88 vs 22: preflop equity

Counting every board, the equity split is 81.65% for 88 and 18.35% for 22, so 88 leads by 63.30 points.

88

81.65%

Wins 81.13%, ties 1.04%

22

18.35%

Wins 17.83%, ties 1.04%

Equity counts a tie as half a win. Exact over every board.

88 against 22: the numbers

Exact preflop results for 88 against 22, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
8881.1281.04117.83181.648
2217.8311.04181.12818.352

Both hands are pocket pairs: 88 and 22. Both hands are pairs, so the bigger pair is ahead on every board that does not pair a card below it.

This is one of the lopsided matchups: 22 wins only 17.83% of the boards outright. The tie share is 1.04%: on those boards the pot is chopped and neither hand wins outright.

For context, 88 sits at number 7 of 169 starting hands and 22 at number 87 when each is run against a random hand.

Boards behind the percentages: 61,642,944 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
8850,010,000642,00010,992,000
2210,992,000642,00050,010,000

The total is exact: 36 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.

88 against 22 read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
884.4491.2335.6080.225
220.2255.6081.2334.449

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

88 prefers paired flops, where it holds 86.10%, and likes low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) least, where it holds 74.23%. 88 stays ahead on all five textures.

88 against 22 by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flops88 winsTies22 wins88 equity
Rainbow, ten or higher25.84482.4440.60116.95582.745
Rainbow, nine or lower5.06573.7970.86325.34074.229
Two-tone46.36380.4270.62818.94580.741
Monotone5.15274.9712.87922.15076.410
Paired17.57684.9572.28812.75586.101

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

The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of +12.49 points for 88, from 69.16%, and -31.98 for 22, from 50.33%.

88 and 22 here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
88, all flops81.64869.163+12.4851.18052
88, rainbow, ten or higher82.74569.163+13.5821.19638
88, rainbow, nine or lower74.22969.163+5.0661.07325
88, two-tone80.74169.163+11.5781.16740
88, monotone76.41069.163+7.2471.10478
88, paired86.10169.163+16.9381.24490
22, all flops18.35250.334-31.9820.36460
22, rainbow, ten or higher17.25550.334-33.0790.34281
22, rainbow, nine or lower25.77150.334-24.5630.51200
22, two-tone19.25950.334-31.0750.38262
22, monotone23.59050.334-26.7440.46867
22, paired13.89950.334-36.4350.27614

Does a shared suit matter?

Of the deals of this matchup, 30 share a suit (88 at 81.78%) and 6 do not (80.99%). 88 does better with a shared suit, by 0.79 points.

88 against 22 by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of deals88 winsTies22 wins88 equity
Share a suit3083.3381.2571.04817.69581.781
No shared suit616.6780.4831.00418.51380.985

How often this matchup comes up

This page stands for 36 specific-card matchups (0.0022% of 1,624,350 ordered deals), or 72 once you count the seats both ways (0.0044%).

A worked example

Worked example: both players commit $100, so $200 sits in the middle. Over every board, 88's average share is $163.30 (a gain of $63.30) and 22's is $36.70 (a loss of $63.30).

Over a long run, 1,000 deals split into about 811 for 88, 178 for 22 and 11 tied.

The same matchup from the other side

Swap the hands and you get 22 with 18.35% against 88 with 81.65%. We keep one page per matchup, with the better-ranked hand first.

The calculator link fills in 8s8h against 2d2c, a deal where the two hands share no suit. Change any card to test your own hand. The neighboring matchups below swap one of the two hands for one of similar strength.

How this was computed

Each figure is a complete count over boards. Take the 36 specific deals, group them by suit pattern, deal all 1,712,304 boards against each, and compare the two seven-card hands. Equity counts a tie as half a win; the flop rows use every one of a board's ten flops.

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

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