“Destroy a targeted board card dealt this street.”

What it does (for you in hands normally):

Disintegrate is one of the most polarizing cards in the PowerUp arsenal. In that, you’re either using it to destroy your opponents range of made hands while simultaneously enhancing your own holdings’ range – or you’re wasting the card and making it useless. Seems harsh but that’s the nature of this power. PokerStars wants us to believe that this is useful piece of your arsenal to create semi-bluff situations or create mis-direct effects.

“Oooh, its an Ace high board and he/ she just blew away the J that’s also on board! What can this mean!? Does he/ she have an Ace or are they levelling me?” – spoiler: No, they aren’t leveling you. They have the Ace. And if they blew away the Ace, they have a Jack. And if they don’t have either – they just wasted their PowerUp turn.

Why is this such a sure read? Because the value of using Disintegrate in its most straight-forward use case exceeds its meta-level value so much that to try and use it to pull off a fancy bluff doesn’t make much sense. Sure you can get to an Ace high flop, suspect your opponent of having the Ace and just randomly blow it up while you have nothing and bet. That works occasionally – but not nearly enough.

If your opponent has been betting big and burning up PowerUps in the hand, they are likely to commit themselves to the pot regardless of whether or not you just ripped off the highest card on the flop. If they are throwing out Scanners and Upgrades and Intels and…well basically any other cards besides EMP – they are weighted to combo draws and 2 pair+ type holdings that they won’t let go of regardless.

So if you’re bluffing – don’t. You’ll get way too many calls. And if you aren’t – well you’ll still get the same calls. So why not adjust and use this card for value almost exclusively?

Oh and if they go all in while in position (one of the fundamental “do’s” in this game) the card is useless anyways.

Is it good?

Not really. Sure you can lock up a (and this is important) non-all-in hand (read: a small pot) but the only thing you tend to be disintegrating with Disintegrate is your action with middling to strong hands. It’s a decent card to burn in order to free up your PowerUp holdings to catch better options once you have enough mana saved though.