a mix of poker and Hearthstone from PokerStars

It’s no secret that the biggest online poker room PokerStars is moving towards recreational players providing the most comfortable conditions for them. Another proof of the fact that the facility is sticking to such policy is the creation of an innovative game called “Power Up”, which is a symbiosis of a no-limit Holdem and a famous card game Hearthstone (which have managed to steal a way into heart of million players all over the world).

Even though poker community has got acquainted with this new game just now, it’s been tested for about 6 months already. Highly skilled players participate in testing, including Daniel Negreanu, as well as general gamers. PokerStars developers have spent loads of time and efforts to create characters of unique animation and other aspects, which will make the gameplay exciting and interesting.

The official announcement on the official web site of PokerStars says that the players included in the testing group were totally raptured, had loads of fun, therefore PokerStars expects Power Up to receive high ratings from users.

At the moment the game is still being tested, thus, before the official release it will probably face some changes. Moreover, it’s only possible to use play chips to try Power Up yet, the real money games will be launched a little bit later, after expanding the pool of players.

It’s expected that the game will be launched in the first half of 2017, hence it won’t be long till the official release.

What’s Power Up by PokerStars?

According to the information from the poker room itself and also from the players, who tested the game, Power Up is a mixture of no-limit Holdem with an opportunity to use special magic super powers. They enable players to influence game process in different ways: change their pocket or table cards, see your opponent’s cards and so on. So that you could fully understand what’s player’s magic power, we would like to introduce you a few examples of spell:

• X-ray power - you can see one card of each opponent.
• Upgrade - you take the third card, then you drop one of three cards at your choice
• Scanner - you can have a look of two top cards in the deck and relocate them to the bottom if you desire.
• Reload - you drop your cards and grab another ones.
• Intel - you see the top card of the deck all hand long
• Engineer - you can see three top cards in the deck and choose one of them
• EMP - you can forbid your opponents to use spells on this street
• Disintegrate - you can repeal the card, which occurs on the street
• Clone - you get a power, which was played the last in this hand

As you might have already understood the information upon no-limit Holdem you’ve owned before is absolutely not enough. Therefore it requires a little more than learning the rules of poker and poker hand rankings. It’s also yet undiscovered whether poker table positions somehow influence the game. Hence it will be interesting to play Power Up for everybody: there are simply no professional players here yet.

What do professional poker players feel about Power Up

As we’ve already marked, a professional player Daniel Negreanu took part in Power Up alfa-testing and frankly speaking he was tickled pink. This is how he commented on the launch of a new game by PokerStars:

'This game is the future. It’s incredible and I’m pretty sure it will change your view upon poker. I’m very excited about its launch. As soon as you try to play Power Up, you will right away fall in love with this game. Bravo, Poker Stars!'

It’s also should be mentioned, that there were people who don’t share Daniel’s positive point of view. For instance, the owner of World Series 2014 golden bracelet - Jaret Jaffee has sarcastically replied Daniel in Twitter, that he is very glad, that Daniel and Poker Stars keep on supporting real poker.

Negreanu promised as a response, that any one would love the new game by PokerStars from the first play.

In the end Jaffee gave up arguing with his colleague and jumping into conclusions.

In a wile another famous player Matt Glantz asked Daniel whether Power Up is similar to Pokemon Go or Magic the Gathering. Daniel replied:

'Just imagine. You see the card of your opponent right during the hand and you can destroy him in a click. It’s loads of fun'

At the same time one of the Russian professional players Ivan Demidov is skeptical of a new game at Poker Stars. He doesn’t understand, why to play Power Up, when there is Hearthstone. Ivan considers recreational players and gambling addict to find general poker much more interesting than learning rules of a new game.

'It’s evident that PokerStars is aimed at attracting new players and amateurs, therefore someone offered an idea of Magic poker. Though, it seems to me, only schoolboys like this sort of games and they don’t have money to deposit' - said Demidov.

What should one expect from Power Up by PokerStars?

It’s expected, that Power Up is about to be the first game to combine Poker and Cybersports. Recently there have been many talks about it, yet this is the first real attempt to make similar symbiosis (apart from Hold'em-X).

Sure, nobody expects Poker Stars to make everything perfectly well from the first try, but it’s absolutely evident that the poker room has chosen a right way to follow. Now developers have a tough mission to complete - they have to create a balance between cybersports and poker.

After Power Up launch Poker Stars expects to get the increase of players, who are not acquainted with poker, what means that professional players will also join, since they will be attracted with an opportunity to make money on inexperienced players.