$3/$6 Mixed At The Imperial Palace

I got to play in the legendary $3/$6 Mixed game on Sunday night, which is the longest running low limit mixed game in Las Vegas. They ended up with three tables, with a bunch of local dealers showing up for the 3rd table. There is a set list of games, although some tables altered their list. Here is the list of games that we played at our table, followed by some thoughts on the more bizzaro games, and I'll finish with a summary of my session.

The Flop and Draw games have blinds of $1/$3. The Stud games have a $1 ante, and a $1 bring-in. We played eight hands of each game. In the Draw games, only six players were dealt in, as UTG & UTG+1 were dealt out when the table was full of eight players.

1: Omaha-8
2: Razz
3: 2-7 Triple Draw
4: Double Flop Omaha
5: Stud-8
6: Badugi
7: 4-Card Crazy Pineapple with Ocean
8: A-5 Triple Draw H/L (8 or better)
9: 3-2-1 Omaha
10: Baduci
11: Razz-dugi

4: Double Flop Omaha - Standard Omaha game, except there are two Flops, followed by two Turns, and then two Rivers. It's a Split Pot game, as each Board gets half the pot at showdown. It might be a better game as Pot Limit, rather than Fixed Limit. You could win more pots without a showdown, or crush one Board and have a good Two Pair on the other one.

7: 4-Card Crazy Pineapple with Ocean  - For those who don't know, an Ocean is another card dealt after the River. That means the Board has six cards, and there is an extra round of betting. The Crazy Pineapple means that you discard after the Flop betting and Turn betting.

There is a young local grinder who seemed to be a regular at the game. He said that he couldn't imagine a hand that he would raise with preflop. Well, that seemed like a challenge to me, so I raised twice in eight hands. First was with double suited AA, and it went very badly. The second was with double suited KK, and I won with a Flush.

8: A-5 Triple Draw H/L (8 or better) - This is a Split Pot triple draw game. Half goes to A-5 Low and half goes the the Hi hand, which is good old 5-Card Draw. If you like Dealer's Choice for your home game, then I guess this is a option to get another draw game into the mix.

9: 3-2-1 Omaha - The players are dealt four cards. There are three separate Flops dealt, and followed by two different Turn cards, and then one River card. You can use any of the three Flops, along with one of the Turn cards, and the River card. For example, you could play the first Flop, the second Turn card, and the River to make your best possible hand.

With 13 cards for you to use, this game is all about hitting the biggest Full House. Of the eight hands we played, only one didn't have a possible Full House on it. One other hand had a possible Full House, but the winning hand was an AQJXX Heart Flush vs AJ8XX Club Flush.

Since this game is all about who has the bigger Boat, I think this would be a good game to add a Low for a Split Pot. With so many cards on the Board, I would try it with a 7-Or-Better qualifier. Not sure if this would work out, but I think it's worth trying.

10: Baduci - This is a Split Pot triple draw game of Badugi and 2-7 Low, and you need to have a 4-Card Badugi to qualify for that half of the pot.

However, this is one major difference for this game. The A is normally Low in Badugi, and Hi in 2-7. For this game, the A is now Hi for Badugi, meaning the Nut-Nut hand is 7c (5h 4d 3s 2c). I have a big problem with this rule for one simple reason. The Badugi played in this game is now different than the Badugi played four games earlier. I think that is retarded, but it's their room, so whatever.

11: Razz-dugi - Another Split Pot game of Razz and Badugi. In this one, the A is Low for Badugi, which is different than the game we just played, but how Badugi is normally played.

With seven cards, you would think that getting a Badugi would be common, but you would be wrong. Granted, we only played eight hands, so the sample size is very small. Only about half of the hands had a Badugi, and the best was a 7-Badugi.

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When I arrived in Las Vegas, the IP was my first destination. I wanted to make sure my name was as high on the $3/$6 list as possible, and I was #8 at 2pm. I would have sat down an played a little $1/$2, but there was only a $2/$4 Limit game running along with a $1/$2 list with three names on it.

So I left the IP, got my hotel room, had dinner, and chilled for a bit. I went back to the IP at 6pm, and all they had running was the same $2/$4 table. So I reluctantly bought in for $100, and sat down to kill time until the Mixed Games started up. I was down around $25 at 7pm, so I took my chips to the Mixed Game.

There were some ups and downs for the first few rotations, and I was down to around $50 after a few games. That was when the bizzaro games started, so I went into Super-Nit mode, and started to observe. My stack slowly started to grow, and grow, and grow. It took about 3.75 hours to go through the whole rotation. I ended up leaving in the second 2-7 TD round around 11:15 to head to the Rio, and I was up $245 (including the $2/$4 game) which was my high point of the night.

The main reason for my good night was the simple fact that I ran very well. For example, one of my last hands was in Razz. There was three players on 7th Street. I hit an A to give me a 85-Low, which beat someone who already had an 86-Low.

The other reason was something I already mentioned. When I start a new game that I've never played before, I want to figure out what hands to raise with preflop. When I first played $5/$10 Crazy Pineapple H/L at the Peppermill over the winter, one of the first things I did was ask that question at the table. All of the players at the table said, "Why would you ever raise in this game?"

Well, that was the same philosophy at this table. However, I won 50% - 65% of the hands I raised, and that's why you should do it. You raise in Limit poker for two reasons: either for value, or you 3-Bet to isolate the initial raiser. Even if you get five players to call your initial raise, you are getting 5-1 on your raise. So if you only win 30% - 40% of the hands you raise, then you will make money over the long run.

Casual players don't understand that concept. They can't understand why they should raise. After all, they don't have a real hand yet.