Dealt vs Opened vs 3-Bet: How Played Ranges Bend the Numbers

Dealt odds are the floor. Real ranges fold low cards and keep suited aces — here is exactly how much that bends every frequency.

PLO4 Hand-class frequencies by range

How often a hand holds each class when it is a random deal, a button open (48.6% of hands), or a big-blind 3-bet vs that open (9.4% of hands). Multipliers are vs the dealt baseline. PLO4, exact counts — no simulation.

A hand that holds…DealtBTN openBB 3-bet
Flush drawtwo or more spades on Ks 9s 6h21.4%23.4% ×1.126.8% ×1.3
Made flushtwo or more spades on Ks 9s 6s18.0%20.0% ×1.124.0% ×1.3
Straight (Q + J)at least one queen and one jack on Ks Th 3d7.2%9.3% ×1.39.3% ×1.3
Broadway straight (A + K)at least one ace and one king on Qs Jh Td7.2%15.1% ×2.125.5% ×3.6
Wheel (2 + 4)at least one deuce and one four on As 5h 3d7.2%1.6% ×0.230.59% ×0.08
Pocket acestwo or more aces, preflop (no board)2.6%5.3% ×2.126.2% ×10.2
Pocket kingstwo or more kings, preflop (no board)2.6%5.3% ×2.012.6% ×4.9
Pocket queenstwo or more queens, preflop (no board)2.6%5.1% ×2.07.0% ×2.7
Flush draw, ace-high boardtwo or more hearts on Ah Qh 6s21.4%21.1% ×0.9921.5% ×1.0
Flush draw, low boardtwo or more hearts on 7h 5h Ks21.4%25.1% ×1.231.7% ×1.5

Pocket-pair rows are preflop figures over all C(52,4) deals — slightly different from flop-conditioned numbers, where three known board cards shift the denominator. Board rows remove the named flop cards before counting.

Same draw odds, different range

Both flops leave a random hand exactly 21.4% to hold a flush draw. The played ranges disagree.

Ace-high two-tone
Dealt 21.4%
BTN open 21.1%
BB 3-bet vs BTN 21.5%
Low two-tone
Dealt 21.4%
BTN open 25.1%
BB 3-bet vs BTN 31.7%

Players keep high suited hands and fold low ones, so the suit equity of a played range lives in its big cards. On the low two-tone board the 3-bettor holds a flush draw 31.7% of the time — ×1.5 the rote 21.4%. On the ace-high board the same range runs slightly under baseline at 21.5%: the ace of the draw suit sits on the board, blocking the suited-ace combos that carry most of its flush draws.

Practical read: on low two-tone boards, credit a 3-bettor with flush draws (and flushes) well above the ~20% deck number. On ace-high two-tone boards, the deck number is already a slight overestimate.

The low-card caveat

A random hand holds the 2 + 4 wheel combo on As 5h 3d 7.2% of the time. The button open holds it 1.6%, the 3-bettor just 0.59% — ×0.08 baseline. Low cards get folded preflop; never credit a played range with wheel combos at deck odds.

Pocket-pair concentration

AA is 2.6% of all deals but 26.2% of the BB 3-bet range — ×10.2. KK concentrates to 12.6% (×4.9), QQ to 7.0% (×2.7). Over a quarter of a tight 3-bet range is aces.

Methodology

Source: the 6-max 100bb PLO4 preflop solve (6max_100bb) — 16,432 canonical hand classes covering all 270,725 four-card combos.

  • Open range: line RFI, actor BTN (folded to the button; node path [0, 0, 0]). Width 48.6% of hands.
  • 3-bet range: line 3BET, actor BB vs a BTN open (node path [0, 0, 0, 40100, 0]). Width 9.4% of hands.
  • Decode: Two uint8[16432] arrays per entry: raise freqs then call freqs. frequency = byte / 200.0 The raise block supplies each class's action frequency.
  • Counting: every figure is an exact weighted count over all 270,725 combos — each combo weighted by its class's action frequency (dealt = uniform weight 1). No Monte Carlo anywhere.
  • Boards: combos containing a board card are removed before counting; percentages are shares of the remaining weight.