3: Barrels of a PokerStars vintage as Power Up undergoes a successful trial; the hammer comes down on tankers in ring games and PokerStars Team pros behind World Series of Poker bracelet sale.
Someone within the online poker world needed to show some balls and change the fundamentals of poker to save it from extinction. Interest in our game would have spiralled inwards like a snail shell until hitting the point of oblivion.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is no longer a behavioural symptom of the few. It’s the genetic makeup of the many. PokerStars is aware of this. PokerStars has balls. PokerStars is now waving them in everyone’s face in the shape of a brand new game: PokerStars Power Up.
Writing on the Corporate Blog, Severin Rasset, Director of Poker Innovation and Operations for PokerStars, announced the end of the Power Up Alpha Testing, and its good news.
Over 90,000 unique players took part in over 150,000 games. The communication between the players and the PokerStars team was seamless with PokerStars using their Discord Channel for immediate two-way communication.
The data reveals no need to change the fundamentals of the game. A few technical bugs have been picked up by the vultures. The data has shown the perfect pitch for the game’s duration, structure, and skill level.
The next stages are to move the game onto mobile devices and introduce the game into the real money arena.
“Power Up is not here to replace poker but to continue to evolve it and create an entry point for poker for new passionate players that love games with depth, strategic decision-making and competition,” wrote Rasset.
The key, as always, is the value the product provides for the customer.
“As for each step of this development, our players will decide what we do with this game,” promised Rasset.
If I were responsible for managing an online poker room, I would be getting as much sleep as a cat with peanut butter stuck in its fur. The purists may hate Power Up. But the purists will grow old and die. It’s the new breed that we need to think of next, and when they come to poker looking for this type of game, they will end up at PokerStars.
PokerStars Drop The Hammer on Time Wasters
Rasset wasn’t the only PokerStars employee hogging space on the Corporate Blog this week.
Dan Price, PokerStars Ring Game Manager, also chimed in with an update for players who enjoy playing a ring game or 150,000.
Players have been complaining about the time it takes players to make decisions when playing cash games. PokerStars have been listening. For the first time in four-years, PokerStars are proposing changes to their Time to Act settings.
“With player experience in mind we simulated a variety of different Time to Act settings and have come up with numbers which will still allow plenty of time for the key decisions that require true brain power and thinking time, but will also significantly speed up the game,” wrote Price.
A trial will take place at the $0.01/$0.02 NLHE & PLO level, which is surely nothing more than a formality. Zoom games remain unaltered.
The Changes
1. Pre-flop decisions not facing a raise – you now have 12 seconds, and not 18.
2. Pre-flop decisions facing a raise, and post flop – you now have 15 seconds, and not 25.
Time bank settings, once your Time to Act time has gone the way of the Dodo remains unaltered.
The trial begins July 31.
PokerStars Team Pros Spare WSOP Bracelet Sells For $10k
If you wondered how much it would cost to purchase a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, you now know.
PokerStars Team pros, and lovebirds, Liv Boeree & Igor Kurganov, won a bracelet each when they took down Event #2: $10,000 Tag Tag No-Limit Hold’em Championship, but the WSOP set aside four bracelets for the event.
The pair sit on the board of Raising for Effective Giving (REG), the effective altruist inspired meta-charity that raises money to help reduce suffering in the world, and the WSOP kindly agreed to donate one of those spare bracelets to REG.
REG auctioned the bracelet on eBay, and after 37 bids, spread over ten days, the winning bid was $10,200. Boeree and Kurganov also donated 50% of their $136,982 winners check to effective charities.
The effective altruist movement also made an appearance at the WSOP Main Event Final Table with both Jack Sinclair (8th) and Benjamin Pollak (3rd), both donating a percentage of their seven-figure scores to REG Charity.
