Pokerstars Launches Esports Variant Power Up

PokerStars launches eSports variant Power Up

By Ralf Schmidt Published on: October 13th, 2017 Updated on: April 14th, 2022

StarsGroup, formerly Amaya Gaming, is expanding its real money gaming offering. A new variation has been released on PokerStars. The game “Power Up” combines No-Limit Texas Hold’em with elements from computer games. The company is trying to jump on the eSports bandwagon. Will the experiment succeed?

Better presentation and more action. Power Up allows you to intervene in the course of the game. A community card is destroyed here. (Image source PokerStars)

The game “Power Up” is based on a Sit & Go format. No-Limit Texas Hold’em is played with three participants. After the buy-in, all players start with the same number of chips. In addition to the two usual hold cards, you also receive the eponymous power cards. These enable the use of special abilities and can manipulate your own hand, the community cards or even the deck itself.

Which power cards the players receive is determined at random. There is currently a pool of nine cards, you start with two of them and you can hold a maximum of three. Each use of the abilities is associated with a cost; the players have 15 energy points available per hand, and the cards use two to five per use.

These nine power cards are available so far. Here you can see the effects and energy costs. Players receive them randomly. (Image source PokerStars)

Depending on the power card, players can get an insight into their opponents' hand, destroy community cards, get new cards or even prevent the use of further power cards. With the “scanner”, for example, you can look at the next two cards in the deck and swap them if necessary. Because each power card is played before betting, you can customize your strategy in a comprehensive way.

The opponents' power cards are usually unknown to the players, which makes the tactical situation difficult to assess. Thanks to the new features, the style of play is more similar to a computer game than to classic poker. The power cards can influence the course of the game so much that even experienced poker players have to get used to them. The energy costs for using the cards also result in another form of resource management, in addition to the blind levels and your own chip stack.

Does poker need this change?

Online poker continues to be a profitable business for market leader PokerStars. But the golden days of this internet game are over. The number of players and sales have been stagnating for years. With other computer games the situation generally looks more positive. For a long time, “Daddeln” was in a niche area, but games have now become compatible with the masses. Last but not least, the “social games” of social networks have contributed to this normalization. But the big titles from well-known studios such as Riot Games, Valve and Blizzard also inspire millions of recreational gamers Budgets for developing the games are in no way inferior to films.

In the course of this development, recognition for the high standards of some titles has also increased. If you play yourself, you can better understand the performance of the real experts. The resulting audience market is growing from year to year. Interest in poker broadcasts, on the other hand, is comparatively low. This is probably partly due to the simple visual presentation of the game. Hold'em Poker is extremely complex, but it doesn't look "modern" enough. It only seems sensible that PokerStars is working on the “eSports TauGLIability” of its product. Whether “Power Up” lives up to the makers’ expectations still has to be proven. But it can already be viewed as a real innovation in poker.

Poker has maintained its popularity for nearly two centuries because it has evolved over time. PokerStars Power Up continues this evolution by bringing a modern component to traditional poker that will be of interest not only to poker players, but to gamers as a whole. We are encouraged by the response during the alpha testing in July and AugustIGT and are optimistic that Power Up will both introduce the mobile gamer generation to poker and delight existing and former players. Rafi Ashkenazi, CEO The Stars Group

Although the game underwent a testing phase over the summer, there still seem to be a few bugs present. Shortly after it was released, it was deactivated again today. However, it should be available again shortly.

PokerStars launches eSports variant Power Up

PokerStars launches eSports variant Power Up

Does poker need this change?

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