Right after the deal at a 6-max PLO6 (six-card Pot-Limit Omaha) table, at least one player holds a pair of Aces 35.2% of the time — more than one hand in three. In Hold'em it is 2.7%.
Key numbers
- 6-max, someone dealt AA: Hold'em 2.7% · PLO4 15.2% · PLO5 24.5% · PLO6 35.2%.
- You alone are dealt AA 1 in 221 hands in Hold'em and 1 in 16.4 in PLO6.
- Your own Ace changes the count. PLO6, 6-max, an opponent holds AA: you with no Ace 37.0% · one Ace 20.4% · AA yourself 7.2%.
- Exact counts, checked against ProPokerTools on PLO5.
How often someone at the table has Aces
At least one player dealt AA, counting every player at the table, by table size. These are dealt cards, before anyone acts.
| Table | Hold'em | PLO4 | PLO5 | PLO6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6-max | 2.7% | 15.2% | 24.5% | 35.2% |
| 5-max | 2.3% | 12.7% | 20.5% | 29.6% |
| 4-max | 1.8% | 10.2% | 16.5% | 23.8% |
| 3-max | 1.4% | 7.7% | 12.4% | 18.0% |
| heads-up | 0.9% | 5.1% | 8.3% | 12.1% |
How often are you dealt Aces?
| Game | You are dealt AA | Per hand |
|---|---|---|
| Hold'em | 1 in 221 | 0.45% |
| PLO4 | 1 in 39 | 2.57% |
| PLO5 | 1 in 24 | 4.17% |
| PLO6 | 1 in 16.4 | 6.08% |
Why so often? A PLO6 hand holds 15 different two-card combinations; a Hold'em hand holds one. And six players at 6.1% each is roughly 36%. The exact figure is 35.2%: the rough sum counts twice the rare deals where two players both hold AA.
Checked against ProPokerTools
Question: you hold no Ace — how often was at least one opponent dealt AA? We ran the same question on PLO5 in ProPokerTools (a simulation, 600,000 trials per cell) and compared it with our exact count. Then the same exact count for PLO6.
| Table | ProPokerTools PLO5 (simulation) | Ours PLO5 (exact) | Ours PLO6 (exact) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6-max | 24.7% | 24.8% | 37.0% |
| 5-max | 19.8% | 19.9% | 29.8% |
| 4-max | 14.9% | 15.0% | 22.6% |
| 3-max | 10.1% | 10.1% | 15.2% |
| heads-up | 5.1% | 5.1% | 7.7% |
A second question, every hand random (the question at the top of this page), on PLO5:
| Table | ProPokerTools PLO5 (simulation) | Ours PLO5 (exact) |
|---|---|---|
| 6-max | 24.4% | 24.5% |
| 5-max | 20.4% | 20.5% |
| 4-max | 16.5% | 16.5% |
| 3-max | 12.4% | 12.4% |
| heads-up | 8.3% | 8.3% |
Every cell of both tables is within simulation noise of our exact count: the largest gap is 1.8 standard errors of the simulation.
Your Ace changes the count
PLO6: how often at least one opponent was dealt AA, depending on what is in your hand (“AA” in your hand = exactly two Aces).
| Table | No Ace in your hand | One Ace | AA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6-max | 37.0% | 20.4% | 7.2% |
| 5-max | 29.8% | 16.3% | 5.8% |
| 4-max | 22.6% | 12.3% | 4.3% |
| 3-max | 15.2% | 8.2% | 2.9% |
| heads-up | 7.7% | 4.1% | 1.4% |
One Ace in your hand almost halves it: 37% → 20% at 6-max. Holding AA yourself, someone else has them too 1 time in 14.
Not every AA is the same AA
Of all 1,167,480 PLO6 hands with exactly two Aces, does each Ace have a suit partner?
| PLO6 hand with exactly two Aces | Share |
|---|---|
| Both Aces have a suit partner | 44.9% |
| One Ace has a suit partner | 49.6% |
| No suit partner at all | 5.5% |
The last group is rare. It is the “Aces suited to nothing” of The importance of suited Aces in PLO6 — which, with junk beside it, ranks Top 52%.
Before anyone acts
Everything on this page is about dealt cards, right after the deal and before any action. Once the betting starts, who stays in changes the count: after a raise and a 3-bet, the players still in the pot are not six random hands. (In a bomb pot everyone sees the flop, so there the dealt odds are exactly what is in the pot.)
How we counted
- “AA” means at least two Aces in the hand (in your own hand, in the last table, exactly two).
- Exact: one player’s chance is counted three independent ways, including a full enumeration of all 20,358,520 PLO6 hands. The table figures are counted two independent ways (enumerating where the four Aces can land, and inclusion–exclusion).
- Cross-checks: a Monte Carlo simulation of every scenario, the Hold'em control (1 in 221, the textbook figure), and the ProPokerTools audit above.