Well, Melbourne… that escalated nicely.

Before there was an $85,000 Big Nine.

Before we smashed the MGA Main Event attendance record.

Before Dan Mayoh started collecting trophies like they were frequent-flyer points.

We started the week with a microphone, 42 curious poker players and a fairly simple idea:

Teach people mixed games. Then make them play them.

And seven days later we’d somehow produced some pretty amazing numbers. Something we are grateful and proud of.

IT STARTED WITH A MASTERCLASS

The Melbourne Mixed Games Festival officially kicked off on Tuesday 4 August with our Mixed Games Masterclass and Freeroll.

I grabbed the mic first and we worked through the games, the concepts and some of the wonderfully strange corners of poker that make mixed games what they are.

Then came the important bit.

We put everyone on the felt.

42 players took their seats, and for plenty of them some of the games in the rotation weren’t just unfamiliar.

They had literally never heard the names of them before that day.

A few hours earlier they were learning what these games were.

Now they were drawing, splitting, razzing and trying to work out why on earth anyone had ever invented some of this stuff.

Perfect.

By the end of the freeroll, eight players had walked away with MGA credits to put towards the festival (or a future event).

More importantly, 42 people had actually sat down and played mixed games.

That was exactly how we wanted the week to begin.

Then we took the training wheels off.

TEN EVENTS. THREE CHAPTERS.

From The Underground, through The High Limit Room, and finally deep into The After Hours, the idea was always to make the Melbourne Mixed Games Festival feel like more than ten tournaments stapled together on a schedule.

We wanted a proper festival.

Different formats.

Different stakes.

Different structures.

Different characters.

And a room full of players prepared to play all of it.

By the time the final cards were dealt, we’d recorded:

301 Main Deck entries
106 Upper Deck entries
$317,400 in prize pools
$3,600 in bounty plaques

Not bad for a week devoted almost entirely to poker games that the rest of the world keeps pretending don’t exist.

THE CHAMPIONS

Across the festival, ten titles found their way into ten sets of hands, eight actually because Dan wanted multiple trophies..

5 Draw Games
American Brad
1st — $9,120

Split Mix
Dan Mayoh
1st — $7,900

The Big Nine
Jarred Graham
1st — $27,471

Big Bet Mix
Dan Mayoh
1st — $6,450

Main Event
Kurt Tucker
1st — $21,120

Drawmaha Mix
Theo “The OG”
1st — $6,000

Triple Stud
Matthew Donnelly
1st — $2,400

Chop Champs
Sreedeep
1st — $2,600

T.H.O.R.S.E.
Andrew “Maddog” Shanahan
1st — $12,400

No Limit 2-7 Single Draw
Dan Mayoh
1st — $2,520 + 4 Bounties ($1,600)

And yes, one name appears in that list quite a lot.

We’ll get to him.

THE BIG NINE

Sitting right in the middle of the week was our little $5,400 experiment known as The Big Nine.

Seventeen entries.

$85,000 prize pool.

Because mixed-game players are apparently completely sensible people.

This was exactly what we wanted the event to become: a genuine high-stakes mixed-game feature with a properly tough field.

When it was all over, Jarred Graham had fought his way through it to claim the title and $27,471.

Liam Jehu, Ash Gupta, Bruno Portaro and Alla Gould rounded out a seriously strong group at the business end.

The Big Nine was always supposed to be something special.

It delivered.

A RECORD-BREAKING MAIN EVENT

Then came the centrepiece.

The 10-Game Main Event.

For the first time, we ran it across two starting flights before combining the survivors for Day 2.

The previous MGA Main Event attendance record was 41 entries, set back in January 2025.

This one finished with:

61 ENTRIES

The largest MGA Main Event field we’ve ever hosted.

The prize pool climbed to $79,300, and by the time we reached the final table there were previous Main Event winners, festival crushers and plenty of players with absolutely no intention of making life easy for anyone.

Eventually it came down to Kurt Tucker and Michele Guzzardi.

After a heads-up deal, Kurt secured the Main Event title and $21,120, while Michele collected $20,000.

For a tournament built around ten different poker variants, seeing 61 entries walk through the door was pretty bloody satisfying.

THREE CHAPTERS

The whole festival was built around three different worlds.

CHAPTER I — THE UNDERGROUND

This was where we started.

Industrial.

Dark.

Gritty.

Smoke, steel, concrete and dirty amber light.

The sort of poker room you don’t find by accident.

CHAPTER II — THE HIGH LIMIT ROOM

Then the stakes went up.

Black leather.

Brass.

Warm gold.

Private-room energy.

The Big Nine, the Main Event and some serious mixed-game poker sitting right at the heart of the festival.

CHAPTER III — THE AFTER HOURS

And finally the lights came down.

Black.

Oxblood.

Crimson.

Antique gold.

The room got quieter, the hour got later and the players still sitting there became increasingly uninterested in going home.

The winner portraits accompanying this article celebrate the champions from all three chapters.

And then there is one final portrait.

Because one player didn’t just win an event.

He won the week.

DAN MAYOH — COCK OF THE WALK

By the time the festival was finished, Dan Mayoh had put together a ridiculous seven days.

3 TITLES

5 CASHES

$30,697 IN TOURNAMENT PRIZE MONEY

Then there was the separate Cock of the Walk side pool.

Four players put up an additional $600 each.

Dan won that too.

COTW SIDE POOL — $2,400

Which takes his complete festival haul to:

$34,697

Three titles.

Five cashes.

4 Bounties.

Player of the Series.

Cock of the Walk.

There really wasn’t much discussion required.

The event winners belong to their chapters.

Dan gets the Hall of Champions.

WANT THE FULL RESULTS?

The posters celebrate the winners.

But they only tell part of the story.

If you want to see every event, every placing, every payout, every Main Deck result and every Upper Deck result, the full Melbourne Mixed Games Festival archive is now available through:

MGA MOB

That’s where we’re building the permanent record of what happens at Mixed Games Academy.

If you played the festival, want to check where everyone finished, or just enjoy stalking mixed-game results more than any normal person should, go have a dig.

THANK YOU

The numbers are great.

The prize pools are great.

Breaking records is great.

But none of this works unless people actually turn up.

So thank you.

To everyone who played one event.

To everyone who played ten.

To those who travelled interstate to be part of it.

To the dealers who somehow kept track of what game we were playing.

To Tayla Pickles for jumping in as our MGA media queen and helping tell the story from the floor.

To the crew at PlayLive Melbourne for giving this circus somewhere to live.

To everyone who followed the updates, shared the posts, sent messages and helped create the atmosphere around the week.

And especially to the players who trusted us enough to keep putting increasingly ridiculous combinations of poker games in front of them.

We appreciate the hell out of it.

AND NOW?

The Melbourne Mixed Games Festival is finished.

MGA isn’t slowing down.

In fact, we’ve already got the rest of 2026 lining up behind it.

THE SEPTEMBER RUN

September is one long runway towards another big mixed-game weekend.

MGA events will run on:

3 SEPTEMBER | Buy-in $200 (150+50)

NLH | Omaha Hi/Lo | Razz | Badugi

1 in 5 direct entry to Mini Main Event 26/9

10 SEPTEMBER | Buy-in $200 (150+50)

PLO | Stud Hi/Lo | 2-7 Triple Draw | No Limit 2-7 Single Draw

1 in 5 direct entry to Mini Main Event 26/9

17 SEPTEMBER | Buy-in $200 (150+50)

Limit Hold’em | Omaha Hi/Lo | Stud Hi/Lo | Badugi

1 in 5 direct entry to Mini Main Event 26/9

24 SEPTEMBER | Buy-in $200 (150+50)

Stud | Razz | 2-7 Triple Draw | No Limit 2-7 Single Draw

1 in 5 direct entry to Mini Main Event 26/9

Then it all culminates on 26 September with the:

10-GAME MINI MAIN EVENT

$750 BUY-IN (600+150)

There is one important catch.

The Mini Main isn’t simply open registration.

To play, you’ll need to have either:

qualified your way in, or

played one of the previous MGA rounds during September.

So if you want a seat in the Mini Main, you’ve got four chances during the month to get yourself involved. Full details being released very soon.

Then the following day:

27 SEPTEMBER — $900 NINE GAME

Nine games.

$900 buy-in. (750+150)

And this one is:

OPEN TO EVERYONE.

No September passport required.

Just turn up ready to play.

OCTOBER — THE PERFECT 10

Then we get to one I’ve been waiting for.

10/10.

The date basically named the tournament for us.

THE PERFECT 10

10 OCTOBER

$1,000 BUY-IN (850+150)

10-GAME MIX

Ten games.

Tenth of the tenth.

Sometimes you don’t need to overthink the marketing.

DECEMBER — THE SUMMER SIX

Then we finish the year properly.

THE SUMMER SIX

4 DAYS

6 EVENTS

Six mixed-game tournaments packed into four days to kick off summer.

More details are coming.

But if you’re looking for an excuse to finish the poker year doing something considerably more interesting than playing two cards over and over again…

there it is.

FEBRUARY 2027 — THE MELBOURNE MIX

And then we go again.

Only bigger.

THE MELBOURNE MIX 2027

5–14 FEBRUARY 2027

10 DAYS OF MIXED-GAMES GLORY.

Ten days in Melbourne devoted to the games we actually like playing.

The Melbourne Mixed Games Festival showed us exactly how much appetite there is for proper mixed poker.

So we’re feeding it.

September.

October.

December.

Then ten days in February.

The Melbourne Mixed Games Festival might be over.

The trophies might have been handed out.

The Cock of the Walk might have been crowned.

But we’re only getting started.

Check out the complete festival results at MGA Mob.

Then work out which one you’re playing next.

MIXED GAMES ACADEMY

Beyond two cards. A different game.

Optional Admin Fee: Pay it and enjoy the full MGA treatment: table service, food, snacks and non-alcoholic drinks delivered while you play. Skip it and you’ll start with 50% of the standard stack and you’re welcome to wander yourself to the bar whenever you want to buy your own food and drinks. Your choice. One option comes with service and a smile. The other comes with judgment. 😏