---
title: "87s vs 86s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-86s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-86s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "87s is a big favorite over 86s before the flop: 61.72% to 38.29% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-75s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/97s-vs-86s.md"]
---

# 87s vs 86s: preflop equity

87s is a big favorite over 86s before the flop: 61.72% to 38.29% 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 61.72% of the pot and 86s with 38.28%.

## 87s against 86s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for 87s against 86s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 87s | 49.224 | 24.982 | 25.794 | 61.715 |
| 86s | 25.794 | 24.982 | 49.224 | 38.285 |

Each side holds one of the suited hands: 87s and 86s. The two hands share a rank, and the one with the better other card dominates: it wins most kicker battles when that shared rank hits.

The lead is steady rather than large, and the flop still has plenty of say in who wins. 24.98% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that.

By strength against a random hand, 87s holds place 100 of 169 and 86s holds place 110.

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

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 87s | 10,114,000 | 5,133,000 | 5,300,000 |
| 86s | 5,300,000 | 5,133,000 | 10,114,000 |

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.

**87s against 86s 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 | 1.612 | 2.032 | 3.877 | 0.620 |
| 86s | 0.620 | 3.877 | 2.032 | 1.612 |

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

87s prefers low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), where it holds 64.50%, and likes paired flops least, where it holds 57.12%. 87s stays ahead on all five textures.

**87s against 86s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | 87s wins | Ties | 86s wins | 87s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.844 | 50.925 | 26.156 | 22.919 | 64.003 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.065 | 59.543 | 9.907 | 30.550 | 64.496 |
| Two-tone | 46.543 | 51.817 | 20.754 | 27.429 | 62.194 |
| Monotone | 5.215 | 49.795 | 17.739 | 32.466 | 58.664 |
| Paired | 17.333 | 36.540 | 41.167 | 22.293 | 57.124 |

Flop types: rainbow means three different suits, two-tone means one suit twice, monotone means one suit three times, paired means a repeated rank.

## Compared with a random hand

A random hand would give 87s 47.94% and 86s 46.24%. Against each other the change is +13.78 points for 87s and -7.96 for 86s.

**87s and 86s 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 | 61.715 | 47.936 | +13.779 | 1.28745 |
| 87s, rainbow, ten or higher | 64.003 | 47.936 | +16.067 | 1.33518 |
| 87s, rainbow, nine or lower | 64.496 | 47.936 | +16.560 | 1.34546 |
| 87s, two-tone | 62.194 | 47.936 | +14.258 | 1.29744 |
| 87s, monotone | 58.664 | 47.936 | +10.728 | 1.22380 |
| 87s, paired | 57.124 | 47.936 | +9.188 | 1.19167 |
| 86s, all flops | 38.285 | 46.243 | -7.958 | 0.82791 |
| 86s, rainbow, ten or higher | 35.997 | 46.243 | -10.246 | 0.77843 |
| 86s, rainbow, nine or lower | 35.504 | 46.243 | -10.739 | 0.76777 |
| 86s, two-tone | 37.806 | 46.243 | -8.437 | 0.81755 |
| 86s, monotone | 41.336 | 46.243 | -4.907 | 0.89389 |
| 86s, paired | 42.876 | 46.243 | -3.367 | 0.92719 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Every legal deal of 87s against 86s leaves the hands with no suit in common, so the suit split does not apply here.

**87s against 86s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | 87s wins | Ties | 86s wins | 87s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible |
| No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 49.224 | 24.982 | 25.794 | 61.715 |

## How often this matchup comes up

You will meet this exact matchup 0.0015% of the time in a random heads-up deal: 24 of 1,624,350, counting either seat order.

## A worked example

With $100 from each side, the $200 pot is split on average as $123.44 for 87s and $76.56 for 86s; the first side gains $23.44 per all-in and the second gives up $23.44.

Think in thousands: about 492 of 1,000 go to 87s, about 258 go to 86s, and about 250 are chopped.

## The same matchup from the other side

The reversed view, 86s against 87s, shows 38.28% for 86s and 61.72% for 87s. It is the same count, so it redirects here.

## Keep exploring

8s7s against 8h6h 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 8h6h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=8s7s&p2=8h6h)
- [87s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/87s.md)
- [86s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/86s.md)
- [87s vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-76s.md)
- [87s vs 75s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-75s.md)
- [97s vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/97s-vs-86s.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

- [87s vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-76s.md)
- [87s vs 75s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/87s-vs-75s.md)
- [97s vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/97s-vs-86s.md)