Why the Mixed Game Festival is a must for NAPT Las Vegas players
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PokerStars is working alongside Robbie Strazynski of CardPlayer Lifestyle to bring the first Mixed Game Festival to the NAPT Las Vegas in November. We talked to Robbie about how it came about, what’s involved, and why you should attend the Mixed Game Festival.
The beloved Mixed Game Festival is coming to the NAPT Las Vegas in November for its biggest and best run yet.
The festival, organised by Cardplayer Lifestyle founder Robbie Strazynski and PokerStars, takes place at Resorts World Las Vegas from November 3-7, running alongside NAPT Las Vegas (November 1-10), giving players even more choice and value.
There will be three co-branded mixed game tournaments on the schedule, as well as the hallmark of the festivities: low-stakes dealer’s choice cash games.
But if you’re not familiar with mixed games, the festival, or Strazynski, you might be wondering why we’re so excited about this event.
Here, we’ll break down what mixed games are, why they’re so much fun to play, how Strazynski’s passion for mixed games began, and why you won’t want to miss this special festival.
Find all the key info on the Mixed Game Festival here.
WHAT ARE MIXED GAMES?
If your only experience of poker is from playing or watching no limit hold’em (NLHE), the words razz and stud won’t mean much. But while NLHE is the most popular form of the game – considered the “Cadillac of poker” by the late, great Doyle Brunson – it’s just one of many variants played both online and in casinos around the world.
These other variants are collectively known as mixed games because they’re most commonly played in a rotation within the same session or tournament. Rather than sticking to one variant, players at the table must be skilled in several types as the game changes after a set amount of hands, orbits or blind levels.
While some players choose to specialise in one specific variant – most commonly NLHE or pot limit omaha (PLO) – mixed games test a player’s versatility and understanding of poker’s fundamentals across all games, as different strategies are required for each variant.
Mixed games are usually played as fixed-limit games, meaning players are restricted to betting and raising within a certain limit.
Benny Glaser and Tobias Leknes are two of the best mixed game players in the world, with dozens of online titles between them
TYPES OF MIXED GAMES
Here are some common examples of poker variations that might appear in mixed games:
- Texas Hold’em: The most popular variant, where each player gets two private cards and shares five community cards. A royal flush is the best hand.
- Omaha: Each player is dealt four private cards, and they must use exactly two of those in combination with three community cards. Again, a royal flush is supreme.
- Seven-Card Stud: Players are dealt seven cards over several betting rounds, but only five are used to make the best hand. Like Hold’em and PLO, the best hand is a royal flush.
- Razz: A lowball variant of Seven-Card Stud where the objective is to make the lowest possible hand. In Razz, straights and flushes don’t count against you for low hands, and the ace is always low, therefore the best possible hand is 5-4-3-2-A, also known as “the wheel”.
- 2-7 Triple Draw: A lowball draw game where players try to make the worst hand possible, using five cards and drawing up to three times. Aces are high in this game and straights count against you, so the best possible hand is 2-3-4-5-7.
- HORSE: One of the most famous mixed game formats, which rotates through five different games—Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, and Seven-Card Stud Eight or Better (Hi-Lo). In HI-Lo games, the pots are shared between players who have the best high hand and the best low hand. If a player has both, they scoop the entire pot.
- 8-Game Mix: A more complex format that rotates through eight different poker variants, including Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, 2-7 Triple Draw, Pot-Limit Omaha, No-Limit Hold’em, and more.
- Badugi: A draw game where players hold four cards. The object of the game is to make a Badugi – a four-card low hand with four different suits, and no pairs. The best possible starting hand therefore is 4-3-2-A (with each card a different suit). Badugi hands are ranked by their highest card, with aces always playing as a low card, and straights ignored.
- Badeucy: A game that combines Badugi with 2-7 Triple Draw. Players are dealt five cards, but only four cards are used to determine the Badugi hand, while five are used for the 2-7 Triple Draw hand. There are three drawing rounds.
- Dealer’s Choice: Players take it in turns to select games over orbits or blind levels.
Strazynski’s favourite games are Stud, Stud Eight or Better, 2-7 Triple Draw and Badugi. “With the former two games, I relish the challenge of committing face-up cards to memory and using that information to try and get other players to commit errors,” he says.
“With the latter two games, all I can say is that it’s fun to try and draw to make good hands. Sure, when you miss it’ll cost you, but dang is it fun to catch and get paid off because the pot odds lay too great a price for others to fold.”
HOW DID STRAZYNSKI’S LOVE OF MIXED GAMES BEGIN?
The first poker games Strazynski ever learned were Seven-Card Stud and Five-Card Draw, taught to him by his father when he was eight years old. With his father’s blessing (and backing), he was invited to pull up a chair in Dad’s game when he turned 16 in a one-night-only deal. “I lost $90 that night,” he remembers. “It might as well have been a million.”
A young Robbie (centre) playing cards with his family
That maiden session taught Strazynski a valuable lesson – “Never play for amounts you can’t afford to lose” – but it also instilled the fun of playing a rotation of games. When he was 21, Strazynski began organising his own home games with friends, and while the crew mostly played NLHE (this was in 2003 during the Moneymaker Boom), he also made it a point to include other mixed games.
“I believe that the amount of fun you can have playing poker is exponentially magnified with each new variant that you add into a mix,” he says. “The game variety helps keep things from getting stale, contributes to a livelier social atmosphere, and keeps you on your toes concentration-wise.”
He continues: “Additionally, I’m particularly fond of fixed limit betting structures, where one’s skill has a statistically greater chance of shining over the long-term, and you won’t get derailed or your chip stack decimated by one mistake or unfavourable runout.”
WHAT INSPIRED THE MIXED GAME FESTIVAL?
The first seeds were planted after Strazynski had spent three consecutive summers working as part of the TV team during the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Throughout his stints in Las Vegas, it dawned on him that while mixed games could be found on the WSOP tournament schedule and in exclusive high-stakes card rooms like Bobby’s Room (now known as Legends Room), no series focused solely on mixed games. “It was also impossible to find low-stakes mixed cash games spread anywhere,” he says.
So Strazynski said to himself: “Let’s try to put something together that does precisely that, and see if the idea has legs.”
Fortunately, PokerStars believed in the idea and threw their full-fledged support behind the inaugural event, providing Strazynski with a Platinum Pass to give away to the winner of the first Mixed Game Festival HORSE tournament. Former PokerStars Team Pro and WSOP Main Event winner Greg Raymer won that tournament, attracting a lot of attention and positive feedback.
“Here we are now, three years later, and I’m supremely grateful to be working even closer with PokerStars, partnering together for Mixed Game Festival IX during 2024 NAPT Las Vegas,” says Strazynski.
WHAT CAN PLAYERS EXPECT FROM THE FESTIVAL?
The core attraction is five days of fun-filled low-stakes dealer’s choice cash game action from November 3-7, taking place in the Resorts World Las Vegas poker room alongside the NAPT Las Vegas.
“We’re expecting a number of high-profile poker players and personalities, including a couple of PokerStars Ambassadors, to make special appearances and splash around with us in the $4/8 streets,” says Strazynski.
Beyond the cash game action, there will also be a full schedule of special events, including a kickoff birthday bash on November 3rd for Strazynski’s 43rd birthday, book signings with Joe Stapleton, Eli Elezra, and Dylan Linde, a poker trivia competition, and plenty of poker merchandise giveaways.
And speaking of giveaways, the Mixed Game Festival will also be giving away two seats to the $550 HORSE and $550 8-Game events on the NAPT schedule (November 7 & 9, respectively).
For every hour of cash game play you log from November 3-6, you’ll get an entry into the drawing, which will be conducted at 7 pm on Wednesday, November 6th. Players must be present to claim their prize if their name is drawn.
WHY YOU SHOULD ATTEND
The Mixed Game Festivals are “dream events” for Strazynski. “I put my heart and soul into organising them, promoting them, hosting them, making sure every attendee has a phenomenal time, and utilising my poker media site, Cardplayer Lifestyle, to showcase the highlights.”
Throughout eight Mixed Game Festivals, what Strazynski has been most proud of is the universally positive feedback he has received from players who’ve attended and the genuine FOMO (fear of missing out) his team have generated among those who wished they could attend.
“It’s an experience guaranteed to give you great poker memories and one that you won’t want to miss out on,” he says.
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