Mediarex Sports & Entertainment chief executive officer, Alexandre Dreyfus, has told PokerNews that he plans to invest millions into HoldemX in a bid to tap into the hoards of gamers who have turned their back on poker.
I’ve been a football nut all of my life.
Only once has anything come along to threaten that love affair.
I don’t know what it was. From the minute I learned the game I was hooked. It had me. Right in the gut. I fell in love. It even became more important than football.
Then something changed.
I think it was a combination of the time poker robbed me of my life, and all the money I was losing to better players.
I no longer loved the game.
Alex Dreyfus believes he has a solution.
I’m not the only person to fall out of love with poker. Dreyfus knows that. He has his finger on the pulse. His team at Mediarex Sports & Entertainment has spent the past nine months, and a pretty penny, trying to find a way to bring us back.
This week, he has released that solution in Alpha status.
HoldemX is here.
Although part of the DNA of HoldemX is poker, Dreyfus is keen to emphasize that it’s not a new poker product. Instead, Dreyfus has studied the eSports card games such as Hearthstone and created something that he sees as standing alone as a game that can bridge both worlds.
Online poker rooms shake things up by creating different poker formats. Dreyfus is ripping that formbook apart. He is creating something from scratch and is prepared to spend millions doing so.
HoldemX is built as a game that could be played for money, but it won’t be. Dreyfus is keen to remind everyone that although the people within the poker industry would rather put a fork in their eye than play poker without money, there are millions who do. He also points out that both Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier spend hours playing Hearthstone because they love the game. Money has nothing to do with it.
The purpose of the Alpha phase is to gather crucial feedback from poker players and eSports players, both professionals and casual players. The Frenchman expects a native mobile version to be available in the summer. He will start streaming games live via Twitch straight after the Global Poker League (GPL) Draft is out of the way.
Reading between the lines, I believe Dreyfus is hoping that online poker rooms will use HoldemX rather that try and create their own versions of it. You only have to look at Full Tilt’s Rush Poker, or Winamax’s Expresso Poker to see that good things catch on fast. That being said, PokerStars has already announced plans to create a new hybrid game that would also bridge the gap between poker and eSports. Dreyfus filed a meta game patent in October.
HoldemX may be a new idea, but it’s going to get competitive real quick. Dreyfus plans to roll out a HoldemX competition called GPL X. It will feature professional poker players and existing eSports stars. The action will be streamed live on Twitch and the live final will be played in The Cube. Las Vegas Casinos are also keen to have HoldemX on the casino floor.
Fancy trying HoldemX for yourself?
