Poker players have often looked down at their hole cards, double-checked the board, and wished they could change one of their hole cards, or one of the community cards, to make a better hand. Now PokerStars is making that possible with their most recent innovation, PokerStars Power Up, which is currently in Alpha testing mode.

This week the company announced that the product was being released to a limited number of U.S.-based play money players to allow for greater testing of all game play elements.

Some players who already played the game have described it as Hearthstone meets Texas Hold’em. Power Up allows players to use special power to influence how a hand plays out in a number of ways including adding a third hole card, changing a board card, or redraw select cards.

Some who have already played early versions of the game have called it ‘Hearthstone meets No Limit Hold’em’. Those in charge of developing the product have been pleased with the early reactions from players.

“Fun is one of the hardest things to measure and you can never be sure if the game will hit the right spot for players. However, having seen poker pros and focus group members asking to play again, and smiling and laughing as they’re playing, I feel confident that we really have something that our players will enjoy as much as we do,” Severin Rasset, PokerStars’ Director of Poker Innovations & Operations, wrote in a blog post earlier this week.

The game follows traditional betting rules of NLHE while players can collect Power Up cards that can potentially turn each hand on its head. Some of the special powers that players can use during each hand include:

• Clone – Receive a copy of the last power played this hand.
• Disintegrate – Destroy a targeted board card dealt this street.
• EMP – Prevent powers on this street.
• Engineer – Choose the deck’s next card from three options.
• Intel – View the deck’s top card for the rest of the hand.
• Reload – Redraw selected hole cards.
• Scanner – View the top two cards in the deck; choose whether to discard them.
• Upgrade – Draw a third hole card; then discard one.
• X-Ray – Force all opponents to expose one hole card.

While the game may show some similarities to HoldemX, the game released by Global Poker League parent company Mediarex, the PokerStars development team built Power Up from the ground up. The current group of players given access to the product is limited, but Rasset plans to open it up to more and more people as they progress through the Alpha development phase.

“We’ll periodically expand the pool of players, while tweaking and adding features, while constantly taking feedback from the participants,” wrote Rasset.

The company did not release a timeline for a Beta release or widespread public release.