Five Card GuyBlog
New PLO-6 Solver Proved Me Wrong
Ten months ago, I shared five PLO6 preflop rules. No six-card solver existed back then. The rules came purely from my own understanding of the game.
Now there finally is one. So I put every rule through my PLO6 solver: 5-max, 100bb.
Some of them held up. Some didn't. And there's one group of hands that most players misplay badly.
High pocket pairs from MP are burning money.
QQJT63 never opens from MP. Opening it loses about 0.1 BB. This one held up.
These hands suffer in 3bet pots, and with several players left behind you, someone often has aces. If you play a pocket pair, it should come with an ace or better connectivity.
ATT754 is a much better open than the queens. The ace makes it less likely someone behind you holds aces, and a nut suit plays far better postflop than two weak suits.
QT9872 is barely strong enough to open from the button.
This was my strongest claim. From MP and the cutoff, opening it loses 0.2 BB. On the button it's exactly break-even.
Barely strong enough to open from the button is exactly what this hand is.
Bad holding couples kill your hand.
This is the core of my preflop teaching. A bad holding couple is two low, disconnected cards: 32, 42, 52 and so on.
AQT732 has three of them: 32, 72 and 73. Every double suited combo folds from MP, and opening loses up to 0.5 BB.
Now swap the 32 for 54. AQT754 opens 70% of the time, and its best combos make +0.5 BB. One change, and a clear fold becomes a clear open.
So far so good. Now the parts where I was wrong.
Two Broadway hands.
This one blew my mind. My rule was that hands like AK9864 aren't strong unless they have two clean ace-high suits and good connectivity. To me, it looked like a hand that flops a lot of weak top and bottom pairs.
The solver always opens it. +0.2 BB from MP, +0.3 BB from the cutoff. I was folding this from MP and often from the cutoff too. There's no excuse here. This is a hand you need to play.
The KJT9 component.
I see this pattern in every preflop spot. Take KJT995 double suited. I'd look at the 5, decide the hand isn't coordinated enough and suffers against 3bets, and let it go. The solver opens it almost half the time.
Even better example: KJT972. In my book, 72 is the worst possible couple. But it still opens over a third of the time from MP, and the best combos make +0.2 BB.
Now switch it to KQJ972. Suddenly it never opens.
KJT9 makes a ton of high straights. KQJ9 has a gap, and it's missing JT, the component that makes the most high straights in the game. That's a huge drawback.
Triple suited hands.
This is the hand class I underestimated the most, and the one that matters most to play perfectly.
I used to judge a triple suited hand by its double suited version. If that version was a fold, I'd discount the third suit. A low suit isn't going to turn a clear fold into a clear open, right?
Wrong. KQT542 double suited never opens from MP. Make it triple suited and it opens 80% of the time.
And it's not only opening. Triple suited hands are the cornerstone of 3betting ranges.
Look at QJT942 triple suited. From the small blind against a button open, it 3bets 83% of the time and never calls. The hand is almost flipping against the 4betting range, and with all the dead money in the pot, that beats folding and losing your small blind.
Very few players are 3betting this light right now. Once they see what the solver 3bets, that will change. That's good for the game. More 3bets, more fun.
Jakub