---
title: "54s vs 43s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/54s-vs-43s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/54s-vs-43s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "Who is ahead, 54s or 43s? 54s leads 59.31% to 40.70% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/64s-vs-43s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/54s-vs-53s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/65s-vs-43s.md"]
---

# 54s vs 43s: preflop equity

Who is ahead, 54s or 43s? 54s leads 59.31% to 40.70% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

The exact count puts 54s at 59.31% and 43s at 40.69% when the two hands see all five board cards.

## 54s against 43s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for 54s against 43s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 54s | 43.670 | 31.270 | 25.060 | 59.305 |
| 43s | 25.060 | 31.270 | 43.670 | 40.695 |

Two suited hands meet here: 54s against 43s. Sharing a rank is the signature of a dominated hand, since the weaker hand is usually out-kicked when the shared rank shows up.

54s is ahead, but 43s is far from dead: it takes 250 of every 1,000 deals outright. Ties are part of the picture: 31.27% of boards end in a split pot, and each side counts that as half a win.

Ranked by equity against a random hand, 54s is number 136 of the 169 starting hands and 43s is number 150.

**Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all**

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 54s | 8,973,000 | 6,425,000 | 5,149,000 |
| 43s | 5,149,000 | 6,425,000 | 8,973,000 |

Exact total: 12 deals times 1,712,304 boards. The other three counts come from the five-decimal percentages and are rounded to the nearest thousand, so read them as approximate.

**54s against 43s read as odds**

| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 54s | 1.457 | 2.290 | 3.990 | 0.686 |
| 43s | 0.686 | 3.990 | 2.290 | 1.457 |

In the last column, a pot-to-call ratio at or above the figure makes a call break even or better at this equity.

## Who is ahead on which flops

The flop changes the picture. 54s does best on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), at 62.94%, and worst on monotone flops, at 56.55%. 54s stays ahead on all five textures.

**54s against 43s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | 54s wins | Ties | 43s wins | 54s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.844 | 43.327 | 33.838 | 22.835 | 60.246 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.065 | 52.358 | 21.153 | 26.489 | 62.935 |
| Two-tone | 46.543 | 45.247 | 27.980 | 26.773 | 59.237 |
| Monotone | 5.215 | 44.808 | 23.482 | 31.710 | 56.549 |
| Paired | 17.333 | 37.063 | 41.579 | 21.358 | 57.852 |

A rainbow flop shows three suits, a two-tone flop repeats one suit, a monotone flop is a single suit, and a paired flop repeats a rank.

## Compared with a random hand

Each hand has a baseline against a random hand: 41.45% for 54s, 38.64% for 43s. Here the change is +17.86 and +2.05 points.

**54s and 43s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent**

| Case | Equity here | Against a random hand | Change in points | Times the random-hand equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 54s, all flops | 59.305 | 41.453 | +17.852 | 1.43066 |
| 54s, rainbow, ten or higher | 60.246 | 41.453 | +18.793 | 1.45336 |
| 54s, rainbow, nine or lower | 62.935 | 41.453 | +21.482 | 1.51823 |
| 54s, two-tone | 59.237 | 41.453 | +17.784 | 1.42902 |
| 54s, monotone | 56.549 | 41.453 | +15.096 | 1.36417 |
| 54s, paired | 57.852 | 41.453 | +16.399 | 1.39560 |
| 43s, all flops | 40.695 | 38.642 | +2.053 | 1.05313 |
| 43s, rainbow, ten or higher | 39.754 | 38.642 | +1.112 | 1.02878 |
| 43s, rainbow, nine or lower | 37.065 | 38.642 | -1.577 | 0.95919 |
| 43s, two-tone | 40.763 | 38.642 | +2.121 | 1.05489 |
| 43s, monotone | 43.451 | 38.642 | +4.809 | 1.12445 |
| 43s, paired | 42.148 | 38.642 | +3.506 | 1.09073 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

These two classes cannot share a suit in any legal deal, so there is only one row to read: 54s holds 59.31% in every deal of this matchup.

**54s against 43s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | 54s wins | Ties | 43s wins | 54s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible |
| No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 43.670 | 31.270 | 25.060 | 59.305 |

## How often this matchup comes up

Exactly 12 specific deals fit this matchup in one seat order, which is 0.0007% of 1,624,350; both orders together give 24, or 0.0015%.

## A worked example

To see what the equity is worth, imagine $100 each in a $200 pot. 54s is worth $118.62 on average (+$18.62); 43s is worth $81.38 (-$18.62).

Per 1,000 deals: 54s wins about 437, 43s wins about 250, and about 313 end in a split pot.

## The same matchup from the other side

One page covers both views. From 43s' side the equity is 40.69%, and from 54s' side it is 59.31%.

## Keep exploring

Try 5s4s against 4h3h 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 5s4s against 4h3h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=5s4s&p2=4h3h)
- [54s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/54s.md)
- [43s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/43s.md)
- [64s vs 43s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/64s-vs-43s.md)
- [54s vs 53s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/54s-vs-53s.md)
- [65s vs 43s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/65s-vs-43s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

The page is built from a full enumeration: 1,712,304 boards, every suit pattern of the 12 specific deals, both seven-card hands evaluated. A tie is worth half a win to each hand, and a board is tallied under each of its ten possible flops for the texture rows.

Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used.

## Related

- [64s vs 43s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/64s-vs-43s.md)
- [54s vs 53s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/54s-vs-53s.md)
- [65s vs 43s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/65s-vs-43s.md)