The buzz around Ante Up Headquarters always picks up in September because it’s when we celebrate our magazine’s anniversary.
Eight years ago this month, we launched Ante Up, Florida’s Poker Magazine, giving our state’s everyday poker players a vehicle for celebrating their accomplishments while providing a platform for our terrific poker rooms to showcase their fine establishments and staffs.
Since then, we have seen quite a lot in poker and, of course, done quite a lot, including growing from coast to coast as the leading poker news publication. We love touting your poker successes and highlighting the finest poker rooms in North America.
So, in that same vein and to celebrate eight years, this month we’d like to share a story we hope might help grow our favorite pastime.
In 2005, while brainstorming a name for our pokercast, we realized most of the disciplines we called in our home game were non-flop games.
We played stud, stud/8 and razz with antes, so that’s how we settled on “Ante Up” for the name of our show and ensuing magazine. We still get together with our friends just about every month and play every mixed game you could ever find in a World Series.
While we always will be grateful to no-limit hold’em and the poker boom, we think mixed games are the most fun and easily the best way to flex and train your poker brain. A handful of years ago, plenty of big-name pros predicted pot-limit Omaha would be the next big thing. And while that game has grown in popularity, it never came close to matching NHLE.
We’d like everyone who focuses solely on NLHE, or even PLO, to give mixed games a try this month. See if it’s spread in your local room and sit down for a session. If it’s not offered, ask the brush to put it on the board and talk it up. Once you get a taste for mixed games, you’ll be surprised at just how much they’ll help improve your NLHE and PLO chops.
We’ll see you at the mixed-games tables.
— Christopher Cosenza and Scott Long
Ante Up Publishers
