The top of the game is a tie, not a hand
At 200,000 trials per class the standard error is about 0.11 percentage points, and the best 142 classes all sit between 65.1% to 65.6% against one random hand. Ranking them 1 to 142 would be presenting noise as precision, so we publish the band instead. The group has a clear shape though: every member holds exactly two aces, 90% are double-suited, and the side cards cluster on T, 8, 9. A representative member is A-A-T-9-9 double-suited.
Premiums are worth less because everyone has one
Being dealt aces goes from 2.57% of hands in PLO4 to 4.17% in PLO5 - roughly one hand in 24. The hand that felt like a monster in PLO4 is now a hand somebody else at the table also has, which is the single biggest adjustment for a player moving over.
It compresses hard multiway
Against five random opponents those same top hands keep only 26.0% to 30.5% equity, where an even share would be 16.7%. An edge that looks decisive heads-up is a much thinner edge at a full table, and PLO5 pots go multiway more often than PLO4 pots do.
Where to go next
- PLO5 solver - heads-up and 6-max at 100bb
- PLO5 starting hand rankings - all 134,459 classes with the methodology and a free CSV under CC BY 4.0
- PLO5 equity calculator - hand vs hand, no account
- Range calculator - range vs range for up to six players
- Hand distribution - how PLO5 ranges hit boards, bucket by bucket
- Hand Tracker - parses PLO5 hands and reports full stats, free to 100,000 hands
- PLO6 equity calculator - if you are going further still
- Methodology - how every number here was produced
The solver library has two PLO5 solves, heads-up and 6-max at 100bb, with the full strategy from preflop through the river. Open them in the solver. Custom rivers are not available on them, and there are no PLO5 solves at other depths yet.