This article explores how relative hand strength works in PLO6, using real data from our PLO6 Calculator’s range breakdown feature.
We’ll examine how often common hands — like sets, straights, and flushes — actually dominate versus how often they get crushed.
The goal isn’t just to rethink what’s “strong,” but to show how players can use data to sharpen their instincts.
Understanding Hand Strength Through Data
Let’s start simple. Suppose we’re holding a random PLO6 hand and go all-in preflop. What kinds of hands actually show up by the river?
To answer that, we can use our PLO6 Calculator’s range breakdown feature, which tells us — on any board texture — how often a given range hits specific types of hands: from four of a kind down to weak pairs or air.
Runout 1
Figure 1 – Hand class breakdown from the GrindersVault PLO6 Calculator on board K♠ K♥ 9♠ T♦ 2♦
What does this tell us?
- Nearly 50% of hands have trip Kings or better (full house or quads).
- One in four hands makes a full house, which is far more frequent than in PLO4.
- Only ~1.85% of hands miss completely, meaning even random hands are likely to connect somehow on a paired board.
Key Takeaway:
On paired boards like this one, hands like big pocket pairs are not strong — they are often dominated. In fact, almost half of all hands will have at least trips or better, and one in four will have a boat.
Runout 2
Figure 2 – Hand class breakdown from the GrindersVault PLO6 Calculator on board 3♦ J♥ 5♠ 2♠ 6♠
What does this tell us?
- 89% of hands are two pair or better (sets, straights, flushes & straight flushes)
- Over 38% of hands have a flush or straight flush in them
Key Takeaway:
On flushing rivers like this one, flushes are the only hands that want to be betting for value (even for one street!). This means that we always have to be ready for big equity shifts on lots of flops, turns, and rivers. Nuts on the flop won’t always even be a showdown hand by the river.
So, given this information, how often do we hit draws on the flop? Let’s look at a classic dynamic flop with a 100% range.
Flop runout
Figure 3. Hand class breakdown from the GrindersVault PLO6 Calculator on a flop of Q♥9♦8♦
What does this tell us?
- 16% of the time we have the current nuts with a straight.
- Over 50% of the time we have a big draw to beat that current nuts. (flush draws, full house draws with sets and higher straight draws.)
Let’s imagine we got to the flop of Q♥9♦8♦ with a bare straight JT and decide to bet. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say our opponent is calling all the meaningful draws only (diamonds for a flush draw or set of queens, nines or eights).
Lets say we are holding J♠T♠7♥6♣5♦4♣ and our opponent either has at least 2 diamonds in their hand (flush draw) or at least a set (of either QQ, 99 or 88)
Figure 4. Shows equity of J♠T♠7♥6♣5♦4♣ at 47.2% vs a range of at least 2 diamonds in their hand (flush draw) or at least a set (of either QQ, 99 or 88) 52.8%
What does this tell us?
- Our hand (which is the flopped nuts) is an underdog against any hand that has a flushdraw, or a set in it even though those hands are not the current nuts.
Why? Because a lot of these holdings will also have 2 pairs or flushdraws in them, meaning that more than half the time they will improve to a hand better than a straight by the river.
Key takeaway:
Having flopped nuts is often not enough. We need to have redraws to other (ideally nutted) draws if we want to start building the pot.