Thanks for bumping this up - I was thinking about this thread and was planning on writing an update in it.
I did get to play the $1,500 HORSE event which was fun - I'm on the east coast and don't come to LV often so this was the first bracelet event I got to play since 2017 or 2018. I got eliminated about 4 hours into the tourney - not the first person eliminated but certainly not what I had hoped for. I had lost 80% of my stack by the first break - I had lost a large 3-handed Omaha hi/lo pot with A334ss where I made A3 for the low and the low end of the straight, where predictably one villian had A2 and another the higher straight. Then additionally lost a large stud hi/lo hand with rolled up jacks (I know it's not exactly a monster stud hi/lo hand lol. the hand started with 5 people seeing fourth street so figured I could lock up the high board if i make FH/quads, but I ended up going through unimproved and one villian made 6 hi straight for the high and the low). Felt like on both of these I was paying off winners on the last street, but getting faced with 10:1+ is tough to fold to
The guy next to me was a self-proclaimed regular mix game player for California who mentioned to me that I was running bad (either that or he was trying to keep the fish happy
), which is at least nice to hear. Obviously it's tough in games you've never played before to understand to what degree you are unlucky vs making mistakes. Feels like from both playing and watching a lot of mixed games, there is a fair amount of luck as a lot of these hand equities run a lot closer to 50% naturally in contrast to NLHE, along with bet sizes being limited to get value when you have the advantage. I ended up chipping up to get back to 0.5 starting stacks, but ended up putting my last 5 big bets in in a 3-way razz hand on 4th street where I had a 7 draw vs an 8 draw and 6 draw.
In terms of prep, I really just watched a lot of pokergo/prior year wsop content. Pokergo had their mixed game week at some point in April that streamed a lot of content, as well as a log of all of the mixed games from WSOP over last couple of years. Between watching the games and the announcers' insights, felt like I was prepared enough, and honestly allowed me to at least notice mistakes that others were making at my table (calling raises with 9/T in stud hi/lo). Also did play a little on Pokerstars play money which was nice to get used to playing the game but play money can only take you so far. With my IRL job taking up more time than I was expecting between March-June i didn't give myself a lot of time to formally study-practice unfortunately.
Interesting thought on if it is easier to win a bracelet in a field like this (835 players this year) in games you might not necessarily be too good at, in comparison to a large field low stakes NL tourney vs players that you presumably have a small edge over? My thought is still yes, but after a quick exit in this I'm certainly open to hearing the other side.
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Also wanted to thank everyone in the forum who chipped in with their insight. I feel like I've spent so much time at live low stakes poker tables with a bunch of misregs lol, really appreciated the people who posted with genuine interest in helping someone they've never met before!