Why is it I’ve never seen a mixed game with stakes lower then 8/16, with the most common game I’ve seen running being 50/100? Do the blinds shift down in the big bet games like PLO and NL or are you stuck just playing ridiculously high stakes? Or does the 8/16 just refer to the bet sizes in limit games?

Please forgive my ignorance if this is a stupid question. I’m a New Englander that is fascinated by the format and interested in playing Mixed Games when the pandemic blows over, but I’m a 1/2 - 2/5 player live and can’t fathom the idea of playing 8/16 PLO, unless there’s something I’m not understanding when I’m looking at the game? Is there a site a US player can play mixed games online without sitting down with thousands of dollars? (Or even with thousands of dollars, I’ve never seen an online mixed game)

As with any 'game' you need a Player pool and I don't see one that's growing too much as of yet. There's a little bit of conversation maybe once every two weeks at the PLO table, but really no interest in 'mastering' those games as of yet.

PLO is really just getting going with Big O trailing way behind that in our area.

Convince some 'free chip' site to start offering those games and you might start the ball rolling.

I've seen a mixed game offered in Chicago on Bravo, but it runs 1-2 days for maybe 2-3 weeks and then disappears for 4-6 weeks. GL

First question is if that mixed game even includes NL/PL games. For example, HORSE is still among the more popular options, probably because it’s been around forever, and only features limit games (with a couple exceptions).

The 8/16 refers to the limit games structure with blinds usually half that. 50/100 usually has blinds of 25/50 for example.

If the game includes NL/PLO/27 like online 8 game does, the blinds are decreased for those games. In a 50/100 mixed game, blinds for big bet games are usually 10/20 or 10/25 and a lot of games also use a cap to make sure they don’t play too big. But you have to check with the specific game to find out the specifics.

I am not a mixed game expert. Other people may have better/more accurate answers.

Having said that, I do/did play in one in my home room. (FYI, it is a 6/12 game, so less than the 8/16 min you're seeing, and it runs/ran every day.)

Mixed games are, historically, fixed limit games only. HORSE started things off, but over the years a number of new games have been added to the mix as well - badugi, triple draw, and their variants, plus lots of other crazy new ones.

There are some mixed games that involve PLO and NL, but often they involve only those two games in my very limited experience, so they are easier to balance between them.

When they do involve limit, pot limit, and no limit in one mix, like the 8-game mix, then often they will cap the PLO and NL bets at 10bb (which is obviously no longer really NL/PL), or will decrease the blinds for them. Another option is to convert some/all of the limit games to spread limit. If you don't do something, the limit games will be very unbalanced compared to the NL/PL games.

As to why the mix games tend to always be high stakes... I think it mainly comes from people being bored with hold 'em. You start at 1-2 NL, move up to 2-5 NL, move up to 5-10 NL, and now you're at the top of the pyramid for most regions. In areas that have limit, you might instead start at 5-10, advance to 10-20, 20-40, 40-80, and then cap out.

After years of playing just this game, you start getting bored of it. So you want to play new games, but you also can't go back to $100 buy ins, it's just too little action for you, so the buy in and stakes of the mixed games you want to play end up commensurate with what they were in the game you are leaving behind. Whales (who make the game) also like this, because they can throw lots of money around, but they're at less of a disadvantage against the sharks because there are so many games and usually even the sharks aren't exceptional at all of them. Whales in a NL/PL game get lucky sometimes, but are more often outclassed.

Lower limit players just aren't as bored of the game yet, and they still have room to advance in that game as they continue playing.

Another option that some mixed games use (when combining limit with big bet games) is to have stripped blinds. This way there's still the same initial amount of money in the pot but the blinds aren't too big.

For example, if you play 20/40 with $5 chips, the limit games have blinds of $10 and $20 (2 and 4 chips respectively)

During the big bet games, the blinds still post the same amount of money ($10 and $20), but half of each is swept into the middle and considered dead money[1]. So for example, in NLHE the blinds will be $5 / $10, with $15 dead in the middle ($5 from the first blind and $10 from the second blind).

[1] In pot-limit games, the dead money in the middle doesn't count towards the pot size preflop, but it does afterwards.

Disclaimer: I have seen some East Coast games use this, but not all.

8/16 mixed games probably plays as big as a 1/2 NL game anyway, so I consider it low stakes.

Dinesh is right though about why the mixed games play so big:

People rarely start off with a game like HORSE. They'll usually start off with NLHE and PLO, and only after a few years when they've reached 5/10+ will they start to get bored of the mainstream games and jump into those side games. And they're not going to drop from playing 1k buyin games to now playing $200 buyin games. They want big mixed games. So thus they play big.

they're incredibly small player pools. the high limit games only run because they can get the same 6 guys to play every time they want to play. low limit thats not possible as people play less often so you need more people willing to play and there just isnt enough interest usually.

50/100 seems like a big game but is around 5/10ish nlhe or 5/5plo. i think like 3-4k swings are normal any more is kinda rare i think but depends on the game i guess

chicken and egg story

Which came first demand for low stakes mixed games or rooms spreading low stakes mix games. Hard to know what the demand is when games are not spread.

Rooms like the 25+ hands per hour of NLH.

$1/2NLH, $200 buyin type player is 75% of room's customer base. Converting those players to a game that deals half as many hands per hour would cost them money Rooms would have to do an hourly charge. On top of that you have dealer training issues. More floor disputes, etc etc.

I do believe there is demand for more games than NLH, but rooms have not motivation to change.

We’ve heard from several poker room employees here that their room at some point tried to offer mixed games (or at least non-HE games) and failed due to low demand.

Good example is Horseshoe Tunica. I talked to a floor there about the availability of a little higher stakes games and he told me there’s 2/5NL on the weekend and once or twice a month a 50/100 (or 100/200?) mixed game. That latter game is basically organized by the players and the room just provides dealers and tables. If someone would call the room and tell them they have 8 guys interested in playing 8/16 mixed, I am sure the room would be happy to accommodate them.

In an 8/16 game you are buying in for what, at least 50 big bets, 100 big bets? so $900? $1800 buyins?

75% of live poker market prefers $200-$300 buy in games.

So I'd assume the demand for any game that requires 4x-6x that is going to be a bit light.

If a room was so inclined to try new games (almost all or not), they should maybe try a simple 2-3 game mix to get started and the game would have to play about the size of a $1/2 NL game. Advertise and spread only once a week to get started.

You're a bit high. A 20-40 game will buy in for 1000 at a time usually. 10-20 game people will buy in for 500. 8-16 they'll probably buy in for 400, two racks of $2 chips.

8/16 mixed is probably a little bigger than 1/3NL? Most people don’t buy in for 50 big bets, let alone 100. 20-25 big bets is my experience for the majority of players but that might depend on the casino/game. For reference, 4/8 LHE is usually considered the equivalent of 1/2NL.

The problem with offering mixed smaller than 8/16 is pretty simple: Rake would be absurdly high or the casino wouldn’t make any money.

Ding ding ding.

It is not in the casino's best interest to promote these games.

Most casinos I've been at offer very low limit holdem games, with absurdly high rake, and have no problem filling them with old people who can't do math (or don't care).

Dito. those same casinos are willing to host any mixed game you want, if you turn up with 5+ friends (and are willing to pay the casino/dealers).

If you want to "make money" playing them, then you'll need to go high enough you can pay for time ... which is going to be at least 5/10 NLHE stakes.

That’s true, but the difference is that low stakes limit Hold’em games move at a surprisingly decent pace considering the constant 5 way pots.

OTOH at least based on my experience, a dealer might be lucky to get through a full orbit during a 30 minute down in a low stakes mixed game. Less hands per hour means less rake for the casino in pot rake games and less tips for dealers.

If memory serves me, I think TI used to run a low limit mixed game once a week years ago. That's the only mixed game I can recall seeing under the de facto standard of 8/16 in any major-ish market.

Lex's posts pretty much nail it. If there was a real demand for the games, rooms would run them. NLHE is such a rake machine a room would likely need to see this game have a sustained run (with a waiting list, etc.) to even bother given how slow the games would run. Guess they could also go with a time charge for a game like this?

Using PLO as an example, which seems to run regularly in most bigger rooms now, how long did it take for that to start running regularly? Outside of Vegas, seems like most rooms I'm familiar with didn't start running regular PLO games until well into the 10's.

Mohegan Sun was regularly running a 7.5-15 HORSE and OE before the shutdown.

Not sure about the current status, but weekly low-limit mixed games have popped up in a few Vegas rooms over the past 10-15 years. IME it's usually been spearheaded by one person working in that room who's made it their "project."

That's probably about where the market equilibrium is. It doesn't bring in a ton of revenue, and there's not a ton of demand for it.

There are a few casinos in the UK that regularly run 1/1 and 2/2 pot limit mixed games.

From memory in one the paddle has 456PLO, 456PLO8, Courcheval versions of both, Irish, Superstud, 7CS, Lowball, Super Lowball. Another also has Padooki, Paduecy, Scottish, Matrix and Maltese Cross.

Whats Scottish poker?

It was rarely played and it's a year since I was last there but IIRC it was 3 hole card PLO8.

Lack of a consistent, sizable player pool is the reason in 99% of cases. Yes, casinos would make less money but they aren’t losing that much money if 10% of their hold’em tables suddenly become a mixed game. Players just don’t understand how big of a player pool you need to keep a game running consistently.

You need at least 12-15 players to commit to showing up on the first day because there are always no-shows. You need them to commit to a 6+ hour block on the same day because the game will never gain momentum if it only runs for a couple of hours. At the absolute minimum, you need at least 25-30 players on a consistent basis (and that’s if the game only runs one day a week) because most people have jobs, families, etc and can’t come everyday. Then you have to keep new players coming in because some players will lose interest.

As a player, dealer and floor, I’d LOVE to see mixed games or reasonable fixed limit games run with any sort of frequency. There’s just not enough interest. I’ve seen ones organized in the Regional Communities thread that never end up happening or running more than. A couple of times. There’s just not enough interest in most markets.