Advanced poker training is a topic that is routinely searched by poker players for a variety of reasons — not least of which is to improve their chances at playing poker for a profit. If you’re a player who’s seriously looking to improve his or her skills at the table (be it virtual or live), then your best bet is to probably seek out the services of one or more poker coaches.
Aside from coaching services, there are numerous training modules online that can greatly increase your competitiveness at the tables. Many of these poker training sites serve as a stepping stone for beginners who want to up their skills as soon as possible. Beyond that, dipping your toes into the mixed game waters can also provide a great training ground to boost your skills at your bread-and-butter No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha games.
Advanced Poker Training for Casual Players
In this article, we will mostly be focusing on how advanced poker training can apply to casual players in a way that increases enjoyment of one’s time playing poker. In particular, we’ll also be looking at how playing mixed games fits that bill.
While the following tips and guidelines may not necessarily be what highly skilled players are looking for in terms of eking-out those last few drops of value-based expectation against highly competent foes, they can still help when it comes to filling your home game poker nights with fun and learning.
Mixed Games Advanced Poker Strategy Tips
Mixed Games are a popular choice among fun-seeking card players. These types of games include a wide range of variants plus the added benefit of Fixed Limit formats
Despite the fact that “No Limit” has been the most popular form of poker for decades, Fixed Limit poker games offer more opportunity for players to learn without the huge swings that can be associated with the risk of going “all-in” every hand.
Memorizing Face-Up Door Cards
Since there will only be 52 total cards in any poker deck, one of the easiest ways to practice advanced poker strategy is to memorize door cards that are dealt face-up due to the rules of a specific game.
Seven Card Stud offers a chance to see as many as four cards of each player’s actual hand — which equals more than half of the cards each player will be using to make the best possible seven-card hand.
While it may seem intimidating at first to memorize door cards (and reset what you’ve memorized at the end of each hand), practice makes perfect.
If you’re uncomfortable at first recalling every single card that’s been dealt face-up, look for obvious information that can help you gauge how well your own hand may perform.
For instance, let’s say you’re four cards into a club flush and have only one card remaining to receive (the “down and dirty” final card).
If three opponents are still in the hand, you can quickly glance at their face-up door cards to see how many clubs are showing.
Of course, more face-up clubs in this case would reduce your chances of hitting your flush on the river — while fewer clubs as door cards would result in better odds for your flush to get there.
The same can be true for potential hands like “four of a kind.” If you’re holding three 9s in your own 7 Card Stud hand and you have already seen the final 9 appear as part of an opponent’s face-up door cards, then you already know you’re not making quad 9s on this particular hand.
These advanced poker tactics will help you practice memorizing door cards in a way that’s not so intimidating. You can eventually work your way up to making more critical deductions once you’re ready to do so.
To learn more about poker variants that involve face-up cards, be sure to have a look at our Mixed Games Poker Guide – Stud Games.
Table chatter
Oftentimes, a casual poker game will grant players more opportunities to make reads based off of “table chatter” than the 10-minute, ultra competitive tournament stare downs we see on the internet.
At times, you may be able to gain valuable information from an opponent just by noticing how he or she reacts during each betting round.
This may not seem like an advanced poker technique at first, but if you can draw a solid conclusion about the strength or weakness of an opponent’s hand, then the fact that you’re playing in a casual game makes no difference. It’s still valuable information that even the best pros may not be able to glean from their opponents — even during live play.
How Mixed Games Train “You”
One popular concept of advanced poker training is to improve your skill by practicing over and over. But the sheer variety available in mixed games means that the games themselves actually train “you” (if you let them).
While it may take some patience, your mind can be trained to pick up on just about every facet of advanced poker strategy that is available in more “action” games that have no limit formats.
What are the odds you’ll make your hand? What are the odds your opponents will make their hands?
Face-up cards can keep your mind extremely busy while at a live table. And, perhaps best of all, you’ll essentially never be put in a situation in which a single all-in hand could ruin your chances of making a profit or breaking even for a particular session.
Train your mind to examine all the available information carefully, and remember that fixed limit games make it less likely to make some huge “expected value” mistake.
READ MORE: The Run It Once Training Guide to Learning Mixed Games
If you really want to place an erratic variable into your mixed game, you can agree with the other players at a home game table to introduce one of the jokers into the deck, and have it act as a WILD card.
While I don’t personally recommend this, having one or two WILD cards in a fixed limit mixed game can add a LOT of extra variables into an otherwise straight-forward home game. However, note that you won’t be able to play with any jokers while sitting at a casino or formal card room poker game table.
Socializing at Live Events like the Mixed Game Festival
Although socializing at live poker events like the Mixed Game Festival may not initially seem related to an advanced poker strategy, you can get quite a bit out of enjoying yourself at the tables while playing multiple low-stakes mixed game tournaments or cash games.
You can literally rub shoulders with one or more Poker Hall of Fame players at the Mixed Game Festival when it is held in Vegas — all without having to buy-in for thousands of dollars into a single tournament or cash game.
There are even times when you can participate in trivia games or socialize among players during a pizza party.
And while there may not initially be an obvious “tangible” result that comes from talking about poker or anything else during low limit mixed games, you might be able to network in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
At the Mixed Game Festival particularly, you can meet up with high profile players and even get a personalized book signing with big name authors who regularly attend the Las Vegas poker series.
While little of the above beyond poker play may directly help you as far as honing your game, when it comes to providing a memorable, fulfilling poker experience, there are few (if any) events offering what a Mixed Game Festival does ambiance-wise.
Lenient Bankroll Considerations for Mixed Games
The fixed limits and low buy-ins that are associated with the majority of Mixed Game Festival events make it much easier to socialize at and away from the tables without worrying about breaking a bankroll.
Table chatter tends to be more casual at low buy-in games such as tournaments and cash games, all while you get to enjoy the Las Vegas scene without the risk of losing five figures (or more) at high stakes.
All tournaments at the Mixed Game Festival actually have low three-figure buy-ins, and their “core product” is fixed limit mixed cash games at the $4/$8 level that are ideal for more modest bankrolls.
If you’re having bad luck or aren’t very familiar with a particular game that’s being played, the Dealer’s Choice $4/$8 fixed limit games at the Mixed Game Festival allow you to play multiple variants during a single session.
Conclusion — Advanced Poker Training in Mixed Games
If you’re looking to learn more about advanced poker training tips, you’ll have a much easier time if you focus on low stakes, fixed limit mixed games.
You can learn at your own pace, play in games with a lower bankroll relative to no limit formats, and have more opportunities to enjoy socializing while you’re playing or after the session has ended.
You may not become a millionaire playing low stakes mixed games, but you’ll enjoy more freedom to experiment with your own poker ideas at the table without the worry of losing a ton of money on a single hand.
In particular, if you’re new to mixed games and want to participate in an immersive experience, I personally recommend playing in the Mixed Game Festival, founded by Cardplayer Lifestyle’s own Robbie Strazynski. He hosts multiple festivals each year, most often at one of the famous casinos in Las Vegas.
Play low stakes cash games, test your skills in low buy-in tournaments, and enjoy the company of other poker fans who enjoy games like Seven Card Stud, Triple Draw, Omaha Hi/Lo, and many more.
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