This appeared on my stars lobby last night while maintenance was limiting play money games. I played a play money game, killed it and tried to play a $1 game while I had the "strategic edge" of a game's worth of experience - I did not kill it. I now see it's been available for a while.
It's definitely not poker, but there is a weird, card based strategy side of the game that could be interesting IF :
-The screen loaded faster (probably my laptop's fault)
-I had a more complete understanding of the cards (powers) and how to utilize them
-Blind levels weren't so ridiculous
-real money was not involved
Because the powers cost energy to utilize and all players (in my vast experience of 30
hands) seem to have tons of power to burn at all times, I have to conclude that no one at my tables was fully exploiting the possibilities of the powers. The strategy would seem to be to use as many of the powers to your greater advantage and to your opponents' greater disadvantage as possible, requiring the use of your limited energy. This was not done by anyone in the games that I played.
Using powers while running a
bluff is like
bluffing with a production crew. Other than that, no, this is not poker.