Some PLO Starting Hands

For a start, look at what kind of flops you would like with your hand (the fewer, the worse), then if your hand runs a significant risk of being dominated (eg. QQxx vs a raise, or even these 7745 that can be tempting), then — last but extremely important — if position is good. You should play fairly tight from OOP, and pretty loose from button and cutoff. Reason? You’ll often miss the flop, and you can’t go to war profitably against a good player who gets to see what you do before he acts.

Let’s look at different starting hands:

• AK66 no suit: sucks, what do you want to hit? Small sets aren’t gold in PLO, far from it. You’ll miss and fold quite a lot.

• AQT9: much better, and if the ace is suited you actually have a good hand (you can hit top two, straight and flush draws, trips with overcards etc.). Raise it with position, if limped or folded to.

• KKT9 one suit: good strength, decent draw potential. Open raise it IP.

• 789T: nice hand, flops quite well, can hit sexy combo draws if suited.

• 4556: looks good, but small pairs are a liability, since you actually play three cards (456) with an extra small set potential — but it’s not really worth it.

• JJ56 suited: weak hand, jacks are easily dominated and you have weak FD with almost no straight potential.

• 568T: beware gaps in top of your hands, as if the flop fills them, there will always be the risk of better draws out there eg. on 479 (dream flop for you), you’re in bad shape againt 8TJx.

• A567 suited: can hit straight draw+nut flush draw (nice result), but this doesn’t happen that often. Don’t pay too much to see the flop (but you can raise IP, as usual).

• AKQJ: looks like a monster, and it is good, but don’t fall in love. AAxx dominates it, since the former plays three cards, and any FD can severely cripple an otherwise good wrap (eg. on 39T vs A3xx). If double suited, now we’re talking.

Hope it helps — but don’t forget that PLO is very much a postflop game — and position is king.