88
81.97%
Wins 80.27%, ties 3.40%
87s
18.03%
Wins 16.33%, ties 3.40%
88 against 87s: the numbers
| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | 80.267 | 3.396 | 16.337 | 81.965 |
| 87s | 16.337 | 3.396 | 80.267 | 18.035 |
88 and 87s are a pocket pair and a suited hand, in that order. One hand holds a card of the same rank as the pair, which removes a card the pair needs and makes the pair a bigger favorite.
That is a heavy lead: 87s needs the board to help it on most runouts and still falls behind far more often than not. The tie share is 3.40%: on those boards the pot is chopped and neither hand wins outright.
For context, 88 sits at number 7 of 169 starting hands and 87s at number 100 when each is run against a random hand.
| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | 16,493,000 | 698,000 | 3,357,000 |
| 87s | 3,357,000 | 698,000 | 16,493,000 |
The board total is exact, 12 deals at 1,712,304 boards each. Won, tied and lost counts are rounded to the nearest thousand from the five-decimal percentages.
| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | 4.545 | 1.246 | 6.121 | 0.220 |
| 87s | 0.220 | 6.121 | 1.246 | 4.545 |
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
Split by what the flop looks like, 88 peaks at 86.19% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better and bottoms out at 73.76% on monotone flops. 88 stays ahead on all five textures.
| Flop | Share of flops | 88 wins | Ties | 87s wins | 88 equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.786 | 84.785 | 2.804 | 12.411 | 86.187 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 4.995 | 76.198 | 4.697 | 19.105 | 78.546 |
| Two-tone | 46.236 | 79.093 | 2.882 | 18.025 | 80.534 |
| Monotone | 5.152 | 72.004 | 3.507 | 24.489 | 73.757 |
| Paired | 17.831 | 80.304 | 5.191 | 14.505 | 82.900 |
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 87s holds 47.94%. Facing each other changes that by +12.81 points for 88 and -29.91 points for 87s.
| Case | Equity here | Against a random hand | Change in points | Times the random-hand equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88, all flops | 81.965 | 69.163 | +12.802 | 1.18510 |
| 88, rainbow, ten or higher | 86.187 | 69.163 | +17.024 | 1.24614 |
| 88, rainbow, nine or lower | 78.546 | 69.163 | +9.383 | 1.13567 |
| 88, two-tone | 80.534 | 69.163 | +11.371 | 1.16441 |
| 88, monotone | 73.757 | 69.163 | +4.594 | 1.06642 |
| 88, paired | 82.900 | 69.163 | +13.737 | 1.19862 |
| 87s, all flops | 18.035 | 47.936 | -29.901 | 0.37623 |
| 87s, rainbow, ten or higher | 13.813 | 47.936 | -34.123 | 0.28816 |
| 87s, rainbow, nine or lower | 21.454 | 47.936 | -26.482 | 0.44756 |
| 87s, two-tone | 19.466 | 47.936 | -28.470 | 0.40608 |
| 87s, monotone | 26.243 | 47.936 | -21.693 | 0.54746 |
| 87s, paired | 17.100 | 47.936 | -30.836 | 0.35673 |
Does a shared suit matter?
A shared suit is impossible for this matchup, so 88's 81.97% is the answer for every suit pattern.
| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | 88 wins | Ties | 87s wins | 88 equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible |
| No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 80.267 | 3.396 | 16.337 | 81.965 |
How often this matchup comes up
88 against 87s is made up of 12 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0007% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 24 counting both seat orders, 0.0015%.
A worked example
Take a $200 pot built from $100 each. 88's equity of 81.97% is worth $163.94, a $63.94 edge, and 87s' 18.03% is worth $36.06, which is $63.94 under its stake.
Out of 1,000 deals you should see around 803 outright wins for 88, 163 for 87s, and 34 split pots.
The same matchup from the other side
87s against 88 adds nothing new: it is 18.03% for 87s and 81.97% for 88, the same figures reversed.
Keep exploring
8s8h against 8d7d 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 figures are counted, not estimated: 1,712,304 boards for every suit pattern of the 12 specific deals, with both seven-card hands compared each time. Equity gives half a win for a tie. For the flop rows, a board is counted once under each of the ten flops inside it.
Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used.
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