There are over a dozen mixed poker games to choose from at online poker rooms. Five years ago Horse poker was the dominate mixed variant but a succession of new mixed games have overtaken this classic. We have dozens of guides about mixed games, including rules, strategy articles and lists of rooms that offer a particular game so if you are unfamiliar with anything mentioned in this post feel free to browse around. I have read several forum threads created by players who want to know what the most profitable mixed poker game is. These debates usually consist of people claiming that this or that game is the most profitable by far, based on their own experience. Personally, I would say that 8-Game mix is most profitable than the others but that is based on my skill set. There is not a definite answer for the average person who plays poker online so I will look at this question from several different angles.
Is Greater Complexity More Profitable?
I usually tell people that the most complex with poker games are the most profitable. Complexity is determined by the number of games and the betting formats involved. Variants like 8-Game and 10-Game are much more complicated to master than Horse poker because they include less common card games like triple draw and they include fixed, pot and no limit games while Horse includes only the most common games in the fixed limit format.
For the average online poker player I would say that simple is better. Most poker players know how to play Holdem, Omaha and Stud, with Holdem being the leading card game. If your skill set is limited to just Holdem you may want to try a mixed game like mixed Holdem at Pokerstars. This variant includes fixed and no limit Holdem. There are specialized games for Omaha and Stud too. Triple Stud, also at Poker Stars, includes the three Stud games.
I don’t think that mixed games like mixed Holdem and Triple Stud are the most profitable though. You could basically open a fixed and no limit Holdem table and it would amount to the same thing.
So we have simple mixed games like these and much more complex games like 8-Game. The most profitable game lies in the middle: Horse poker.
Horse poker requires the combined skills of three unique game types: Texas Hold’em, Omaha HL and the Stud games. Another plus about this mixed game – from the average poker players’ point of view – is that they are all fixed limit. Fixed limit games are easier to master in my opinion. This format is not the most popular online but many people have experience with fixed limit from family card games and playing casino games like video poker.
Another thing to consider is availability. Pokerstars may be the largest online poker room but Americans cannot play there so games like 8-game are not available to many players. A mixed game like Horse poker is available to both Americans and players from the rest of the world. It is hard to make a profit from a poker game if you can’t play it anywhere so while this doesn’t have anything to do with the game itself, it is an important factor.
