Lets take an example from a HORSE game. Vague and all, but just thinking out loud.

Player A is a LHE and O8 specialist and has a high winrate in both games. He does not play much Stud, Stud8 or Razz.

Player B regularly plays each game and has a moderate to good winrate in all of them.

Player A is much better than Player B at LHE and O8. Player B is better than Player A at Stud games, but by a smaller margin.

Who has the advantage?

What about if we changed it up abit and Player A was only a LHE specialist, making him a big favorite in that game but a small underdog in the four others?

My first instinct is that the edges are added. But they are added proportionally since each game gets one round of blinds. So the first game up would have the low weight while the last game would be the high weight.

Using that possible formula, a stud/stud8 player would have a greater edge since his game is going to be played at the 4 and 5 blind levels and so on (9 and 10, etc.). So your Limit player will have the edge at the first (lowest) blind level and then give up his edge for the next 4 blind level increments.

Pants is right for tourneys, and for cash I'm assuming just add edges from each game.

In a pure cash game player B probably has the advantage since he can play all the games consistenly and win and player A can not really win at the stud games, which is 3 straight rounds...Maybe it could be even if player A doesn't play too much stud hands, but I'm inclined to think player B would come out a bigger winner.

In a tournament what Pants says is definitely true

Shouldn't we consider each street as an individual edge, with big bet streets being twice as important as the smaller bet streets, and the river being the most important of all because of the inability to improve? This would lead to the assumption that player B would have the edge because his games have more betting rounds(assuming A's edge in holdem and o8 isn't far superior to B's edge in the others). Or I'm wrong and A has the advantage because the river bets in holdem an o8 are larger compared to the pot. I can't decide for sure, but for now the money's on B.

Also if A is extremely aggressive his pots will be bigger than B's. This could prove me dumb if I haven't already. I hope it made cents.

It's a good question though. Where's Max when you need him?

Things to consider:

1. Stud/Stud8/Razz has 5 betting rounds. This allows a better player to extract one big bet (1ptbb) of additional value with a winning hand. This is a huge consideration.

2. From least complex to most complex, HORSE can be ranked as: Razz, Omaha, Stud8 = LHE (?), Stud high. This leads me to believe that the stud player has an edge, since higher complexity means bigger mistakes are possible in Stud high than in H or O.

3. Short-handed (fewer than 6), the cost-per round is typically lower in Stud; 8-max, stud is a little more costly, I think. This suggests that the H/O specialist has an advantage short-handed because he benefits when a weaker player feels compelled to play more marginal hands.

4. The stud specialist is better at exploiting the information from the exposed cards, thus he will have a greater edge in a full ring game. HU, this advantage is vastly weakened.


Conclusion: Full-ring, the stud specialist has a large edge, and probably still has one 6-max. HU, it's close, mostly because of the heavy blinds pressure is hurting the stud player.

But it that is the formula (one level of blinds added per round) then wouldn't the stud expert have to play at level 4 and then the Texas hold 'em expert would get to play at level 6 - and then level 9 compared to level 11? Think of the early levels as extra levels.

Buzz

I am thinking simply that the stud player gets 3 rounds of distinct advantage where there are 5 betting rounds. That is a large advantage to overcome in LimitHLDM and O8.

Also take into account, unless you mean solely heads up, more of the other players will be better at holdem and omaha that the stud games. So the advantage roles over to cover 6 others players at table.

I vote B.

One thing to be born in mind is that in the stud games (well, maybe not razz) the edge of the good player over the average player, or of the great player over the good player, is greater than it would be in flop games.

In limit hold'em, the great player is eking out an extra fractional bet per hand played that the good player misses. In stud the great player is picking the good player's pocket.

Stud hi players definitely have a huge advantage. If you're a LHE specialist that's dabbling in HORSE, it would be better to play each game individually, since the change from LO8 to razz to stud hi is so huge.

This effect is made up for (in razz) by the fact that the guy across the table from you in a mixed game is very unlikely to be a good razz player, let alone a great one.

Razz is such a simple game. Low hand wins. Anyone can figure that out. Right?

That's the deception of razz. There's a lot of bluffing in the game.

The answer to the question is simple. Their edges are gonna roughly even out, because everyone's gonna play more hands in their better games and be more cautious when they know they're getting the worst of it. This happens in mixed games all the time. Most players like this break even or lose to the rake. The only winners are the guys who are mixed game specialists. They may not have an advanced understanding of one game in particular, but they have a finely-honed understanding of general poker concepts, and know how and when to perfectly apply all of them in a variety of circumstances, while making all the proper adjustment required by different games. They also have razor sharp instincts, great card sense, an uncanny ability to adjust to the game's ebbs and flows along with all the players mindsets.

These guys will totally crush all the break even, "specialists" for every penny of value. A mix game is one game, and should be considered as such, rather then several games rotating.

Disagree. Some games simply allow for a greater edge and win rate.

The typical big-bet genius like Durr/OMG would probably get the best of Matusow/Negreanu if they played a NLHE/PLO/Razz/Stud8 mix, even if the limit games had twice or possibly even three times the stakes (ptbbs). Only a mixed-game God like Ivey would win such a contest, but that's mostly because he's a top-notch NLHE/PLO player as well.

I'd love to see something like that, though.

i was only referring to structured limit mixed games. The edges roughly even out, and if one limit game allows for a greater advantage, it never pans out because those who don't specialize in said game would know too avoid it.

Of course in the game you mentioned Durrr etc. would have a huge edge, unless maybe big bet games were played 2000bbs deep, in which case Negreanu and Matusow would crush because they're so much more experienced and comfortable playing deep stacked.

You obviously haven't seen durrr play razz

Two-thousand (2,000) big blinds? Didn't you mean two hundred?

Durrr has plenty of experience playing +200BBs NL/PLO online (thats only $80,000 in the usual PLO game). He'd destroy N/M in those games. Matusow quit playing that high on fulltilt.

Does anyone have much experience playing 2,000 BBs deep? In a 200/400 game that would be $800,000....

1000bbs is more accurate, I actually think 2000 only happened on a specific episode of HSP. 100 and 200bb deep play is a structure common in online games, while live high stakes no limit ring games were played 1kbb deep and higher ever since the legendary texas road games. I think there's a certain threshold for stack size where the edge starts to shift again to live players. This seems pretty obvious to me because live nlh has mostly uncapped buyins.