--- title: "88 vs 87s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-87s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-87s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "88 is a big favorite over 87s before the flop: 81.97% to 18.04% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-86s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-87s.md"] --- # 88 vs 87s: preflop equity 88 is a big favorite over 87s before the flop: 81.97% to 18.04% 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, 88 finishes with 81.97% of the pot and 87s with 18.03%. ## 88 against 87s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for 88 against 87s, in percent** | 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. **Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all** | 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. **88 against 87s read as odds** | 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. **88 against 87s by flop texture, in percent** | 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. **88 and 87s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 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. **88 against 87s by suit overlap, in percent** | 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. - [Open 8s8h against 8d7d in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=8s8h&p2=8d7d) - [88 combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/88.md) - [87s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/87s.md) - [88 vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-86s.md) - [88 vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-76s.md) - [AKs vs 87s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-87s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## 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. ## Related - [88 vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-86s.md) - [88 vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-76s.md) - [AKs vs 87s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-87s.md)