Longtime crusher Alex Livingston has partnered up with PokerCoaching.com to deliver the most comprehensive course on mixed games we’ve seen to date, giving poker players interested in non-Hold’em variations access to a wealth of information. Behold: Master Mixed Games.

Livingston himself comes with very strong credentials. With almost $10 million in live tournament winnings and numerous wins and top finishes in mixed game events, including some of the toughest fields out there, it’s hard to find a more credible source of knowledge.

In a world where Texas Hold’em is the game of choice, it’s uncommon (if not outright difficult) for players to branch out into other variations. Livingston’s Master Mixed Games course nicely bridges that gap, giving those at the start of their mixed game journey plenty of resources to work with.

That said, Master Mixed Games is not a purely beginner’s course. It goes well beyond the basics, bringing deep insights, advanced strategies, and custom exploits that even many mixed players with years of experience are likely unaware of.

In this comprehensive Master Mixed Games course review, we take a deep dive into what we believe is the best, most exhaustive mixed game course in the market. It will likely retain that title for quite a while.

Beyond that, we also include a brief Q&A with Alex to better understand how his poker background and overall approach to poker framed the Master Mixed Game course design. We peppered him with a number of questions whose answers certainly proved insightful and eye-opening!

Master Mixed Games at a Glance: What’s Inside?

Livingston’s course covers 10 of the most popular mixed game formats, resulting in over 10 hours of video content complemented by preflop charts for every single game. The poker variants presented in Master Mixed Games are:

• Limit Hold’em
• Omaha 8 or Better
• Razz
• Stud Hi
• Stud 8
• 2-7 Triple Draw
• 2-7 Single Draw
• Badugi
• Badeucy
• Badacey

Each game gets its own sections with several video lessons, covering everything from basics and preflop play to a street-by-street breakdown of strategies and the most important things to pay attention to. Every section wraps up with examples of actual hands from live and online tournaments.

Sections are broken down into small, very digestible lessons of 10–15 minutes. This allows you to take in the knowledge at your own pace. It is also great for those new to mixed games, as things can get a bit confusing, so Livingston takes you on this journey one step at a time.

You also get a lot of bonus content to go through, as Livingston brings you a full breakdown of Brad Owen’s run in the $50k Poker Players Championship and a couple of recorded webinars discussing various mixed game concepts across different variations.

Finally, as mentioned, you get a bundle of reference charts for all variants presented in the Master Mixed Games course, giving you not only opening ranges, but also calling and 3-betting ranges for all variations, which is something you just won’t find anywhere else.

Master Mixed Games Course Structure

Although PokerCoaching’s new mixed game course covers 10 different games, Livingston has done an excellent job of keeping the structure of each segment fairly uniform. Every set of lessons follows roughly the same formula of:

• Introduction & rules
• Starting hand selection
• Early streets with examples
• Later streets: strategies for betting, calling, and raising (with hand example)
• Full hand breakdowns – online and live tournaments

If you’re just picking up a certain variation, be it Stud, Razz, or 2-7, each segment starts with the basics, explaining the rules of the game, betting structure, positions, etc. After that, it moves on to talking about one of the most important parts of any poker game: how to select the hands to get involved with.

Obviously, the process of choosing your starting hands varies greatly between flop games, stud games, and draw games, but Livingston brings a very clear and succinct overview of the key factors to consider and compares equities among different hand categories to bring his points home.

After this introductory part, Livingston moves on to more advanced concepts, discussing strategies across different betting streets, talking about the types of hands you want to be aggressive with, which ones you want to play passively, and which ones you’re better off folding.

The beauty of mixed games is that although there are often many similarities between different variations, each also has certain unique aspects, and Alex does a great job of addressing these as well, talking about concepts such as:

• Snowing in Badugi & 2-7 – standing pat with a weak hand containing good blockers
• Stealing preflop in Razz when you’re the only one showing a low card
• Adding more limping as per modern Razz theory

Each section wraps up with a breakdown of hands from very strong online and live tournaments, such as WCOOP and WSOP. Here, Livingston looks at the hands played by some of the best mixed game players in the world, analyzes their decisions, and highlights the most significant points made in earlier theory videos.

A Wealth of Information, Condensed Perfectly

One of the biggest challenges players face with learning mixed games is that there are so many different poker variants, and each is complex in its own way. Thus, to many, mastering them seems like such a huge mountain to climb that they never even dare to try.

In Master Mixed Games, Livingston managed to overcome that obstacle. When you first open the course, you won’t feel instantly overwhelmed. Each segment contains about six to eight videos, each lasting about 15–20 minutes, so you can actually find the time to sit down, pick a particular game, and just go through the material.

The immediate question that naturally then comes to mind is: if it’s that short, is it really enough? Honestly, even to a relative mixed games neophyte like me, it is! Livingston manages to explain all the core concepts and strategies for each part of the game within those 15 minutes, and you’ll fully understand what he’s talking about every step of the way.

Naturally, some things take more mental power, focus, and concentration, such as figuring out how equities compare in different Badugi hands, but seeing those numbers for different hand categories already gives you a very good idea of what’s good and what’s not.

Lessons follow a very clear logic, taking you from point A to point B without any fumbling. Depending on your level of experience and general talent for card games, you may need to watch some videos a few times to really absorb all of their lessons, but once you do, you’ll feel confident enough to sit down and play mixed games, knowing that you won’t make any massive errors.

For more experienced players looking to get a bit more out of the material, the final two segments of the Master Mixed Games course bring heaps of extra value and dive into more complex concepts, such as:

• River play in small pots in Limit Hold’em
• Floating wide in Stud on 5th street
• Adjusting for ICM in Razz
• River value in Omaha 8
• And much more

PokerCoaching Is Bringing Mixed Games to the Masses

PokerCoaching’s Master Mixed Games course is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the best and most comprehensive mixed game course in the industry today. To be completely fair, there isn’t too much direct competition in that regard.

Even so, it’s clear that Alex Livingston has managed to creating a condensed yet comprehensive course that caters equally to beginners and advanced players looking for that extra edge. His style of instruction is very easy to follow; not a given even with the best of players. Even to a relative beginner like me, his advanced lessons make perfect sense when you consider the logic behind them.

If you’ve been wanting to enter the world of mixed games, but just didn’t know how or where to start, this is THE starting point. Get this course, go through the lessons, and you’ll be all set before you know it. Plus, learning about all these different games on a deeper level is frankly just very entertaining.

Of course, there is no substitute for the actual experience, so you’ll still need to handle the mechanical part of it all, especially when playing live, but, from the Game Theory perspective, this knowledge will put you well ahead of the field at lower stakes.

Q&A with Alex Livingston

Why did you say “yes” when the Pokercoaching guys approached you to ask if you were interested in putting this course together? 

I’ve been friends with Justin Saliba for a long time, and have always thought about building a mixed games course, so it was a natural fit.

READ MORE: Justin Saliba’s Mixed Game Poker Journey

How long did the entire course preparation process take from start to finish, and what were the main steps involved from your side?

I built the course over about 15 months, but in retrospect I know that I could have finished it much faster by working more efficiently. The main steps were building slides, choosing reviewers, and figuring out how to format and record everything in a logical and clear manner.

When did you first get turned on to playing mixed game poker, and what do you enjoy about it and feel is more unique/challenging about it versus NLHE and PLO?

I started playing mixed games around 2013 after a 20-hour session at low stakes at the Aria. I was hooked quickly.  Mix keeps you on your toes; you can’t autopilot as easily as you can in NLHE or PLO.

In what way would you say studying to improve at mixed games is just like studying NLHE or PLO? In what ways is studying to improve at mixed games markedly different?

Studying is more difficult for some mixed games. Because the games are less popular overall (and harder to solve), there are fewer tools available, so you have to take initiatives and be creative in your approach.

What would you say are the main things that a beginning mixed game player is likely to gain from taking the course? How about an intermediate/experienced recreational mixed game player? How about a professional?

Beginners will learn the rules and foundational concepts of each course. Intermediates will sharpen their existing knowledge and learn to think both more analytically and more creatively. Advanced players will hone their already considerable skills and gain the value of hearing how another advanced player thinks about mixed games.

Some people are of the opinion that Hold’em and PLO have gotten somewhat “ruined” due to all the study material out there versus “how it used to be”. Despite the proliferation of study material for those games, there’s always been significantly less out there for players to study mixed games. Do you have any concern that putting all this knowledge out there for people to improve will “ruin” mixed games, make them more robotic/solver-like, etc?

StudFlopDraw is my primary program. Although it includes some solver components, it is mostly an advanced equity calculator. Therefore, while it helps you reach the right conclusions, you still need to execute decision-making yourself in high-pressure moments. People get what they put in to something; those who note-take diligently from the course will put themselves in a position to experience quick growth.

You cover 10 of the most popular mixed game variants in your course. Naturally, there are plenty more out there, like those we see available in the WSOP Dealer’s Choice mix, all the Drawmahas, etc. Can you potentially see yourself producing a sequel to this course for some additional games?

I’d be more likely to create another advanced course on these same games than to dig into things like the Drawmaha variants. I’m not as big of a fan of the carnival games as I am of the more traditional mixed games.

While we’re all about the students, we know that teachers gain from teaching. In what ways would you say your own mixed game poker skills have improved as a result of compiling this course?

I learned I could benefit from more discipline and organization in how I built the course. It could’ve taken a quarter of the time! Beyond that, I simply sharpened my skills and improved my baselines.

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