A Seven-Day Mixed-Poker Practice Plan: One Skill per Session

If you've never played a mixed game at all, do your first session from the Hold'em-to-mixed-games learning path before starting here, so that each day below is a game you've at least seen.

Each day pairs one skill with the game that tests it most directly. The order starts with the game closest to what most people already know and ends with the game least like it.

Every day has the same shape: a five-minute warm-up drill, 20 to 30 minutes of play with one focus question, a tally you keep during play, and a one-line review prompt. Keep the tally on paper or in the progress sheet further down this page. Play heads-up for the whole first week unless a day says otherwise.

Day 1: Fixed-limit pot odds (Limit Hold'em)

• Skill: Counting the pot in bets and comparing it with the price of a call.
• Game: Limit Hold'em, heads-up, 30–40 minutes.
• Focus question: How many chips are in the pot, and how many do I have to put in to see the next card?
• Warm-up drill (5 minutes). A 2/4 game, heads-up. You raised before the flop and were called, then called a check-raise on the flop, so the pot is 16 chips. On the turn your opponent bets the big bet of 4. You hold A♥ 9♥ and the board is K♥ 7♥ 2♣ Q♦. Call or fold?
  Show answer

  Call. You're putting in 4 to win 20, which is 5 to 1. Nine hearts are left among the 46 cards you haven't seen, so the flush comes in about one time in five, a little over 4 to 1 against. The pot pays more than the draw costs, before you count anything you might win on the river.

• Track: Two columns, "counted" and "guessed." Every time you call or fold facing a bet, tick the column that describes what you did first.
• Review prompt: Find one call where the pot was smaller than you assumed, and one fold where it was bigger.
• Read: How fixed-limit betting works.

Day 2: Two-way thinking (Omaha 8)

• Skill: Naming your high hand and your low hand separately before you act, each from exactly two hole cards and three board cards.
• Game: Omaha 8, heads-up, 30–40 minutes.
• Focus question: Which two of my cards play for high, which two play for low, and is either half the best possible?
• Warm-up drill (5 minutes). You hold A♦ 2♣ Q♠ Q♣ and the river board is Q♥ 7♦ 4♠ 8♣ 3♥. Name your high and your low.
  Show answer

  High: three queens, from Q♠ Q♣ with the Q♥. Low: 7-4-3-2-A, from A♦ 2♣ with the 7-4-3, and nothing lower is possible because the three lowest board cards are 3, 4 and 7. The only hand that beats your high is a 6-5 in the hole for a straight. You're playing for a scoop, so bet rather than check.

• Track: Three columns: "both halves," "high only," "low only." At every showdown or fold, tick what you were actually playing for.
• Review prompt: Take one hand from the "low only" column and work out what fraction of the pot you were drawing to.
• Read: Split pots explained.

Day 3: Dead-card tracking (Seven Card Stud)

• Skill: Subtracting the cards you can see from the cards you need, before you decide.
• Game: Seven Card Stud, 6-max today so there are upcards to count, 30–40 minutes.
• Focus question: Of the cards that make my hand, how many are already face up or were folded face up?
• Warm-up drill (5 minutes). Third street, six players. You hold 9♣ 9♦ 4♠. The other five door cards are K♣ 9♥ 3♦ 10♦ 7♥. The 3♦ brings it in. How many nines can still make you trips, and what is your hand worth?Underlined cards are hole cards, dealt face down.
  Show answer

  One. There are four nines; you hold two and the 9♥ is showing, so only the 9♠ is live. All three other fours are still live if you want two pair. A pair whose trips card is mostly dead is worth a call of the bring-in, and often a fold if someone completes or raises.

• Track: One line per hand you play past third street: the number of dead outs you counted before your first call. A blank means you didn't count.
• Review prompt: Pick one draw you kept chasing and recount its live outs, including the upcards of players who folded.
• Read: Reading exposed cards in stud.

Day 4: Reading lows and ignoring pairs (Razz)

• Skill: Reading the best low an opponent's upcards can make, and not panicking when your own cards pair.
• Game: Razz, heads-up, 30–40 minutes.
• Focus question: What is the lowest five-card hand my opponent's board can make, and does my pair actually change my own best five?
• Warm-up drill (5 minutes). Sixth street, heads-up. You hold A♥ 3♣ 5♦ 7♠ 5♥ 2♣. Your opponent shows 4♠ 6♦ 8♥ K♣ with two cards hidden. They act first, because their unpaired board is lower than your paired one, and they check. Bet or check?Underlined cards are hole cards, dealt face down.
  Show answer

  Bet. Your pair of fives costs you nothing: your best five cards are still 7-5-3-2-A. The best your opponent can hold right now, with perfect hidden cards, is 8-6-4-2-A, and a seven-low beats any eight-low. Only the river can change that.

• Track: Two tallies. First, the number of streets on which you named the opponent's best possible low before acting. Second, the number of times you folded because you paired while still holding five different low ranks.
• Review prompt: Find one hand where the opponent's board could not beat you and check whether you bet it.
• Read: Low hand rankings.

Day 5: Qualifying lows and scoops (Stud 8)

• Skill: Checking whether your low is qualified yet, and whether the hand can win both halves or only one.
• Game: Stud 8, heads-up, 30–40 minutes.
• Focus question: Is my low made and qualified, and can this hand scoop or only split?
• Warm-up drill (5 minutes). Fifth street. You hold A♦ 3♦ 2♦ 5♥ 6♦. Your opponent shows K♣ K♠ J♥ and bets. Is your low qualified, and what are you playing for?Underlined cards are hole cards, dealt face down.
  Show answer

  Yes: five different ranks, all 8 or lower, so you already hold 6-5-3-2-A for low, and the kings can't touch it. For high you have four diamonds and an inside straight draw; any 4 makes a straight, and a 4 of any suit also turns your low into 5-4-3-2-A, the best low there is. You're ahead for half and drawing to the whole pot, so raise rather than call.

• Track: Three columns: "scoop," "half only," "not qualified." Tick one at the moment you put the first chip in after third street.
• Review prompt: Take one "half only" hand and count how many bets you paid to win half of them back.
• Read: Stud 8 starting hands.

Day 6: Drawing vs standing pat (2-7 Triple Draw)

• Skill: Comparing the hand you hold with the hand you'd expect to draw into, using the opponent's draw count as evidence.
• Game: 2-7 Triple Draw, heads-up, 30–40 minutes.
• Focus question: Is what I hold now better than what I'm likely to make by drawing, given how many cards my opponent just took?
• Warm-up drill (5 minutes). One draw left. You hold 2♥ 4♠ 5♣ 7♦ 9♥ and your opponent takes one card. Stand pat, or break the nine and draw one?
  Show answer

  Stand pat. Your 9-7-5-4-2 is a made hand with no straight and no flush. If you throw away the nine, only a 3, 6 or 8 makes an eight or better, 12 cards, while most of the deck leaves you with the same nine, a ten or higher, an ace-high hand or a pair. A pat nine-seven is the favorite against one opponent drawing one card.

• Track: For every pat-or-draw decision from the second draw on, write "P" or "D" and the number of cards your opponent took. Circle any pat with a ten or worse and any draw that broke an eight or better.
• Review prompt: Pick the circled decision you like least and ask what the opponent's draw count told you at the time.
• Read: When to stand pat in 2-7 Triple Draw.

Today the skill is switching. Play HORSE or THORSE instead of a single game, for 45 to 60 minutes or at least one full pass through every game in the rotation. In Mix Poker the rotation changes game every 6 hands, so the switches arrive on a schedule you can prepare for.

Before each game change, say the new game's goal out loud. It feels silly and it works; it clears the previous game's habits before the first hand of the next one. Use this table, which is the week's six focus questions boiled down to one line each.

Track: Two numbers for the session: switches, and switch errors. A switch error is a mistake in the first two hands of a new game that you wouldn't have made in the fifth or sixth hand, such as valuing a pair in Razz right after Omaha 8, or folding a pair in Stud right after Razz. Note which switch each error came from.

Review prompt: Which switch produced the most errors, and what habit were you carrying over from the game before it? For which rotation to choose, see HORSE vs THORSE; if you skipped Day 6, play HORSE today.

Fill in one row per session. The Tally cell takes the day's count, and the adjustment is one sentence you can act on in the next session, not a general resolution. Copy the table into a note or print the page from your browser.

Two options, and the progress sheet tells you which. If one day's tally stands out as the weakest, or one switch produced most of your Day 7 errors, repeat that day before anything else. If the tallies look even, run the week again at 6-max instead of heads-up: more upcards to track in the stud games, more players in every split pot, and more draw counts to read in Triple Draw. Either way, keep the one-adjustment column going; it's the only part of the sheet that compounds.

Every opponent in Mix Poker is a computer opponent, which suits a plan like this: you can say goals out loud and keep a tally on paper. All six games are free to play against the Beginner band of the bot ladder, each on its own for Days 1 through 6 and in the HORSE, TORSE or THORSE rotations for Day 7, heads-up or 6-max. To start a session, open Play, pick an opponent and choose the day's game, or the rotation on Day 7, under Format. Free players get a 1,000-chip daily bonus and one free Beginner seat a day after a bust, so a rough session doesn't end the week.

For the review prompts, Mix Poker has graded reviews of your matches, and how to review a poker hand gives you a worksheet for going through a single hand on paper. The review prompts above are deliberately short; one hand per day, looked at properly, is enough.