[Acesover8s]

Sherbert,

Interesting post. Granted AAKxds isn't exactly 'just' AAxx, the AA component is the strongest part of the hand, and with money left to bet it can get you in a lot of trouble to have that part of your hand exposed.

A majority of large pot situations in PLO involve one (or more) players holding AA, how you play these situations can account for a majority of your profitability in this game.

One could play no hands other than AA and make a decent profit, providing the game was aggressive enough or you had a small enough stack (and large enough bankroll).

A corollary to that is that one can make a much larger profit by finding out players who misplay AA pre- and post-flop and exploiting them. In the proper circumstances, it can be profitable to play nearly any hand against a overcommitted AA raiser.

The problem with what I believe is your point is that in giving away your hand preflop you are putting yourself in a -EV situation postflop.

There are basically 4 postflop situations:

1) You hit the flop hard: ATT, Axx with a flush draw, 22x, etc. You bet out and pick up the preflop money.

2) You miss and give it up postflop, or worse yet, you miss and bet out anyway, your opponent only calls you when you are behind.

3) You hit a flop like 56K with one of your flush draws and get to play a big pot and hope to get lucky.

4) Occasionally, occasionally, you will hit a hand like A77 and your opponent will decide you must have AKQJ and pays you off with his trip 7s, this is very rare however.

Grated, all of this assumes your opponents are somehwhat savvy and have some cardreading ability, which is not necessarily true in games of this size.