What's the best way to learn Mixed Games?
How should a No Limit player go about learning the games featured in the Poker Players Championship event?
The $50,000 Players Championship takes place this weekend and it is an event many consider to be the most prestigious in poker. While it seems everyone knows how to play a reasonable standard of No Limit Hold’em, only the real poker purists seem to play this event, because the wide array of formats is confusing for even the very competent players.
The event consists of Limit Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo Split-8 or Better, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Razz, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split-8 or Better, No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. Almost all these formats have small similarities to each other. Razz is the same betting structure as Stud. PLO plays in a similar way to No Limit Hold’em. We have big bet and fixed limit games. Hi/Lo games in Stud and Omaha, etc.
For the No Limit Hold’em player trying to get better at 8-game-mix, which of these games would provide the best jumping off point for learning, or at least surviving, in all the other formats?
Learn Limit betting patterns
Clearly one of the notable differences for a NLHE specialist is most of the other games have fixed limit betting, meaning it is much hard to control the pot or put people under big pressure with a massive bet. So maybe making the relatively small jump to Limit Hold’em, learning the ‘science’ of limit games (compared to the ‘art’ of big bet), would be a prudent place to start.
While many NLHE players come unstuck in PLO by overvaluing hands, largely speaking they can take to the format quite well, like a duck to water, because it is still big bet poker and four rounds of action, with pre-flop, flop, turn and river. In that respect, I’d argue it would make more sense to skip learning PLO next and instead go straight to Omaha Hi/Lo, especially if it was fixed limit, as it is much more complicated and thus provides more opportunities to learn.
Perhaps the biggest, and most important, learning curve would be the jump to Stud, Razz and Stud Hi/Lo. Not only is the hand rankings different in two of those formats, the betting patterns are vastly different, as are the differences between known and unknown cards.
Stud Hi/Lo holds the key?
The Triple Draw games are arguably the most esoteric of all, but I would suggest they should be last on your learning curriculum. Triple Draw is considered ‘pure poker’ and more about reading people anyway, which is why we have seen players who have never played it before win bracelets in it several times.
So my personal musings would suggest that a No Limit player looking to play the Players Championship next year should start by familiarising themselves with Limit Hold’em, just to get their head around fixed limit betting. Then they should test the waters of Limit Omaha Hi/Lo to get experience in limit betting, four card poker and Hi/Lo. After that I would spend most of my time playing Stud Hi/Lo because it captures all the elements of fixed betting, the Stud structure, and both the high and low versions of the game. Only after all that would I throw in the other games, especially as Triple Draw is also the least known by most of the Vegas Mixed Game specialists.
That’s just the random thoughts of one man, let me know in the comments how you would approach learning 8-game-mixed if you had a year to do it?
