The first week of my month as a semipro mixed game poker player was supposed to be about easing in to the new daily poker routine, finding my rhythm, and settling into the dual life of work-by-morning and poker grind-by-night. What it actually became was a test of emotional control, discipline, and learning to accept the unpredictable nature of mixed games.
My wins arrived in bursts, my losses in waves, and at one point an impulse to gamble challenged my resolve to have the discipline required of a semipro. The week started off by offering the familiar comfort of a steady upward climb and drove home a number of lessons that I knew I’d need to internalize as my month as a semipro mixed game poker player began to unfold.
Day 1 | November 5: Hoisting Anchors and Setting Sail
After arriving late the previous night, I spent the morning taking care of work and errands; an intentional anchoring before diving into poker playing mode. Among the other “anchors” I cast was setting off on an hour-long morning walk. I knew that I’d be spending a ton of time indoors sitting, so getting the fresh air and movement would provide a critical and healthy balance. Plus, the 82-degree weather was absolutely gorgeous!
I’m proud to say that I truly stuck to the exercise walks throughout the trip, getting in an average of four per week. That, along with my 100 push-ups per day and learning my daily page of Talmud helped provide a rudimentary framework for my days.
By afternoon, I was at Resorts World, reconnecting with my poker media friends working at the North American Poker Tour (NAPT). It was interesting; obviously a fully familiar scene for me, but I wasn’t there to work or cover the event. I was in Vegas to play poker. By evening that itch was too strong to ignore.
So, I drove out to South Point for a “warm-up session” to play $4/8 Omaha 8 or Better. My goal was simple: try to double my $200 buy-in. But that’s easier said than done. While I didn’t get there in a quantitative sense, I did achieve a good result, namely that I played disciplined, patient, and composed – the version of myself I was determined to be throughout the month that would follow.
For three hours I hovered around -$130, but I didn’t panic, chase losses, or self-destruct. Eventually a little rush of cards arrived, and because I hadn’t spewed off the rest of my stack (I wouldn’t have bought back in if I had lost all my chips), I was “still around” to capitalize on the upward momentum. I surged up to +$80 and, more importantly, actively recognized when the momentum was ending. I picked up and left with a small $50 win. It was my first reminder of the month that a “win in discipline” could be even more meaningful than a win in dollars.
Day 2 | November 6: Meeting the Mentor, Taking Shot #1
I woke up from a bad night’s sleep with a headache and nausea. Not exactly prime poker-playing condition. Even so, in my excitement to be in Vegas and with a desire to hit the tables, I convinced myself that “sometimes you just have to play through it.” In retrospect, I realize that “sometimes your body’s telling you to sit this one out.”
Before heading out to play, I had a rendezvous with my friend and mentor Poker Hall of Famer Eli Elezra. I’m experienced enough to realize that regularly playing $20/40 on my own dime would constitute poor bankroll management, so when Eli offered to stake me in higher stakes mixed games (just like on my brief four-day Vegas trip in September) I snap-accepted.
Thus, in my $20/40 sessions I’d be “freerolling” and giving Eli half my profits, while I’d be “on my own” when playing for any stakes below that. I know exactly how fortunate I am to be in such an awesome spot, and Eli knows just how grateful I am for the immensely generous staking opportunity.
With that, I headed to the Wynn to play in my first $20/40 session of the month. I bought in for my customary two racks ($1,000), quickly went up $200, and then proceeded to bleed it all back and then some through missed draws and a touch of frustration-induced looseness. I added on for $500, steadied myself, climbed back up to $1,250, then slipped again. After 5.5 hours, the game broke and I booked a $420 loss. It wasn’t a disaster by any means (equivalent to losing $84 in a $4/8 game), but it wasn’t the way I wanted to kick off the higher-stakes sessions.
To help the adrenaline wear off, I then headed to the NAPT Players Party. Trying to forget about the losing session, I knew I had to “flip the switch”. I was in Vegas as a semipro, not a full-time pro. Networking and maintaining my poker industry relationships matters a lot. Even though I hadn’t had any official plans to be spending too much time at the NAPT, I knew that utilizing the opportunity to see people, have conversations, and be part of the scene was the right call.
Barely 48 hours into my trip, I then made my first real mistake. After the party ended, I felt the temptation to play a little more, so I decided that the $4/8 Omaha 8 game at South Point would be the right low-stress fit. That wasn’t the mistake though. It was what I did after seeing the game was full. Instead of just leaving, I donked off $50 playing video poker ($30) and roulette ($20). Poof! Day 1’s win had evaporated.
Walking back to the car, I swore to myself that it would be the only non-poker gamble of the entire trip. While that didn’t prove entirely true (I gave in to my video poker impulses for another $10 a couple weeks later), I’m proud that I stuck to my guns and didn’t really fall into any gambling traps throughout my month as a mixed game poker semipro.
Days 3-4 | November 7-8: Resting, Relaxing, and Making Good Decisions
While poker might be on my mind 24/7, I always take a step back from the felt (and everything else) on the Sabbath. Beyond that, ahead of my trip, I had resolved not to play on Fridays since in the winter months the onset of Shabbat is so early in the day (around 4:20pm). On the flip side, with Shabbat ending so early (around 5:30pm) I knew I’d have some great playing opportunities on Saturday nights.
Indeed, I spent a wonderful and relaxing Shabbat with my friends. Beyond their kind hospitality, it was also my first exposure to the orthodox Jewish community in Summerlin. Just as with the daily morning routines I had crafted, having a “proper Shabbat” at the end of the week served to help keep me grounded in reality despite the vastly different poker life I was leading.
I turned my phone back on when Shabbat ended to see a message from my friend Ruth Sun (more about her in the next installment…) that she was organizing an $8/16 game at Resorts World. So I locked up my seat and headed there to play.
I bought in for two racks ($400) and over the next four hours I played smart, relaxed, and disciplined and won $500. Even though I still had tons of energy, I made the decision to quit the game at midnight. That’s something I essentially never do in my home games because they represent my only chance to play each week. In Vegas, however, there’s always more poker to play the next day. That makes it a lot easier to quit a session. Plus I needed to make sure I didn’t get into a bad habit of falling behind on my regular work responsibilities. That choice (leaving a good game because long-term discipline matters more) felt like another quiet victory.
Just because you’ve made the right decision many times in a row doesn’t mean that doing so “the next time” gets any easier. Choosing wisely is never a given, especially with poker games running 24/7 in Las Vegas, so doing so is an achievement that ought to be celebrated. Moments like these ended up happening fairly regularly; in a sense, they defined my trip… but I didn’t always make the right decisions.
Day 5 | November 9: Achieving the Perfect Balance
Knowing that I had an $8/16 game scheduled to start at 4:30pm ensured that I would use the time beforehand optimally. So, the day began with some “regular, normal life” balance: an article published, a newsletter sent, picking up my “poker aunts”, Women in Poker Hall of Famers Jan Fisher and Linda Johnson from the airport and spending some quality time with them.
Then, my game got cancelled… then revived… then postponed… then finally confirmed for 7pm. Here’s why all of that is important to mention: mixed games aren’t like Texas Hold’em. You (unfortunately) can’t just expect the game to be running all the time, even in poker’s Mecca. You also can’t just show up and expect to have a seat. You need to cultivate relationships with other players and poker room managers. You need to invest in being communicative. You need to have a relatively flexible schedule.
A seat in a mixed game isn’t a guarantee; it’s a privilege that requires coordination. Often, keeping your schedule as open as possible so as to prioritize playing and guarantee yourself a seat in the game means you’ll have to be willing to forego other activities. Otherwise, you run the risk of being “shut out” and not having a game to play in. That would suck. I didn’t travel 7,500 miles to sit on the sidelines. I came to play!
A good old $8/16 mix at @PokerRoomRWLV … win or lose, it’s a very happy place, indeed 😁 pic.twitter.com/WvrnU4luKR
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) November 10, 2025
The game ran 5.5 hours. I played very well, even though the first four hours were brutal: no cards, no traction, down to $100 from my original starting stack of $400. But I once again was able to keep my emotions in check, tell myself to wait for the momentum shift, and be ready to pounce if and when it finally came. Thankfully, it did, and I managed a massive $800 positive swing over the next 1.5 hours. Then, around midnight, I again made the right decision: it was time to quit and head to sleep. There was more poker to play tomorrow.
Day 6 | November 10: You’ve Gotta Handle the Swings
After getting my work done in the morning, I had a lovely pizza lunch with a friend from Israel who happened to be in town. I then headed back to the Wynn for my next $20/40 session. It turned out to be nine hours long. After about two hours, I had lost nearly my entire $1,000 starting stack. Frankly speaking, I just wasn’t playing well. Luckily, I managed to scoop a huge badugi pot with my final chips at risk, giving me back a full rack to work with.
That’s the thing about having some single-winner games as part of a mix; while it’s still a fixed limit variant of poker, your situation can fluctuate wildly!
Within 1.5 hours, I managed to claw my way back to even. Over the next couple hours, it was an absolute rollercoaster: I ran up my stack to $1,300, fell all the way back to $580, and then — with the help of a couple HUGE Action Razz pots (just like Razz, but you must be holding a paint card for your hand to qualify) — I made it back to breakeven.
While the rollercoaster was the story of the session, the other highlight was getting to play with a couple of old school poker legends, namely Cyndy Violette and Ted Forrest. Cyndy is a regular in the game, but Ted’s appearance (see below) was a surprise. I’ve played with Cyndy before, and I had also gotten to play with Ted before in an $80/160 mix, but the thrill of getting to mix it up with the old school poker legends that I used to watch on TV never gets old. It’s an exceptionally cool part of the Vegas mixed game experience.
After all was said and done, the game broke with me up $35. I felt a variety of emotions racking up, chief among them relief. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but that $35 win would unfortunately represent my best performance of the trip in the $20/40 game…
Having logged a solid week in the black, I was in for quite the rude awakening in the next day’s mixed game sessions. Unbeknownst to me, absolute freefall was on the immediate horizon.
Robbie Tracker: 31.5 hours of poker played | $970 overall profit
Check back here on Cardplayer Lifestyle for the third installment in this miniseries, to be published soon.
