88 vs 66: preflop equity

Dealt all in against each other, 88 takes 81.44% of the pot on average and 66 takes the other 18.56%.

88

81.44%

Wins 80.98%, ties 0.93%

66

18.56%

Wins 18.09%, ties 0.93%

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

88 against 66: the numbers

Exact preflop results for 88 against 66, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
8880.9810.92718.09281.444
6618.0920.92780.98118.556

Here pocket pairs face each other, 88 on one side and 66 on the other. A pair against a smaller pair is the classic crush: the smaller pair needs one of its two remaining cards to make a set.

That is a heavy lead: 66 needs the board to help it on most runouts and still falls behind far more often than not. About 0.93% of boards chop the pot, which is why equity sits slightly above the win figure for both hands.

The hand ranking puts 88 at 7 and 66 at 17 out of 169 starting hands.

Boards behind the percentages: 61,642,944 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
8849,919,000571,00011,152,000
6611,152,000571,00049,919,000

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 66 read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
884.3891.2355.5270.228
660.2285.5271.2354.389

The last column is the break-even price: the pot odds a call needs to offer, as a ratio of pot to call.

Who is ahead on which flops

88 prefers paired flops, where it holds 85.80%, and likes low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) least, where it holds 72.20%. 88 stays ahead on all five textures.

88 against 66 by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flops88 winsTies66 wins88 equity
Rainbow, ten or higher25.84482.6650.56216.77382.946
Rainbow, nine or lower5.06571.9480.50927.54372.203
Two-tone46.36380.3120.54219.14680.583
Monotone5.15274.8761.99723.12775.874
Paired17.57684.6602.28813.05285.804

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

Against one random hand instead, 88 holds 69.16% and 66 holds 63.29%. Facing each other changes that by +12.28 points for 88 and -44.73 points for 66.

88 and 66 here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
88, all flops81.44469.163+12.2811.17757
88, rainbow, ten or higher82.94669.163+13.7831.19928
88, rainbow, nine or lower72.20369.163+3.0401.04395
88, two-tone80.58369.163+11.4201.16512
88, monotone75.87469.163+6.7111.09703
88, paired85.80469.163+16.6411.24061
66, all flops18.55663.285-44.7290.29321
66, rainbow, ten or higher17.05463.285-46.2310.26948
66, rainbow, nine or lower27.79763.285-35.4880.43924
66, two-tone19.41763.285-43.8680.30682
66, monotone24.12663.285-39.1590.38123
66, paired14.19663.285-49.0890.22432

Does a shared suit matter?

Of the deals of this matchup, 30 share a suit (88 at 81.58%) and 6 do not (80.76%). 88 does better with a shared suit, by 0.82 points.

88 against 66 by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of deals88 winsTies66 wins88 equity
Share a suit3083.3381.1100.94217.94881.581
No shared suit616.6780.3370.85118.81280.762

How often this matchup comes up

88 against 66 is made up of 36 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0022% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 72 counting both seat orders, 0.0044%.

A worked example

Take a $200 pot built from $100 each. 88's equity of 81.44% is worth $162.88, a $62.88 edge, and 66's 18.56% is worth $37.12, which is $62.88 under its stake.

A thousand deals look like this: 88 takes 810, 66 takes 181, 9 are ties.

The same matchup from the other side

The mirror image, 66 against 88, is 18.56% to 81.44%, and its address redirects to this page.

8s8h against 6d6c 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.

How this was computed

The page is built from a full enumeration: 1,712,304 boards, every suit pattern of the 36 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.

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