HoldemX: New Holdem on Steroids
Never-ending “infantilization” of modern poker lead to the birth of the new “disciplines”, like Spin-n-Go and Rush Poker. The owner of GPI and the founder of GPL, unstoppable poker innovator Alex Dreyfus jumped over his own head and crated Hearthstone and poker hybrid.
In the beginning of the year, Full Tilt Poker started to sponsor professional Hearthstone players. In other words, created their own team. Almost simultaneously, FullTiltPoker.net appeared on gaming platform Steam. In other words, got 100 million gamers auditory.
Now everyone us able to load Full Tilt Poker from Steam and start playing. It’s only on play money (otherwise, there would not have been official license). It’s irrelevant though, once you start hanging around strip clubs, it’s just a matter of time you’re going to enter it.
Alex Dreyfus, who is actively promoting his new team poker show (there is no other way to name it) Global Poker League went in other way.
He introduced HoldemX to the world, new game invented from the scratch. It looks like that this, there is only alpha version only, and they look for testers:
There is just one game format – heads-up. HoldemX saved its poker basics: there are betting rounds, checks, folds and staff. The basic change is adding new cards like “get another river”, “Change a card on board”, “Switch from hearts to spades” and so on.
“HoldemX will get a new public who isn’t involved in poker society. We wish to show poker to a new generation of gamers,” – says Dreyfus.
Any player will have a set of help card during the match. Before the beginning of the round players ban some cards opponent can’t use and then there comes a deck of additional cards.
All the cards are open but in real game they will probably be closed. So players wouldn’t know which possibilities their opponents possess.
“HoldemX won’t ever become in one line with Hold’em. The biggest treat for the latter are games like Hearthstone – and their growth of popularity proves this point”, - Dreyfus continues.
Play money only and HoldemX in casino
There is no real money play on HoldemX. According to Alex, many forget that 9-% of people play for fun – in poker apps and social media. The auditory is huge and they can pay.
From the other hand, Dreyfus said that should there be a necessity and real money game will appear, there is such a possibility for HoldemX from the start.
Just had my first run of @PlayHoldemX with @alex_dreyfus - fun,confusing and tilting all at the same time.Can't wait to see finished product
— Marc Kennedy (@PlayinWitDreams) January 31, 2016
There is some sort of interest from Las Vegas casino where special presentation took place. The gambling facilities owners also want to attract young players and HoldemX has an easy to understand interesting format – there is a possibility they’ll like it.
HoldemX is going to be included in one of the stages of Global Poker League: players will try it on Cuba.
“Philipp Gruissem made a public statement about offering any bets on 5K in HoldemX. All the other professional players who watched the game development also gave positive feedback. They said they have to create new strategies to become successful and they like it,” – Dreyfus summed up.
Probably HoldemX is too infant and far from a real poker, but this is present and future that awaits. We need to cope with this and adjust to new conditions. The latter is poker players’ bread and butter.