PLO starting hands: how four-card hands get ranked

Preflop Edge guide · concepts first. For measured win rates, see the top 20 PLO starting hands.

The rule that filters everything: you must use exactly two cards

You must use exactly two of your four cards at showdown, always. So a "hand" in PLO is really two Hold'em hands stapled together, and the staple has to earn rent in both directions. A-K-A-K (two aces, two kings) has four live cards: each pair makes a set, each high card makes top pair with a strong kicker, and the broadway straight potential hums quietly. Compare A-A-7-2 rainbow: two dead-ish side cards that at best give you a mediocre two-pair or a set of aces with a terrible kicker. The chart-order instinct from Hold'em — "two big cards is a hand" — transfers badly; in PLO, disconnected high cards are a decent chunk of what experienced players quietly stop playing.

What makes a PLO hand class strong (concepts, not numbers)

1. Connectedness beats height. Four-to-a-straight shapes (e.g. J-10-9-8, four consecutive ranks) flop monster-straight territory constantly; a hand like A-K-Q-J, despite four face cards, runs into counterfeited and blocked straights on too many flops to be trusted just because it looks heavy.
2. Suitedness is a whole axis. Double-suited hands (two of one suit, two of another) can flop the nut flush draw in two directions; single-suited hands keep the other half dead. The best PLO classes mix both: e.g. A♠K♠Q♥J♥.
3. The wheel family. A-2-3-4 (and its kin A-2-3-x, A-2-x-y with a "wheel gap") exists only because A can count low. In Hold'em's 169-class ladder the ace-low logic is a footnote (see the rankings guide); in PLO it is a first-class hand family, precisely because a four-card hand can hold both the nut-wheel path and the nut-flush path.
4. Sets arrive with a tail. A PLO-specific twist on the pairs guide: your set almost always comes with a straight or flush draw welded to it, because the same four cards do multiple jobs. A set without a draw is often the beginning of trouble, not the end of it.
5. Blockers become real currency. Holding the A♠ in a two-spade hand means nobody else can hold it. In Hold'em, card removal is subtle; in PLO, "my cards remove their nut hands" is why monster-shaped junk like A-x double-suited can be an outright jam-call vs a shove.

Reading class names before the data does

PLO notation reads ranks left to right, suits last when they matter: digits and letters are ranks, so 2233 means two deuces and two threes, while A234 means ace-deuce-three-quatre (the wheel family), KKQQ is two kings and two queens (a two-pair monster class), and KQJ9 is a one-gapper broadway shape. When you see hand lists in PLO software, that four-character shape is the class; individual suits decorate it. The measured top 20 PLO starting hands, with win rates against 1 and 5 opponents, are on the PLO starting hands page.

Short Deck vs PLO vs Hold'em: three different centers of gravity

• Hold'em: two-card hands ranked by made-hand strength first — top-pair-plus-kicker can be a stack-off. Our full ladder of the 169 classes is on the rankings guide; the crowd-size decay is explained in how often A-A wins, and any single class has a page of its own (e.g. A-5 suited, J-T suited, 9-8 suited) showing the same eight columns for that hand.
• Short Deck: a compressed 36-card deck where draws gain rank (flush > full house, A-6-7-8-9 straight) — full Short Deck rules guide here.
• PLO: four-card hands where shape and redraws outrank raw card value — "top pair, no draw" is a warning light, not a value hand.

See the top 20 PLO starting hands, with win rates →