Mixed Game Festival XI at Bellagio Las Vegas has reached its conclusion after a full 10 days of action, becoming the largest and the longest-running one in Mixed Game Festival history. All things come to an end; it’s just that when good ones end, it’s hard not to feel sad. It’s in our human nature to want them to last pretty much forever.
True to form, the final day brought heaps of excitement, awarding the last remaining $3,500 seat to the 2025 BetMGM Poker Championship and plenty of smaller prizes, bringing smiles to many faces in the room.
The Festival certainly helped create many happy memories and provided quite a few people with a taste of mixed games, which is one of the main goals that Cardplayer Lifestyle founder and event host Robbie Strazynski wanted to achieve when he set out on this journey back in 2021.
Before the final goodbye, though, let’s look back at Day 10 to bring you some of the atmosphere from and around the felt!
Chip Count Competition Yields TWO Bullseyes! 🎯
Over the course of the Mixed Game Festival, BetMGM Poker, the main sponsor of the event, set to award four $3,500 seats to its Poker Championship event, set to take place later this month. Leading up to the final day, three of these seats found their rightful winners, but the last one was still up for grabs.
Last day of the mixed game festival today. Last chance to win a seat to the BETMGM championship event at Aria poker. Active players in the festival will have one guess at the total value of the chips in this toke box. Closest to the actual amount wins. Must be present to win! pic.twitter.com/ihD8OOnK6N
— Bellagio Poker Room (@BellagioPoker) June 19, 2025
To have a shot, poker players had to join the action at the tables and submit their guess as to the exact chip count in the toke box. Generous giveaways are real magnets for players (no surprise there), so the hours leading up to the competition saw four tables of $4/$8 Dealer’s Choice Mix running at full speed.
Day 10 of @PokerLifeMedia Mixed Game Festival XI at @BellagioPoker is underway.
Our final day, and our final $3500 @BetMGMPoker Championship seat giveaway!
Here’s how to enter the “unhackable” chip count contest 👇
Guesses must be submitted by 430pm
MUST be present to win! pic.twitter.com/WkZNK8qBFR
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) June 19, 2025
By the competition closing time, over 40 players submitted their guesses, and two of them somehow managed to get the exact count correct: 772,500 worth of tournament chips inside the box! One of these guesses was submitted by Sean O’Hara, and if you’ve been following our daily recaps, that name may ring the bell.
Sean won a seat on Day 5, winning the “Blind PLO Flip” competition, and, as per the rules, it’s a maximum of one person per seat. So, O’Hara was instead awarded a $200 comp, courtesy of Bellagio Poker Room Director Craig Larson, and the second correct guess was awarded the tournament seat.
That guess by submitted by Espy Enriquez, who didn’t try to hide her enthusiasm in the slightest – and why should she? Espy was all smiles and super-excited about this opportunity, and this seems to be the general effect that the Mixed Game Festival has on its participants.
Congratulations to Espy Enriquez, winner of our chip count contest here on Day 10 of Mixed Game Festival XI at @BellagioPoker. 🎉
She nailed it: EXACTLY 772,500 worth of tournament chips in the box! 🎯
Espy now has herself a $3500 seat in the 2025 @BetMGMPoker Championship 🏆 pic.twitter.com/A3Eox3Rdfa
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) June 20, 2025
Once the giveaway was over, the action slowed down a bit, dropping down to three and eventually to two tables, but those kept going strong; REALLY strong, as per the message Robbie received from one of the players still active — Brian Dowd — at almost 4am!
Pokercoaching.com Player of the Day: Paul Runge
Visiting the Mixed Game Festival for the first time was Paul Runge from Oregon. Our Day 10 pick for the Pokercoaching.com Player of the Day had heard about the Festival from his friend, Caryn Barab, and decided to “give it a spin.”
Paul got into poker around 2006. It all started with a small family game, and things developed from there. In addition to playing the game, he was also involved on the industry side of things as an owner of a poker room in Bend, Oregon.
While he no longer holds that position, Paul continues to play in that room regularly, also acting as an unofficial “consigliere” when the occasion calls for it. His love for mixed games developed somewhat naturally as, in Paul’s opinion, every Texas Hold’em player eventually wants to try something different.
Back home, they’ve been trying to run mixed games with limited success, as there is now one day a week when the room hosts a mix of big bet games. He explains that things developed gradually, starting at really small stakes and slowly increasing them as players got better.
“The problem,” Paul says, “is that although they’re not great at mixed games, they’re significantly better than anyone completely new to it, and since there are no lower stakes games running, it makes it really hard for new players to jump in.”
In that light, he only has words of praise for the Mixed Game Festival, as “it gives people a chance to give it a try without having to risk a bunch of money. With low stakes and limit games, players can sit down, learn, and enjoy themselves, all the while risking a few hundred bucks.”
Paul believes that limit games are an excellent entry point for new players and laments the fact that they don’t have any of those in their mix back in Oregon.
As for his personal poker goals, Runge has his eyes set on winning a Seniors or Super Seniors event at the World Series of Poker. Judging by his past results, this isn’t just a pipe dream, as he made the final table of the 2016 WSOP Seniors Championship, eventually finishing in 6th place, and came third in the 2024 Super Seniors event. Perhaps the third time will be the charm for Paul.
RunGoodGear.com Dealer of the Day: Paul Piper
All the dealers and staff at the Bellagio Poker Room did a great job over the past 10 days, playing a crucial role in making the 11th Mixed Game Festival a massive success. That’s why every daily recap had a special Dealer of the Day segment (powered by RunGoodGear.com), and this final one will be no different in that regard.
Allow us to present to you Paul Piper, who has been living in Las Vegas since 2008, primarily dealing cards but also having a few goes at going full-time pro player. It hasn’t happened for Paul just yet, but there is no telling what the future holds.
His dealing career started long before Vegas. Paul started out dealing poker in the early 2000s back in North Carolina. After a few years, he says the home game scene started to become a bit sketchy, and, wanting to stay legit and feeling he was “getting too old to go to court,” he decided it was time to move on.
The decision was between Atlantic City and Las Vegas, two gambling centers of the United States, and the proverbial coin landed on the latter.
To Paul, poker isn’t just a job. He loves the game and describes it as “a mental Olympics that helps keep the wheels turning.” When it comes to mix, draw games are his absolute favorites.
Reflecting on the festival and his overall experience, he describes it as a great way to allow new players to get their feet wet without getting hurt (financially) too much. As he explains, “things have been pretty much complacent outside of summer and major events, with Hold’em being almost the only game in town and PLO picking up a bit lately.”
As for the players he got to encounter over the last 10 days during Mixed Game Festival XI, he describes them as a fun and relaxed group, echoing the sentiment of many other guests and dealers alike.
When not dealing or playing poker, Paul enjoys playing disc golf. He’s actually quite serious about it, as he won the Nevada State Championship in 2017 and has had a few more notable results.
Mixed Game Festival XI: Goodbye, for Now
There is no official “ending” to our Mixed Game Festivals. They end once the last hand is dealt at the last active table and the last few most resilient players rack up their chips.
Over the last 10 days, the Festival brought heaps of excitement to Bellagio Las Vegas, with non-stop action, some of the craziest game variations you’ll see anywhere, big giveaways (courtesy of generous sponsors — thanks once again to PokerGO, D&B Poker, Faded Spade, RunGoodGear, Pokercoaching.com, and of course BetMGM Poker) — and, most importantly, a ton of great memories.
Such a blessing to be leaving the @BellagioPoker on a massive high!
Thanks to @BetMGMPoker and all our sponsors for your support. 🙏
Thanks to our amazing players who made our 11th Mixed Game Festival ever our best one yet!
Until next time, from the happiest guy in Vegas. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/aYlhygXwky
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) June 20, 2025
Goodbyes are never easy, but the good news is you can be pretty sure the Mixed Game Festival will be back again before you know it. If you want to make sure you hear about it ahead of time, the best way to be certain is by subscribing to our Cardplayer Lifestyle newsletter. Not only will you get all the info about the next event early on, but you can also look forward to some fun poker content, including a lot of mixed game-specific topics.
A Personal Thank You, from Robbie
I just want to take this opportunity to publicly express my gratitude to everyone involved in helping to make Mixed Game Festival XI happen. Everyone has been so great, from the sublime Bellagio Poker Room staff, to the good folks at BetMGM Poker as well as our other amazing sponsors.
I have to give some special shout outs to some wonderful people: Ivan Potocki writing our daily recaps from Bosnia and Chad McVean lending huge support on the social media front from Canada, big in-person assists from Brian “Bizzy” Gutierrez and Brian Dowd, all of the poker celebs who paid us a visit over these past two weeks, and of course our fantastic mixed game players! You guys came in from near and far, both tons of Vegas locals as well as hordes of players from over 25 US states and half a dozen other countries.
Your combined support means the world to me, and I most certainly don’t take for granted that you made the effort to show up and be a part of our event. The reward for all the months of work it takes to put something like this together is seeing your smiling faces, getting your incredible feedback, and knowing in my heart of hearts that together we’re putting in the effort to grow mixed games. It’s a labor of love, and I’m supremely grateful to you all.
Especially considering everything I have going on in my personal life right now — and we’ll just leave it at that, IYKYK — I consider myself to be exceptionally fortunate for what I got to experience and do over the last two weeks, and will treasure the memories we made forever. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. ❤️
