8-Game Mix Rules

The 8-game mix is the ultimate test of all-around poker skill: eight different poker games rotating on a fixed schedule at a single table. It is what the biggest mixed-game cash games and the WSOP $50,000 Poker Players Championship run. If HORSE is the classic five-game rotation, 8-game is its bigger, meaner cousin — same idea, three more games, and a jump between limit and big-bet structures that trips up specialists.

Nobody is a favorite in all eight games, which is exactly the point. The best mixed-game players are rarely the best at any single variant; they simply leak the fewest chips across the whole rotation.

The eight games, in order

The standard 8-game rotation is:

1. 2-7 Triple Draw (fixed-limit lowball draw)
2. Limit Hold’em
3. Limit Omaha Hi-Lo (eight-or-better)
4. Razz (fixed-limit stud low)
5. Seven Card Stud (fixed-limit high)
6. Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo (eight-or-better)
7. No-Limit Hold’em
8. Pot-Limit Omaha

Games 2 through 6 are exactly the HORSE lineup. The three additions are 2-7 Triple Draw at the front — a fantastic draw game covered in the triple draw strategy guide — and the two big-bet games, No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha, at the back.

The betting-structure switch is the hard part

Six of the eight games are fixed-limit: bets and raises come in preset increments and the pot can only grow so fast. The last two — No-Limit Hold’em and Pot-Limit Omaha — are big-bet games where you can wager large fractions of, or your entire, stack in a single move.

That structural whiplash is what makes 8-game so tough. In the limit games your edge comes from small, repeated accuracy: correct draws, correct value bets, folding a half-bet too much on the river. In the big-bet games one misjudged all-in can wipe out an hour of careful limit grinding. Players who dominate limit but freeze up in no-limit — or vice versa — get exposed the moment the game rotates.

How rotation and stakes work

Everyone plays the same game at the same time. The game changes on a fixed trigger — most commonly once per full orbit of the dealer button, sometimes every set number of hands or minutes. When the button completes a lap, the next game in the list begins for all players at once.

In a cash game the stakes stay proportional across games (for example, the limit games might be 200/400 while the big-bet games use blinds sized to match). In the tournament format, the same blind/limit level applies and the games simply cycle. Because the deal, board layout, and hand rankings change every round, the dealer announces the game each time it switches — pay attention, because sitting down to a Razz hand thinking you are playing stud high is a fast way to punt.

A worked example: the same starting cards, two different games

Suppose you are dealt A♣ 2♣ 3♦ as your first three cards in Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo. This is a premium start — three low cards, all under a five, with a suited ace giving flush potential and a live shot at scooping both the high and the low half of the pot. You raise happily.

Now the rotation moves to plain Seven Card Stud (high only), and you catch the identical A♣ 2♣ 3♦. In a high-only game this holding is near-garbage: it makes no pair, no big cards, and the low straight/flush potential is weak because you would need to fill perfectly. The same three cards are a raise in one game and a fold in the next. That is the entire skill of 8-game in one hand — knowing which game you are in and re-valuing everything the instant it changes.

How to survive your first 8-game session

Learn the rules cold before you sit — you do not want to be reading hand rankings at the table. Play tight in the games you know worst and let your edge in your best games carry you. Above all, treat every rotation as a fresh game: reset your mental frame each time the button laps. If a full eight-game rotation feels like too much at once, ease in through a dealer’s choice mixed game, where the group can pick a smaller menu and you build the games up one at a time.