PLO starting hand rankings

By raw equity, the best PLO starting hand is A-A-T-T double-suited at 71.5% against a random hand, and the top five are all double-suited aces with a pair: A-A-T-T (71.5%), A-A-J-J (71.2%), A-A-Q-Q (70.9%), A-A-5-5 (70.8%), A-A-9-9 (70.7%). By full-game EV in the solve, A-A-J-J double-suited takes the top spot instead. A-A-K-K double-suited, the hand most players would name, is 6th by equity and 5th by EV. At the other end, the worst hand in the game is quad deuces at 9.2%. The full ladder, both rankings, is in the CSV below.

89 of the top 100 hold at least two aces; the best non-AA hand is K-K-T-T double-suited at #34. Suit tags: ds = double-suited (2-2), ss = single-suited (2-1-1). Combos = concrete deals in the class (the suit arrangement shown is the class representative).

The pattern is domination. K-K hands poll well against a random hand but run into A-A in exactly the pots that get big, so the solve discounts them by hundreds of ranks. Aces with weak side cards go the other way: the pair that can never be dominated preflop, plus ace blockers, earns more money than its raw equity suggests. Equity measures the deal; EV measures the game.

Double-suit is worth 5-6 equity points over rainbow on premium ranks, and it moves A-A-K-K from rank 334 to rank 6. Note the monotone column: four of one suit ranks BELOW single-suited (you burn your own flush outs), and a rainbow T-9-8-7 rundown is a below-average hand at 47.0%.

The spread is tight by design: the top 1% boundary sits at 66.2% and the median at 49.6%. PLO preflop equities cluster, which is why position and playability decide so much of the money.

PLO4 deals 270,725 distinct four-card combinations. Merge the hands that differ only by suit relabeling and 16,432 classes remain - not 16,384, which circulates online as a misquoted power of two. The bottom of the ladder is a staircase of four-of-a-kind holdings: 7-2-2-2 (20.9%), 5-5-5-5 (19.0%), 4-4-4-4 (15.5%), 3-3-3-3 (12.3%), 2-2-2-2 (9.2%). Quad deuces can never make a set, never use more than two of its cards, and blocks its own outs - the purest bad hand in poker.

Two rankings on this page, and neither is a chart. Equity-vs-random tells you what the deal gave you; the EV column tells you what the solve earns with it across all six seats; what you should do with a specific hand in a specific seat is a third question, and it is the one the trainer drills. In the solve, only the bottom 4.1% of classes are pure folds from every seat - almost everything is playable somewhere, at some frequency, and almost nothing is playable everywhere. Position is the variable these tables hold still. Use them to calibrate hand strength, check exact matchups in the equity calculator, and let the charts carry the seat-by-seat decisions.

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

What is the best starting hand in PLO?

By raw equity against one random hand: A-A-T-T double-suited at 71.5% (400,000-trial simulation). By full-game EV in the 6-max 100bb solve: A-A-J-J double-suited. The famous A-A-K-K double-suited is 6th by equity at 70.7% and 5th by solver EV - a monster either way, just not the top.

How many starting hands are there in PLO?

270,725 four-card combinations, which collapse to 16,432 distinct classes once suits that play identically are merged. The "16,384" figure sometimes quoted online is a misreading (2 to the 14th power); the correct class count is 16,432.

How much is double-suited worth in PLO?

For premium ranks, about 5-6 points of raw equity over rainbow: A-A-K-K goes 70.7% double-suited, 67.9% single-suited, 65.1% rainbow - falling from rank 6 to rank 334. For a middle rundown like T-9-8-7 the double-suit is the difference between an above-average hand (53.2%) and a below-average one (47.0% rainbow).

What is the worst starting hand in PLO?

Quad deuces: 2-2-2-2 wins just 9.2% against one random hand. You hold every deuce, so no set is possible and every board misses you. The five worst hands are all four-of-a-kind holdings.

What percentage of PLO hands are playable?

In the 6-max 100bb solve, all but the bottom 4.1% of hand classes take at least one non-fold preflop action from some seat at some frequency (mixed strategies included). Playable is not the same as profitable everywhere: position decides most of it, which is why the rankings here are calibration, not a chart.