How do you go about learning/practicing these mix games? Holdem and Omaha are easy to practice at the microstakes, and there’s plenty of strategy resources out there, but I’ve seen much less for stud/badugi/triple draw, and they’re approximately nonexistent online. And playing at 8/16 stakes seems like an expensive way to learn. Anything the mix game players here would recommend?

A while ago in this thread someone recommended the book, Mastering Mixed Games by Dylan Linde. I got it and have been reading it. So far it seems like a good and accessible intro to all the games. I played a session of 8/16 at Encore before I had the book. Bought in for 400 and broke even, with a some swings along the way. It's not too bad I think if you learn roughly what playing tight means for each game. At least that game I played it seemed like most of us weren't great at most of the games.

There's a couple books, including Dylan Linde's book and Ken Lo's book. Videos on Run It Once. Play some small stakes wherever you can online (seals with clubs etc). 8/16 really isn't that big a game and honestly is prob the bare minimum game where you can prob eek out a small +ev winrate after the rake. And as the guy above mentioned no one at 8/16 is gonna be that good, so even with just a bit of study if you are a decent poker player you should be one of the better players in the game soon. The real issue with mixed games is that there's no ladder of stakes to climb. It's not rare where you have to jump 3-5x the stakes if you want to play the next biggest game. Going from 8/16 to 40/80 or from 40/80 to 150/300 etc are quite the jumps if you can't sell action to make the game smaller.

This site has strategy forums for all games. Maybe read some of them?

Ok. Thanks. By the way why do they do 8-16? Why not just 10-20? Seems like chip stuff would be easier with 10-20

I think it was started as an 8-16 game by some posters on this thread about 20 pages back and it's been listed ever since. I have seen 10-20 pop up on poker atlas too but not sure that game has ever gone. I'd be ok with either one but I do think the pink chips look cooler

When you play 10/20 limit, what are the antes for the stud games? At 8/16 we did $2 antes, so only used pink/salmon chips and didn't need white chips for anything.

At Foxwoods if I remember correctly it was $1 ante and $3 bring in.

10/20 stud is played with $1 ante and $3 bring in is correct.

8/16 should really be $1 ante with $2 bring in

Lol.

Lmao. Also, can you update the parking section of the first post to (cross-posted from the EBH website): "All Encore Boston Harbor guests now receive free self-parking daily on property at the casino and resort."

There are no "correct" structures. These suggestions, imo, will result in dusty raked games destined for a quick death. Larger antes are more action and attract more bad players. But $2 for 8/16 isn't so high as to turn the game completely into bingo. Skillful play will still be rewarded.

Jasmine rice bowl was awesome

The cage at this place needs to get their act together. I was playing the 80/160 stud game this weekend and went to cash out with just under two racks (roughly $3,800) and after the cage person and supervisor had counted the chips, they try to pay me $2,800. I'm like, "You're short quite a bit there." The supervisor starts arguing with me saying, "Sir, the second rack was not quite full. It's right, It's right." Nope. I literally had to have them count backwards from $4,000 before they agreed they were wrong. Never had this nonsense happen before in AC or anywhere else.

That is strange, that two people count and they still come up significantly wrong, yet are insistent on being correct . Did they apologize for their mistake at least? I don't mind mistakes by people ( I definitely make my own), but when they are insistent and then don't apologize for their mistake, it becomes a bigger deal.

This is completely absurd and unacceptable. Does this happen frequently??!!!

They did give a perfunctory apology after they realized they messed up.

This is the first time I was there so I have no idea. But I would recommend vigilance.

For those that have received free room offers for 2 nights for the month, is it good only for 1 stay (up to 2 nights) or can you book 2 different trips for 1 night? I would assume the latter, but ya never know.

I hadn't seen anything about this -- are people getting these offers just for playing poker, or does it look like you need significant pit game/slot play?

This is strange but humans do make errors. This identical thing happened to me at Foxwoods 3-4 years ago. I thought it was a prank for a second and had to count it out for them.

I got the reverse, was cashing out for 5300, woman at the cage hands me a grey, and then three pumpkins. I was like... I told her her mistake, and she seemed pretty shook. I imagine being short 3k would get her fired, no? Although they'd also definitely chase me down for it if I hadn't said anything. This was still in the first month or so, she seemed new and had very shaky hands.

I had a very minor incident at Foxwoods last week. Foxwoods uses similar slot ticket redemption machines as Encore, not giving out any change and the change being printed out as another ticket instead, with the only way to cash the change tickets being to wait in line and take them to a cashier. I imagine their hopes are that people will abandon the change instead of bothering to go through the hassle of the cashier queues for under $1 or that they will play the slot feature on some machines where you can gamble your remaining amount for a chance at a "free" (under-bet) spin rather than print a ticket for small money. (The joke's on FW though. There aren't lines at the FW cashiers, making it kind of moot.)

Anyway, after fooling around with some slots, I wound up stuck with a ticket for $0.50. The next cashier station I pass, I hand them the ticket along with 4 dollar bills and 2 quarters. The cashier takes all of that, cashes the ticket into two quarters. He puts the quarters and the ticket together with the $4.50. Then he says, let's make it five dollars even, takes one of the dollar bills and hands it back to me. Confused, I say, yes, that's to make it five dollars, and I don't even bother reaching out to take it. Still, he insists I take back this dollar, and I say, no, that goes with that. He looks at the money in front of him again and then tries to give me back the dollar a third time, and I again refuse. Finally, he counts the money yet again, finally figures it out and hands me a five. He seemed a bit agitated over the whole thing as he handed me the five, which made no sense to me. I was fine with the incident and had just saved him from having a shortchanged drawer.

Feeling like I deserved some good karma from all of that, I skip over to some blackjack and proceeded to bust out. My fault for going into it without bringing a proper sized bankroll to survive.

The moral of the story is that there's always a camera on you and the money at the casino cashier, so nobody's getting away with anything anyway. They'd rather take you with inconvenient-to-redeem change tickets.

Not sure about CT but in MA the casino doesn't get to keep unredeemed funds, it gets sent to the state after a year and I think ends up in the general fund.

Not true. At the Rio I took out $500 from the ATM and it was all $20s. I went to the cage to get $100s and they gave me $600 and I walked away. No one said anything.

Wow, nice! I'm kind of a sucker in these situations. One time, I walked into a Best Buy and immediately found $26 on the floor. No wallet, just cash folded together. I handed it over to the security guard. He told me to keep it. I told him, you hold on to this and if no one claims it by the time I leave, then I'll think about keeping it. When I left, someone had, of course, claimed it, according to the security guard - but this was also the security guard who told me to just pocket it, so I dunno if he just pocketed it, but whatever.