Five-Card PLO

Lesson 1 — The one rule that runs everything

In Omaha you must use exactly two of your hole cards and exactly three from the board. Five-card PLO gives you 5 hole cards, so you hold 10 two-card combinations (PLO4: 6). Consequences: four to a flush on board with one suited card in hand = no flush; trips in your hand play as only a pair; a four-straight board needs two of your cards to make a straight.

At an 8-handed table, 40 of the 52 cards are dealt to players. Every number in this page is computed live in your browser by exact enumeration or Monte Carlo simulation — nothing is hard-coded.

Lesson 2 — What the starting-hand numbers mean

With 5 cards, most hands contain a pair and essentially every hand has at least two cards of one suit — "suited" is the default, so being suited is worth far less than in PLO4. Double-suited hands are common. What separates hands is nut potential: suited Aces, connected rundowns with no gaps, and high pairs that make top sets. Your opponents are also holding 10 combos each, so the average winning hand is stronger.

Lesson 3 — Outs, the Rule of 4 and 2, and the 2-card trap

An out is an unseen card that improves you to your target hand. Rough conversion: on the flop, outs × 4 ≈ % to hit by river; on the turn, outs × 2 ≈ % to hit on the river. Common PLO5 flop draws: flush draw 9 outs (~35% by river), open-ended straight 8 (~31.5%), 13-card wrap (~48%), 16–20-out wraps (55–70%), wrap + flush draw 20+ (65%+). In Omaha, only count outs your two hole cards can use, and discount outs that pair the board (they can give an opponent a full house) or make a non-nut flush. The calculator below counts outs exactly by trying every unseen card under the 2+3 rule.

Lesson 4 — Equity shrinks as players are added, but not evenly

Made hands without redraws (overpairs, two pair, even the current nut straight) lose value fast multiway, because every extra 5-card hand brings 10 more ways to draw out. Big draws hold value better — they are often ahead of their fair share 1/(N+1) multiway because they win big pots when they get there. Sets are strong but in PLO5 set-over-set and flush/straight runouts happen often. Compare each cell to the fair share, not to 50%.

Lesson 5 — Putting it together at 8-handed

Preflop: favor hands where all 5 cards work together (nut suits, connected ranks, high pairs); avoid trips and disconnected "danglers." Flop: compare your equity to pot odds — to call a bet of B into pot P you need equity > B ÷ (P + 2B) (pot-sized bet → 33%). Multiway, demand nut draws and redraws; second-nut flushes and bottom-end straights are frequent losers.

Lesson 6 — Practice at an 8-handed loose table

Seven home-game regulars sit with you (Milton, David N, Rich, Todd, Rickey, Yum and L) while Willy starts on the waitlist; seats open when someone leaves or busts and won't rebuy. Learn their tendencies; when Milton bets, he has it. Hints appear only after you act. Stacks reset to 100 BB (200 chips, blinds 1/2) every hand; betting is pot-limit. Watch the dashboard: your equity is recomputed each street versus the players still in. After every decision you get a heuristic "solver-style" hint (equity vs pot odds, fair share, outs, position, number of opponents) — it's a rule-of-thumb coach, not real solver output. Deviations can be replayed with the identical deck and opponent behavior.