Don’t Overvalue Aces in PLO

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Arved Klöhn Pokerlistings Author
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: February 12, 2025

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Arved Klöhn Content Writer
  • Fact Checked by: PokerListings
  • Last updated on: February 12, 2025 · 6 minutes to read

Table of Content

Why Aces are Overvalued in PLO

Aces in PLO play best when:

  • Stacks are short and/or
  • You can get a large portion of your stack in before the flop

With aces your goal is to get yourself pot committed so no matter what the flop you’ll be getting all-in. How much of your stack you need to get into the middle before being committed is up for debate, but ideally you’d want your flop bet to be less than a pot-sized bet to get all-in.

How you get yourself committed is another thing. You have to pay attention to your stack size as well as anyone else in the hand. If you realize that the pre-flop raiser has a shallow stack, you can re-raise if you know you’ll be heads up because you’ll have no problem getting committed versus his stack size.
You can also limp and hope someone behind you pots it and gets a few callers in order to repot it and get a huge bet in.

Hey Guys, I Have Aces

Be careful: you have to make sure that this bet will get you committed. Nothing is worse than making a large pre-flop raise that doesn’t get you committed and you’re left in the dark after the flop.

If you can’t get committed you’re better off just calling, keeping your aces concealed, and seeing a flop. When you raise or re-raise and tell the table you have aces. But you don’t get enough of your stack in to be committed, you’re in an extremely dangerous spot.

The table knows you have aces and can play perfectly against you but you have no clue what the other players have. You’re left guessing, which is why it’s often better to just call a raise and keep aces hidden if you can’t get a large, committing raise in.

Example: You open-raise to 3x from the cutoff with A A 2 3 and a 30-big-blind stack. One opponent on the button, who covers you, re-raises to 9x. Because calling leaves you with less than a pot-sized bet behind, pushing all-in now makes sense, as it gets you fully committed pre-flop.

Not All Aces are Created Equal

Just like some rundowns are better than others, some aces are better than others. And just because you have aces that doesn’t mean you have a good hand. Yes, aces are probably a favorite over most other hands. But that’s if you can get to showdown, which is no guarantee.

Best Hands in PLO Have More Ways to Win

You’ll start to see a common theme emerging in these articles. The best hands have more than one way to win. They don’t just depend on one aspect of the hand – they’re multi-faceted.

The best aces have a little something to go along with them, be it a nut suit, or straight potential, or whatever. Some examples of good aces would be:

  • A A 10 J
  • A A K Q
  • A A 5 5

It should be easy to determine how good your aces actually are. Good aces have something else to go along with the aces – flush potential, straight potential, other set potential, etc. Aces themselves are great, but with a few Plan Bs they’re even better.

If your aces are especially strong you don’t even need to worry about broadcasting to the whole table you have aces because you have so much else going for you that they don’t know

Bad Aces

Bad aces are just the opposite. They’re aces and that’s it. They have no other potential and the only way they’re probably going to win is by using the aces at showdown. These aces are difficult to play and very weak. If you can’t get committed with these, it’s better to just call and see a flop with your aces hidden.

Case Study:

$1/$2 Pot-Limit Omaha game; $400 effective stacks. There are two limpers to the button, who makes it $6. You have A A 4 9  in the small blind.

What Should You Do?

In this spot you should almost always just call. Your aces are raggedy, you’re out of position, and the stacks are deep so you have no chance of getting committed. But let’s change the example just slightly.

$1/$2 PLO game. You have a $50 stack. The UTG player makes it $6 and two players call behind him. You’re still in the small blind with your raggedy A A 4 9 . But now there’s $21 in the pot and your maximum raise is $27.

You can get more than pot committed by getting more than 50% of your stack in. So make that pot raise and shovel the rest in on any flop that comes!

Example: With a short $50 stack, you pot it to $27. This already commits more than half your chips. On any flop, you only have around $23 left, so pushing all-in is straightforward, and you leverage maximum fold equity pre-flop.

How to Play Aces Right in PLO

Aces in PLO are a fine line between awesome and awful. Aces get new players into trouble far more often than any other hand in PLO. Players come over from Hold’em thinking that aces are the stone cold nuts but in Omaha they’re just another hand.
However, if you’re smart and you can recognize the strength of your aces – times you can get committed and the times you can’t, when you have strong aces and when you have weak aces – it’ll help de-mystify them and help you understand the entire game of Omaha better.

Watch our strategy video below on how to play aces better in Pot-Limit Omaha:

Deep-Stack Play with Aces

When stacks get deeper, the complexities of playing aces in PLO increase. You often face multi-street decisions where your opponents have room to represent an array of draws. Instead of simply shoving pre-flop, you have to plan your bets across multiple streets. Deeper stacks require balancing aggression with caution, especially when you hold marginal side cards that limit your additional equity beyond the pair.

One of the biggest challenges of deep-stack PLO is that your aces rarely stay ahead of the entire table if you fail to thin the field. When several opponents enter the pot, the chance of one of them connecting with a flop, turn, or river—and cracking your pair—rises. Your strategy should revolve around taking control of the pot pre-flop whenever you can, but be prepared to pivot if the flop texture or betting action starts to look unfavorable.

Managing Multi-Street Pot Geometry

Keeping track of pot sizes is vital when you have aces in deep-stacked games. If your raise sizes or flop bets are too small, your opponents can draw cheaply, turning mediocre holdings into strong hands by the river. If you overbet early streets, you might bloat the pot in ways that leave you vulnerable if the turn or river brings coordinated board textures.

Try to structure your bets so you can shove the turn or river profitably without giving your opponents too high a price to see additional cards. Pot geometry involves planning back from the river, ensuring that your bets on the flop and turn set up ideal stack-to-pot ratios. With aces, you want to remain the aggressor, but keep enough behind so that your final shove still has fold equity, especially against draws or made hands that haven’t yet improved. A disciplined approach to your bet sizing helps you avoid scenarios where you either lose a massive pot with an overpair or fail to get maximum value when you’re actually ahead.

FAQ

What does it mean to overvalue aces in PLO?

Overvaluing aces in PLO refers to treating them as unbeatable holdings simply because they are the strongest pair. In Omaha, multiple draws and multi-way pots diminish their equity, so aces can become very vulnerable when you cannot commit a large portion of your stack pre-flop.

Why are some aces considered “bad” in Omaha?

Some aces lack supporting side cards or suits that provide additional equity. When your only real strength is the pair of aces and you have no flush or straight potential, your hand becomes much weaker in multi-way scenarios.

When is it better to just call pre-flop with aces rather than re-raise?

If you cannot get a significant portion of your stack in pre-flop, calling can conceal the fact that you hold aces. This keeps your opponents guessing about your hand strength and helps you avoid tough decisions on flops that do not favor you.

How do deeper stacks change the way you should play aces in PLO?

Deep stacks give opponents more room to see flops, turns, and rivers while drawing to strong hands. You must manage pot geometry carefully, controlling bet sizes so that you either commit effectively by the later streets or can fold when action indicates you may be behind.

Can you fold aces pre-flop in PLO?

While folding aces pre-flop is uncommon, certain extremely deep-stacked or tournament ICM scenarios might justify it if your aces are particularly vulnerable and you face overwhelming action. In most normal stack situations, folding aces pre-flop is very rare.

Are suited aces or coordinated side cards essential for good aces?

Suits and side cards matter because they create additional equity through flush draws, straight draws, or additional set possibilities. Aces combined with coordinated side cards can provide multiple ways to win and reduce your reliance on the pair itself.

How does pot commitment affect your decisions when playing aces?

Pot commitment means you have invested enough of your stack so folding becomes ill-advised. If you can get committed with aces pre-flop, you eliminate many post-flop difficulties. If not, a more cautious approach may be better, especially with weaker side cards.

More on How to Not Suck at Pot-Limit Omaha:

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