14 Feb
In a move designed to further link the world’s of poker and e-gaming, This week sees the alpha launch of HoldemX, a game designed to appeal to both sets of players – with plans for a professional-standard league to follow.
Alexandre Dreyfus, the poker ‘visionary’ behind the Global Poker Index (GPI) and Global Poker League (GPL) has released the alpha version of HoldemX to a select group of players and is looking for feedback on the new game.
According to the GPI/GPL parent company’s Mediarex Enterprises press release, the HoldemX “alpha set-up represents an in-depth testing phase that aims to gather (and implement) as much feedback from players and gaming communities as possible.”
Poker and E-Gaming Ties
The game itself is designed to appeal to both poker players and fans of games such as Hearthstone. As the website states, it is designed as
A new dimension of Texas Hold’em geared towards the next generation of gamer / poker player – and built to connect these two diverse communities.”
In recent months the 2 communities have been building ever-closer ties. Full Tilt took on sponsorship of the G2 Esports’ Hearthstone team, while Bertrand ‘ElKy’ Grospelier recently signed up as a sponsored pro for the Netherlands-based e-sports Team Liquid, and played a Hearthstone showmatch live on Twitch at the 2015 BlizzCon against another poker/gaming fan, Daniel Negreanu.
Full Tilt also successfully negotiated the Steam Greenlight process, giving it access to 125million+ gaming fans on the world’s most popular platform, and their play-money version hit the platform just this week also.
HoldemX: How to Play?
According to the website, “Though re-imagined along videogame dynamics – HoldemX™ is still poker at its core. The game itself utilizes ideas from the world of e-gaming to enhance the playing experience, with an xDeck of 15 cards allowing players to block opponents’ cards.
Each player in the heads up game can block his/her opponent from selecting up to three xCards and can select up to six xCards to use during the match that were not blocked by their opponent. Each xCard is assigned a point value and players get a budget of points which they can use to select the blocked cards and the cards they want to use during play.” -Pokerfuse.com
The Player‘s hole cards are as important as their xCards: the only difference is that their face value & the board aren’t the only thing which determines how good or bad the player‘s final is – that‘s where the xDeck comes in. Cards from the xDeck can add or subtract community cards, redeal them, or even pair a card in your pocket.
This type of fusion between poker and gaming was also seen recently with the KickStarter funding campaign for Lord of Poker, an awesomely-graphic game in which your character finds himself in a small Poker Village, from where he must start a long and risky journey to the mysterious Castle to win back the magic in poker. Different locations in the world require specific game styles, but the foundation of the game is always the same: Texas Hold’em.
The HoldemX game is different, but has the same attraction of playability and combinations, and is “ designed for fast play with escalating blinds and a three minute time bank that quickly evaporates with every decision. Like a timed chess match, if a player runs out of time, they lose the match,” according to pokerfuse.
A New Direction…
Dreyfus himself states: “HoldemX brings more drama, more action, and more fun without straying from the skill-based foundations of what makes poker unique.”
The Mediarex CEO also said of the announcement: “We believe that after 12 years, the online poker industry – across social, freemium ‘real money’ corridors – needs to adopt new, fun and innovative games in order to bring back disengaged players and effectively target new generations of gamers.”
Dreyfus’ company also has plans to license HoldemX to gaming operators for real money play both live and online.
The Pro Ranks?
The future of the new game is already partly-written, as Dreyfus outlined big plans in a Twitch Q&A last year. The GPL X, an offshoot from his Global Poker League which will be specifically for HoldemX, will see many of the e-sports world’s highest-profile players compete alongside top poker pro.
The plan is to use The Cube –a glass arena which allows spectators to view what’s happening without disturbing the players– for the World Championship match. Although yet to be announced or detailed, it can be assumed that such a championship would herald a new phase of sponsorship and massive prize-money, thus attracting fans and players from both sides of the ‘divide’ – a core ideal of Dreyfus.
For the time being, a feedback and discussion forum has been opened up to allow players to share their views on the new hybrid game, while a mobile app version of HoldemX is scheduled for a summer release, when the full game is also expected to be available to the general gaming and poker public.
