It has potential if they don't **** around re-balancing every 5 minutes.

Yesterday Power Up was launched as real money game in german client and i played first game. Today i checked again and not managed to find it. Power Up suspended or am I just to dumb to find it ?

No it's not on atm.

God i'm confused. So this is what poker has come to?

Anywhere some news or blog available that give background about reason why Power Up not on anymore ? And especially some forecast when it will be reactivated. Did not find anything on Pokerstars page

PokerStars Discord channel

Did anyone see what the rake is like?

Two buy-in levels were available this week: $0.92 + $0.08 ($1) and $2.76 + $0.24 ($3).

That's 8.7% rake for both for roughly 15 - 25 hands of poker.

meh.stars doing stars things to take more money out of the poker economy.


this reminds me of cs;go with skins and crates and ****.

for all the rec players giving them somewhere for their money to go instead of to regs who use this game as a way of making a living

A game where you start with 3 cards and throw one away on the flop would be pretty cool

That's called crazy pineapple: http://www.pokerlistings.com/pineapp...ineapple-poker

That's Irish holdem.. FTP have it once..i like it,but not many like it


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Interview with the developer:

https://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/w...-poker/102344/

Some nuggets:

Q: Would you say this is a more skill orientated format than regular NLHE because of so many more moving parts, or because more cards are on the table they dictate the outcome more than decisions?

A: It’s more skill orientated. In addition to all of the normal poker strategic elements (and it’s important to note that we haven’t removed those elements) such as position, stack size, betting patterns, hand ranges and so on, we have added new areas for players to focus on. The powers themselves are certainly the biggest skill-testing element but players will also need to consider how they combine powers. On top of that, the ability to form and craft a hand of specific powers in order to set up a particular play; having more information than otherwise (such as knowing which cards have been discarded with Engineer and Scanner) and how to manage your energy effectively are just some of the new strategic areas to focus on with Power Up.

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Q: In Hearthstone there are a lot of cards that can completely reverse the fortune of a game and effectively win it, my observation is that by contrast there are few cards that dramatically change the game in Power Up. Do you agree, and was this a conscious choice to keep the poker itself still the core part of the game?

A: Yes - it was a very specific rule early on when doing game balancing that we do not want to have powers that say “I win” on them. In fact, the first power ever designed unfortunately never made it into the final version of the game. One of the game designers created a power called “Zombie” which, when played, would bring a player who had folded back into the game. Their cards would be live again, overcoming that familiar complaint we all have about folding a hand like 92o and having the flop come 992. The problem was that in practice it was a power that almost always said “I win” because you would only use it when you had the nuts (or near nuts). That doesn’t mean we have given up on the power, but it will have to change before we ever let it see the light of day.

OK when I first heard about this I genuinely thought it was the dumbest idea ever, and stars had truly gone to the dogs. I play a lot of CCGs as well and I think most of them are really bad and it's very difficult to design cards or make a fun card game...lots of games try and compete with Magic/Hearthstone (like Gwent, Elder Scrolls, Duelysts) and I think they are terrible, including Hearthstone in the current meta. I also think designing a card game is really hard and I get pretty annoyed whenever someone wants to change a NLHE structure like to half and half or pineapple (though I enjoy multi-board or 5card PLO games)...but I have no interest in playing any non-big bet or non-community card game. I guess I am part of the target audience as I enjoy e-sports and videogames a lot.

I watched my friend play Power Up for a little over an hour yesterday and I thought it looked EXTREMELY fun and the power-ups are really well-designed and managing your energy/resources adds a whole dimension of strategy to the game. I really liked the art style as well though some of the avatars are dumb. I honestly don't even play poker for fun anymore it just feels like a grind to me but if I lived outside the US I could definitely see myself just playing this all day. I wanted my friend to keep playing so could continue to figure out strategies but he had stuff to do. I would really encourage people to check it out.

Yeah if you are a SnG pro probably can't play these for a living as edge/ROI is too low plus it'd be really hard to mass-table. But my impression of the SnGs I watched is that they are fun and +EV.

ok, I played quite a few of those (I guess around 50, hard to get decent volume in this game), few loose thoughts:

- powers add A LOT of depth. I play poker for a living (and am decent at Hearthstone), but Im barely even able to grasp all the strategic implications and in general what is happening

- there will be no implementation with deeper stacks, as this would require complete rework of powers, cards like intel or x-ray would need to cost waaaay more 100bb deep

- the whole "next card in the deck" mechanic is unnecessarily confusing imo, took me a while to realise that if you engeneer yourself a flop and then upgrade, you are drawing engeneered card. Engeneered/scanned board cards should stay until someone else engeneers or scans them imo

- at least at the start, the edges will be HUGE, so far most people dont seem to understand the most basic ideas behind the game. Im still pretty much clueless, and I feel like I have an enourmous edge against almost everyone Ive played against. At the same time, with equally skilled players std dev/100 should be much bigger than in NLHE or even PLO due to more variables.

- I think that there is an inherent flaw in the game, namely, except for emp-shoves, you never wanna be shoving, its always (almost always?) better to bet 90% of your opponent's stack and save powers in case he folds. I realise that you risk getting emp-ed, but it's still not enough of the incentive not to do it. This will likely lead to absurd minraising battles.

- some cards seem to have inbalanced costs, for example disintegrate seems a bit expensive (esp since its useless in late game). This in not an inherent flaw, as most tgcs are inbalanced on purpose (to create metagame), it just can be frustrating to get stuck with in push/fold, when you cant even use it to make room for better powers.

more to come when I think of something, but in general I kinda like it, not sure if Stars even realise how huge the edges can be in this game. Just make the rake same as in spins and it should be grindable (though no mass volume due to different ui and level of complication)

Are there plans to introduce this on stars.nj? I honestly wouldn't mind spending a week in AC to play this on my Surface Pro and chill at live table. I've considered traveling for Hearthstone to play in Dreamhacks and my EV in those is non-existent and travel expenses higher...
Yeah this is a big flaw that I noticed as well almost immediately. I wonder if stars will do anything about it. The games seemed ridiculously soft but they were also $3 sngs so who knows.

Indeed, I played quite a few in the only-playmoney phase and figured out stuff like using the engineer + reload combos, but only today I learned the hard way how strong an X-ray + disintegrate combo can be.

Not sure I would call this a flaw. It's certainly something you have to be aware of; but at least the board is protected when you shove. And since the game isn't deep anyway, I would not expect real minraising battles.

Anyway, feel free to post your Beats in this thread: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...rates-1675089/

You save a powercard by not going allin in they event they fold to your raise (and can save them for when they do shove over you and you call) which gives you a resource advantage later in the game when the powercards are even more valuable since you don't have time to draw more.

Beware the emp traps if you're doing the bet 90% and save your power trap.

EMP and disintegrate are very, very powerful counterplay powers if used right.

This is amazing.

I found another use for upgrade: when someone engineers the next card and bets, I use upgrade to take that card and discard it - never gets old!

I got rekt by that exact tactic tonight lol

This is how it's done:

PokerStars Hand #177228405626: Tournament #2075877527, $2.76+$0.24 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level I (40/80) - 2017/10/22 12:51:47 CET [2017/10/22 6:51:47 ET]
Table '2075877527 1' 3-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: rimpri (2000 in chips, 10 energy)
Seat 2: G363 (2000 in chips, 10 energy)
Seat 3: Morphismus (2000 in chips, 7 energy, Engineer)
G363: posts small blind 40
Morphismus: posts big blind 80
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Morphismus [4c 6h]
rimpri: raises 80 to 160
G363: calls 120
Morphismus: calls 80
*** FLOP *** [Jc 5c 2d]
G363: bets 240
Morphismus plays Intel (3) and peeks at 3d on top of deck.
Morphismus: calls 240
rimpri: folds
*** TURN *** [Jc 5c 2d] [3d]
Morphismus peeks at the 4d on top of the deck (from Intel).
G363: checks
Morphismus: checks
*** RIVER *** [Jc 5c 2d 3d] [4d]
Morphismus peeks at the 2h on top of the deck (from Intel).
G363: bets 480
Morphismus: calls 480
*** SHOW DOWN ***
G363: shows [Td 8h] (high card Jack)
Morphismus: shows [4c 6h] (a straight, Deuce to Six)
Morphismus collected 1920 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1920 | Rake 0
Board [Jc 5c 2d 3d 4d]
Seat 1: rimpri (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: G363 (small blind) showed [Td 8h] and lost with high card Jack
Seat 3: Morphismus (big blind) showed [4c 6h] and won (1920) with a straight, Deuce to Six

What the **** did I just read?

Well - played one, won one - can't decide whether to retire undefeated or have another go!

As said earlier, it would be good for a home game with friends - I think.