22 vs 43s: preflop equity

22 against 43s: the numbers

22 is a pocket pair and 43s is a suited hand. A pair against two higher cards is the classic race: the pair is usually a small favorite or close to even, and each overcard that pairs is a way to take the lead.

22 leads by less than 1 points of equity, so the result of any one deal is close to a toss-up. Ties are 3.87% of the outcomes here; each tied board gives both hands half the pot.

The hand ranking puts 22 at 87 and 43s at 150 out of 169 starting hands.

24 specific deals times 1,712,304 boards gives the exact total. The won, tied and lost counts are approximations from the five-decimal percentages, rounded to the nearest thousand.

The last column is the smallest pot odds, written as a pot-to-call ratio, at which a call breaks even with this equity.

Who is ahead on which flops

22 prefers paired flops, where it holds 54.32%, and likes low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) least, where it holds 40.55%. 43s takes over on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), two-tone flops and monotone flops, so the favorite before the flop is the underdog on those boards.

Rainbow flops have three suits, two-tone flops repeat one suit, monotone flops are all one suit, and paired flops repeat a rank.

Compared with a random hand

Each hand has a baseline against a random hand: 50.33% for 22, 38.64% for 43s. Here the change is -0.06 and +11.09 points.

Does a shared suit matter?

The suit split reads 50.40% for 22 with a shared suit and 50.13% without one. 22 does better with a shared suit, by 0.27 points.

How often this matchup comes up

Counting specific cards, 22 against 43s appears in 24 of the 1,624,350 ordered heads-up deals (0.0015%), and in 48 when the seats are swapped too (0.0030%).

A worked example

With $100 from each side, the $200 pot is split on average as $100.54 for 22 and $99.46 for 43s; the first side gains $0.54 per all-in and the second gives up $0.54.

A thousand deals look like this: 22 takes 483, 43s takes 478, 39 are ties.

The same matchup from the other side

Swap the hands and you get 43s with 49.73% against 22 with 50.27%. We keep one page per matchup, with the better-ranked hand first.

Keep exploring

Try 2s2h against 4d3d in the calculator: the hands share no suit, and every card can be changed. The links after it are the closest matchups in the ranking.

• Open 2s2h against 4d3d in the equity calculator
• 22 combos
• 43s combos
• 97s vs 43s
• 22 vs 53s
• 98s vs 43s
• All hand matchups