--- title: "88 vs A3s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-a3s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-a3s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "88 is a big favorite over A3s before the flop: 66.69% to 33.31% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-qjo.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-k9o.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-a3s.md"] --- # 88 vs A3s: preflop equity 88 is a big favorite over A3s before the flop: 66.69% to 33.31% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Dealt all in against each other, 88 takes 66.69% of the pot on average and A3s takes the other 33.31%. ## 88 against A3s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for 88 against A3s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 88 | 66.479 | 0.425 | 33.096 | 66.691 | | A3s | 33.096 | 0.425 | 66.479 | 33.309 | The matchup pits a pocket pair against a suited hand. One of the other hand's cards outranks the pair and one is below it, which makes this a closer race than a pair against two small cards. 88 is well ahead, and A3s needs a specific kind of board to catch up. A split pot comes up on 0.43% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that. The hand ranking puts 88 at 7 and A3s at 38 out of 169 starting hands. **Boards behind the percentages: 41,095,296 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 88 | 27,320,000 | 175,000 | 13,601,000 | | A3s | 13,601,000 | 175,000 | 27,320,000 | Exact total: 24 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. **88 against A3s 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 | 2.002 | 1.504 | 3.022 | 0.499 | | A3s | 0.499 | 3.022 | 1.504 | 2.002 | 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 Break the boards down by their first three cards and 88 is strongest on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) (78.66%) and weakest on monotone flops (62.80%). 88 stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **88 against A3s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | 88 wins | Ties | A3s wins | 88 equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.220 | 66.120 | 0.199 | 33.681 | 66.219 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.689 | 78.240 | 0.847 | 20.913 | 78.663 | | Two-tone | 46.545 | 65.148 | 0.294 | 34.558 | 65.295 | | Monotone | 5.212 | 61.600 | 2.399 | 36.001 | 62.799 | | Paired | 17.334 | 68.181 | 0.374 | 31.445 | 68.368 | 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 A random hand would give 88 69.16% and A3s 58.22%. Against each other the change is -2.47 points for 88 and -24.91 for A3s. **88 and A3s 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 | 66.691 | 69.163 | -2.472 | 0.96426 | | 88, rainbow, ten or higher | 66.219 | 69.163 | -2.944 | 0.95743 | | 88, rainbow, nine or lower | 78.663 | 69.163 | +9.500 | 1.13736 | | 88, two-tone | 65.295 | 69.163 | -3.868 | 0.94407 | | 88, monotone | 62.799 | 69.163 | -6.364 | 0.90799 | | 88, paired | 68.368 | 69.163 | -0.795 | 0.98851 | | A3s, all flops | 33.309 | 58.220 | -24.911 | 0.57212 | | A3s, rainbow, ten or higher | 33.781 | 58.220 | -24.439 | 0.58023 | | A3s, rainbow, nine or lower | 21.337 | 58.220 | -36.883 | 0.36649 | | A3s, two-tone | 34.705 | 58.220 | -23.515 | 0.59610 | | A3s, monotone | 37.201 | 58.220 | -21.019 | 0.63897 | | A3s, paired | 31.632 | 58.220 | -26.588 | 0.54332 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Split by suits, the deals give 88 66.99% when the hands overlap in a suit and 66.39% when they do not. 88 does better with a shared suit, by 0.60 points. **88 against A3s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | 88 wins | Ties | A3s wins | 88 equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 12 | 50.00 | 66.757 | 0.472 | 32.771 | 66.993 | | No shared suit | 12 | 50.00 | 66.201 | 0.379 | 33.420 | 66.390 | ## How often this matchup comes up Out of 1,624,350 ways to deal two seats two cards each, 24 are 88 in one seat and A3s in the other (0.0015%); with the seats swapped too, 48 (0.0030%). ## A worked example Take a $200 pot built from $100 each. 88's equity of 66.69% is worth $133.38, a $33.38 edge, and A3s' 33.31% is worth $66.62, which is $33.38 under its stake. Think in thousands: about 665 of 1,000 go to 88, about 331 go to A3s, and about 4 are chopped. ## The same matchup from the other side A3s versus 88 is this same page seen from the other hand: 33.31% for A3s, 66.69% for 88. ## Keep exploring 8s8h against Ad3d 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 Ad3d in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=8s8h&p2=Ad3d) - [88 combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/88.md) - [A3s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a3s.md) - [88 vs QJo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-qjo.md) - [88 vs K9o](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-k9o.md) - [AKs vs A3s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-a3s.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 24 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 - [88 vs QJo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-qjo.md) - [88 vs K9o: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/88-vs-k9o.md) - [AKs vs A3s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-a3s.md)