Big O and O8 starting hand rankings

Two aces plus two connected low cards is the whole story. A-A-3-2 double-suited tops O8 at 72.7% equity vs one random hand; Big O's equivalent is a 120-way tied group led by hands like A-A-5-4-2 ds at 66.9-68.6%. Both are built the same way: the aces block a rival's nut low and can make the nut low themselves, the low cards give a real shot at scooping instead of chopping, and the suits back up both sides of the pot with a flush. A hand built for high-only Omaha does not transfer: PLO4's best hand, A-A-T-T double-suited, is a near coin flip once a low is in play - rank 798 of 16,432 in O8 at 59.2%.

Same pattern at both hand sizes: the hi-lo #1 hand is still a strong high-only hand (it has two aces, which never hurts), but the high-only #1 hand - built around a second pair, not a low - collapses once a low is in play. A pair of tens or nines can never be part of an 8-or-better low, so it contributes nothing to half the pot.

What the group has in common: 99% hold an ace with a 2 or a 3, every member is at least double-suited, and the non-ace cards cluster on 2, 3, 4, 5, K. A sample of the group, in simulation order:

Suit tags in the data: ds = double-suited, ss = single-suited, 3+2 = a three-flush and a two-flush at once (more premium than plain double-suited), 3-suit = three cards of one suit, mono = all five suited.

The full ladder is in the Big O CSV download above; the same tie caveat applies inside every bin.

A hand at the O8 top-10% line beats a random hand 57.1% of the time. The median hand in both games sits near 50/50 by construction - equity vs one random hand, not vs a real range.

The worst hands in O8 are quads: four of a kind uses all four hole cards on one rank, leaving nothing to build a low with and nothing left to make a flush. The full top 100 is in the CSV download above.

O8's best rank combination, double-suited, ranks #1 overall at 72.7%. The exact same four ranks, dealt rainbow, falls to #93 of 16,432 at 68.1% - suits alone move it past 92 other classes.

Same story one card bigger: Big O's top rank combination spans rank #1 down to #574 depending on suits, from 66.9-68.6% down to 65.1-65.4%. A made low is worthless as a tiebreaker once someone else has the identical low; the backup flush or straight is what turns a chop into a scoop, and that's a suits question, not a ranks question.

Equity against one random hand orders starting hands cleanly and answers a narrower question in hi-lo than in high-only PLO. These numbers say nothing about multiway pots, and multiway is where hi-lo actually gets played: with three or four players seeing a low card, a big pair with no low draw is fighting for half a shrinking pot, and a hand that only makes the low gets quartered the instant someone else holds the same 8-6. Use this page to calibrate which two hands is stronger, then run specific multiway spots through the PQL query engine - game='omaha8' or game='omaha85' runs real hi-lo scoring, seats and all - before deciding how to play one.

Built by Adam, the developer of SolvePLO. Corrections welcome: contact.

What is the best starting hand in Big O (5-card Omaha hi-lo)?

No single hand: at this trial count 120 classes are statistically tied at the top, all around 66.9-68.6% equity vs one random hand. 99% of them hold an ace with a 2 or 3 (a nut-low blocker), and every single one is at least double-suited. A-A-5-4-2 and A-A-5-3-2 are typical members. In O8 (4-card), the single best class is A-A-3-2 double-suited at 72.7%.

How does hi-lo (Omaha-8) scoring work?

The best five-card high hand wins half the pot. The best five-card hand of rank 8-or-better (no pair, straights and flushes ignored) wins the other half. If nobody qualifies for low, the best high hand scoops the whole pot. Every equity number on this page is computed under those exact rules, not high-only equity.

Is Big O the same as PLO5?

Same five-card deal, different scoring. Live "Big O" almost always means hi-lo (this page); "PLO5" on this site means the high-only version on the PLO5 rankings page. The two rankings disagree hard at the top: PLO5's best hand, A-A-T-9-9 ds, falls to rank 46,387 of 134,459 once a low is in play (51.7-51.7%, barely a favorite).

Why do pocket aces matter so much in Omaha hi-lo?

Aces do triple duty: they're the top pair for the high side, they block opponents from making the nut low (A-2 or A-3), and they can be half of your own nut low. No other card does all three. That's why the entire top tier of both O8 and Big O runs through AA, and why a big pair without an ace - even trip queens - falls out of the top tier fast.

How often are you dealt aces with a wheel card in Omaha hi-lo?

An ace with a 2 or 3 in your hand arrives 11.7% of the time in O8 and 17.6% in Big O (the extra card gives more chances to pair one in). Two aces alone: 2.57% in O8, 4.17% in Big O. Exact combinatorics from the full class table, not simulation.

Do the same four cards rank differently in PLO4 and O8?

Completely. A-A-T-T double-suited is PLO4's best hand (71.5% high-only) and drops to rank 798 of 16,432 in O8 (59.2%) - a second pair of tens does nothing for a low. A-A-3-2 double-suited, O8's best hand at 72.7%, is still a comfortable top-1% hand in high-only PLO4: rank 108 of 16,432 at 67.2%. Aces travel between formats; broadway pairs don't.

What suit pattern is best in Omaha hi-lo?

Double-suited or better, same as high-only PLO - but the effect is sharper. Walking one specific card combination through every suit arrangement (O8's top rank set) moves it from rank #1 double-suited down to rank #93 rainbow - a swing from 72.7% to 68.1% on the identical four ranks. Suits matter because a made low is worthless as a tiebreaker once someone else has the same low, and the backup flush is what turns a chop into a scoop.