---
title: "87s vs 54s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-54s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-54s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "87s is a big favorite over 54s before the flop: 62.50% to 37.50% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-64s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-53s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/86s-vs-54s.md"]
---

# 87s vs 54s: preflop equity

87s is a big favorite over 54s before the flop: 62.50% to 37.50% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, 87s finishes with 62.50% of the pot and 54s with 37.50%.

## 87s against 54s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for 87s against 54s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 87s | 60.371 | 4.261 | 35.368 | 62.502 |
| 54s | 35.368 | 4.261 | 60.371 | 37.498 |

Each side holds one of the suited hands: 87s and 54s. With no overlap in ranks, every card that pairs one hand is a card that does not pair the other.

A 25.00 point lead is real, and 54s still takes about 354 of every 1,000 deals outright. A split pot comes up on 4.26% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that.

In the ranking of all 169 starting hands, 87s is number 100 and 54s is number 136.

**Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all**

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 87s | 16,540,000 | 1,167,000 | 9,690,000 |
| 54s | 9,690,000 | 1,167,000 | 16,540,000 |

The total is exact: 16 specific deals times 1,712,304 boards. The three counts are approximate, worked out from the percentages to five decimals and rounded to the nearest thousand.

**87s against 54s read as odds**

| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 87s | 1.667 | 1.656 | 2.827 | 0.600 |
| 54s | 0.600 | 2.827 | 1.656 | 1.667 |

The final column gives the least the pot must offer for each unit called for a call to break even at this equity.

## Who is ahead on which flops

Break the boards down by their first three cards and 87s is strongest on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better (64.16%) and weakest on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) (59.36%). 87s stays ahead on all five textures.

**87s against 54s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | 87s wins | Ties | 54s wins | 87s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.844 | 62.360 | 3.609 | 34.031 | 64.164 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.065 | 59.070 | 0.570 | 40.360 | 59.355 |
| Two-tone | 46.727 | 61.027 | 2.758 | 36.215 | 62.406 |
| Monotone | 5.273 | 57.735 | 5.167 | 37.098 | 60.319 |
| Paired | 17.091 | 56.767 | 10.174 | 33.059 | 61.854 |

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

Start from the random-hand figures, 47.94% for 87s and 41.45% for 54s. This opponent changes them by +14.56 and -3.95 points.

**87s and 54s 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 87s, all flops | 62.502 | 47.936 | +14.566 | 1.30386 |
| 87s, rainbow, ten or higher | 64.164 | 47.936 | +16.228 | 1.33853 |
| 87s, rainbow, nine or lower | 59.355 | 47.936 | +11.419 | 1.23821 |
| 87s, two-tone | 62.406 | 47.936 | +14.470 | 1.30186 |
| 87s, monotone | 60.319 | 47.936 | +12.383 | 1.25832 |
| 87s, paired | 61.854 | 47.936 | +13.918 | 1.29035 |
| 54s, all flops | 37.498 | 41.453 | -3.955 | 0.90459 |
| 54s, rainbow, ten or higher | 35.836 | 41.453 | -5.617 | 0.86450 |
| 54s, rainbow, nine or lower | 40.645 | 41.453 | -0.808 | 0.98051 |
| 54s, two-tone | 37.594 | 41.453 | -3.859 | 0.90691 |
| 54s, monotone | 39.681 | 41.453 | -1.772 | 0.95725 |
| 54s, paired | 38.146 | 41.453 | -3.307 | 0.92022 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Suit overlap shows up in the numbers. With a suit in common 87s has 64.85% equity, and with none in common it has 61.72%. 87s does better with a shared suit, by 3.13 points.

**87s against 54s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | 87s wins | Ties | 54s wins | 87s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 62.562 | 4.579 | 32.859 | 64.852 |
| No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 59.640 | 4.156 | 36.204 | 61.718 |

## How often this matchup comes up

87s against 54s is made up of 16 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0010% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 32 counting both seat orders, 0.0020%.

## A worked example

Try it with money: two players each put in $100 and the whole board runs out every possible way. 87s averages $125.00 from the $200, up $25.00; 54s averages $75.00, down $25.00.

Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 604 for 87s, 354 for 54s and 42 ties.

## The same matchup from the other side

54s against 87s adds nothing new: it is 37.50% for 54s and 62.50% for 87s, the same figures reversed.

## Keep exploring

8s7s against 5h4h is a ready-made deal for the calculator, with no suit in common between the hands. The neighboring matchups below replace one hand with another of similar strength.

- [Open 8s7s against 5h4h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=8s7s&p2=5h4h)
- [87s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/87s.md)
- [54s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/54s.md)
- [87s vs 64s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-64s.md)
- [87s vs 53s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-53s.md)
- [86s vs 54s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/86s-vs-54s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

All 1,712,304 five-card boards are dealt for every suit pattern among the 16 specific deals of 87s against 54s, and both hands are scored on each. That is a full count, so the percentages are exact. Ties are half a win each, and each board appears once per flop it contains.

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

## Related

- [87s vs 64s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-64s.md)
- [87s vs 53s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-53s.md)
- [86s vs 54s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/86s-vs-54s.md)