Lets Talk Mixed Games

Thanks to poker on Television, the line of amatuer WSOP Champions and numerous books devoted solely to the game of Texas Hold'em the words "hold'em" and "poker" have become almost the same word! I'm not complaining about this fact because if not for the popularity of Texas Hold'em the poker boom would have never begun in the first place! I'd still be making my treks to Atlantic City, Foxwoods and Las Vegas to get into the good games. Instead, I can pull up a good game on my laptop for any stakes I feel like playing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year! For this fact I can play good poker on-line, in my underwear on my terms I am completely grateful to Texas Hold'em! However, this is wear my admiration to Texas Hold'em ends! Obviously many players have gotten really good at playing limit and no-limit variations of Texas Hold'em and some are making a great living simply specializing in these games. Unfortunately, I have a hard time calling these players who only play Texas Hold'em great poker players! I think it is much more important for Great Poker players to be well versed in all forms of poker and like Doyle Brunson says in Super System, it is sometimes necessary to give up some advantage in one form in order to be able to have the edge in another variation of poker!

Based on this premise I have been devoting a lot of my time and a lot of my play to the mixed games with the goal of becoming a better, more complete poker player! The game I have chosen to play the most is the 8-game mix on PokerStars, the game consists of a 6 player table and the games rotate every 6 hands between: 2-7 triple draw, limit hold'em, limit omaha h/l, limit razz, limit stud, limit stud h/l, no-limit hold'em and pot limit omaha. I'm really enjoying the pace, excitement and skill envolved with playing the mixed game format. Obviously, I am giving up the edge in the High/Low split games but I make up for that in the high games and I don't really think anyone enjoys playing razz!

Now that I have spent considerable time learning and playing this mix I can make a few generalizations and adjust my play to be profitable.

• First, at the low limits players are not selective enough with their starting hand requirements
• Second, players tend to over value big cards in the high/low split games
• Finally, people will chase more draws to the 2nd best hands in high/low split games

In order to take advantage of these weaknesses in the games of your opponents, it becomes very important to follow a few simple rules.

• Be very selective with startig hands! Especially the high/low split games. The only playable hands in these game shave to have an Ace and or two/three to be profitable.
• Remember, you want to start with a good low draw and draw into your high hand!
• Watch and learn how your opponents play, at the low limits the hand they are representing is usually the hand they will have!
• Finally, exploit their lack of knowledge about odds, pot-odds and how they bet!

Now that you are introduced to these concepts, lets look at a hand that illustrates just what I'm talking about.

Playing $.20/$.40 8-game mix with $.04 ante on draw games and $.05/$.10 blinds for flop games. Obviously this is a low limit table as I am still learning these games myself! The hand we will discuss was Pot-limit Omaha and the table had 5 players at the time. All the players were very liberal with their starting hand requirements and I was able to out-play them late in hands exploiting there compound mistakes. Thus, I was feeling good and players were beginning to feel I was both lucky and dangerous! Just where I like to have my image!

The hand began and I was small blind and dealt the 4c 6h 10s 6s, not a monster by any means. UTG calls $.10, Cut-off pops to $.30, the dealer folds and me being an overly aggresive defender of my blinds I called and the Big Blind who was wild and aggressive pops it again to $.50 straight. Everyone calls the $.50 and there is $2.00 in the pot preflop

The flop brings the 10h 9c Ad. I hit middle pair with a straighty board and no flush draws. I'm not happy with this hand but I think I could be in worse shape, plus, my pair of 6's may be good! I check to see what happens and the big blind bets $.10 into a $2.00 pot! The dealer calls $.10 making the pot $2.20 and I go into thinking mode, here is my thought process:

Obviously the first think I realize is my call gives me 22-1 pot-odds and I would be hard pressed to not call unless I knew I was absolutely up against the mortal nuts! I've seen the big blind play reckless for several rounds and he/she doesn't really understand the concepts of poker! This is an advantage to me! I start putting him on a hand, based on play I'm thinking a straight draw is a possibility but I'm almost certain they hit the Ace but based on the small bet obviously they didn't hit the flop hard or they would have raised. The last time I saw this opponent bet large preflop and then small bets post-flop was when they raised with AK-suited and semi-bluffed their flush draw, thus, I think if I can hit any 10, 6 or 4 I have them beat! The dealer I put on a draw since they didn't raise, thus I should have the same live outs against them if my pair of 10's isn't already good. Thus, I have 8 live outs to draw to which will make me the winner which means I am a little less than a 6-1 dog and the pot is giving me 22-1, I call the $.10.

The flop brings us the Ks. Not a real bad card for me as I don't think it helped either of my opponents since I have the BB on a pair of aces or a straight draw and I have the dealer on a draw also. The BB bets $.10, the dealer calls making the pot $2.40 and I call getting 24-1 on my call with live outs!

The river brings the 4d, what a sweet card! I'm about 60% sure I have the best hand! The BB bets out $.10 again and the dealer folds signaling to me he was on the straight draw. Now, I go to the tank to see if I should call or raise here with my 2-pair? I'm getting 25-1 on my call and I really don't want to get reraised with my 10-4 2-pair so I simply call. Quickly I see my opponent was on the straight draw and had the pair of aces! I now wish I would have value bet and trusted my read! Unfortunately, I'm sure I lost at least $1.00 I could have gotten out of my opponent!

However, I used this hand to illustrate the compound errors I was able to exploit to hit the winner! First, the BB had no business raising pre-flop with what I eventually learned was 3s Ah 7d 8c, instead he should have called to see what happened. The second error was under betting the flop! With a $2.00 pot, 2 opponents and top pair the BB should have bet at least 1/2 the pot and more like the size of the pot to simply give bad odds to draw! I only stayed in this hand because I was constantly priced into my draws and honestly, any time a pot is giving me 23-1 or more on my calls I'm not sure I can look myself in the mirror if I fold anything!

I did make a mistake on the end when I didn't value bet my 2-pair, but I really was afraid I'd have to lay down my hand I thought was good if I got re-raised. That is why I eliminated having to make that decision with my call.

Now your ready to tackle the mixed games! Use this knowledge and go become a well rounded poker player like Doyle, Danial, Phil and the Cadillac :-)