KJs combos

KJs: the 4 combos

For KJs, the king and the jack must share a suit. With 4 suits and one way to pair them in each, the count is 4.

The 4 holdings of KJs are listed below, higher card first. Nothing is left out and nothing appears twice.

• K♠J♠
• K♥J♥
• K♦J♦
• K♣J♣

How cards you can see change the count

Combos shrink when cards are visible. The rows below give the KJs count left after one known card of each rank, from the ace down to the two.

A king or a jack you can see leaves 3 of 4, so 25% of the combos are gone. Any card of a different rank leaves all 4 combos in play.

When the board is paired

Now put two cards of the same rank on the board. This table counts the combos of KJs that are still possible after a board pair of each rank.

Pairing kings or jacks on the board cuts KJs to 2 combos. Every other paired board leaves the full 4.

A worked example

Walk through it once. Your hole cards: a king and a two. Your opponent's possible hands: 1,225. Of those, KJs is 3, so the chance is 3 / 1,225 = 0.24%. With no blocking card it would be 4 / 1,225 = 0.33%.

How strong is KJs?

The ranking puts KJs at number 20 out of 169, inside the top 30 classes. Its equity against a random hand is 62.57%, with a tie counted as half a win.

A range that runs from the top of the ranking down to KJs is 130 combos, 9.80% of all two-card hands, and 126 of them rank above KJs itself.

KJs against ranges of hands

Here is how KJs fares against five ranges that run from the top of the ranking down. It scores 36.89% against the top 5 percent (60 combos), 38.04% against the top 10 percent (130 combos), 45.10% against the top 20 percent (264 combos), 49.01% against the top 30 percent (386 combos) and 56.60% against the top 50 percent (658 combos).

The line sits between the top 30 and top 50 percent: KJs is behind the narrower range and ahead of the wider one.

The top 10 percent is 130 combos before you look at your cards. With KJs in your hand, an average of 114.00 are left. That is 16.00 combos fewer than the 130 an opponent has before you look.

Hands next to KJs

Rank is a number on a list, and the matchups with the neighbours show how close or far apart the hands really are. KJs has 43.62% equity against ATo, the hand ranked number 19: it wins 43.39% of boards, ties 0.46% and loses 56.15%. It is the underdog in that matchup. KJs has 43.10% equity against A8s, the hand ranked number 21: it wins 42.85% of boards, ties 0.49% and loses 56.66%. It is the underdog in that matchup.

KJo is 3 times as many combos but 2.00 points weaker against a random hand, and KJo is the offsuit twin, number 26 of 169 with 60.57% equity.

Questions about KJs combos

How many combos of KJs are there?

4 combos, which is 0.30% of the 1,326 two-card starting hands, so you are dealt KJs about 1 time in 331.5.

How many KJs combos are left if I hold a king?

3 combos of KJs remain out of 4. With a two as your other card, an opponent has it about 1 time in 408.

Is KJs stronger than KJo?

Yes, by 2.00 points: KJs has 62.57% equity against a random hand and ranks number 20, while KJo has 60.57% and ranks number 26. KJo has 12 combos to KJs's 4.

How this was computed

Every KJs combo was listed from the 1,326 two-card holdings. For each blocker or board-pair row, the combos that contain a visible card were dropped and the rest were counted.

The rank and equity figures use our matchup table, which counts all 1,712,304 boards for each pair of classes. Ties are halves, and range matchups are weighted by live combos.

Source: GeorgeLiPoker's own count of the 52-card deck and its preflop matchup table.