88 vs AJo: preflop equity

The exact count puts 88 at 55.35% and AJo at 44.65% when the two hands see all five board cards.

88

55.35%

Wins 55.17%, ties 0.36%

AJo

44.65%

Wins 44.47%, ties 0.36%

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

88 against AJo: the numbers

Exact preflop results for 88 against AJo, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
8855.1680.36344.46955.350
AJo44.4690.36355.16844.650

The matchup pits a pocket pair against an offsuit hand. One hand holds a pair and the other holds two cards that both outrank it, which keeps the equity closer than most people expect.

That is a modest edge, the kind that shows up over many hands and is easy to miss in one. Of every 100 boards, about 0.36 are split pots, and the equity figures already include them.

In the ranking of all 169 starting hands, 88 is number 7 and AJo is number 15.

Boards behind the percentages: 123,285,888 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
8868,014,000448,00054,824,000
AJo54,824,000448,00068,014,000

72 specific deals times 1,712,304 boards gives the exact total. The won, tied and lost counts are approximations from the five-decimal percentages, rounded to the nearest thousand.

88 against AJo read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
881.2401.8132.2490.807
AJo0.8072.2491.8131.240

The final column gives the least the pot must offer for each unit called for a call to break even at this equity.

Who is ahead on which flops

By flop texture, 88's equity runs from 48.30% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better up to 79.68% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). 88 is the favorite overall but falls behind on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better.

88 against AJo by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flops88 winsTiesAJo wins88 equity
Rainbow, ten or higher24.71748.2220.15751.62148.300
Rainbow, nine or lower6.31479.2680.83019.90279.683
Two-tone46.48554.2030.28245.51554.344
Monotone5.15150.8941.68347.42351.736
Paired17.33360.1570.30939.53460.311

Flop types: rainbow means three different suits, two-tone means one suit twice, monotone means one suit three times, paired means a repeated rank.

Compared with a random hand

The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of -13.81 points for 88, from 69.16%, and -18.91 for AJo, from 63.56%.

88 and AJo here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
88, all flops55.35069.163-13.8130.80028
88, rainbow, ten or higher48.30069.163-20.8630.69835
88, rainbow, nine or lower79.68369.163+10.5201.15210
88, two-tone54.34469.163-14.8190.78574
88, monotone51.73669.163-17.4270.74803
88, paired60.31169.163-8.8520.87201
AJo, all flops44.65063.563-18.9130.70245
AJo, rainbow, ten or higher51.70063.563-11.8630.81337
AJo, rainbow, nine or lower20.31763.563-43.2460.31964
AJo, two-tone45.65663.563-17.9070.71828
AJo, monotone48.26463.563-15.2990.75931
AJo, paired39.68963.563-23.8740.62440

Does a shared suit matter?

When the hands share a suit, 88 holds 55.27%; when they do not, it holds 55.76%. 88 does better with no shared suit, by 0.49 points.

88 against AJo by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of deals88 winsTiesAJo wins88 equity
Share a suit6083.3355.0790.37944.54255.268
No shared suit1216.6755.6160.28344.10155.758

How often this matchup comes up

You will meet this exact matchup 0.0089% of the time in a random heads-up deal: 144 of 1,624,350, counting either seat order.

A worked example

With $100 from each side, the $200 pot is split on average as $110.70 for 88 and $89.30 for AJo; the first side gains $10.70 per all-in and the second gives up $10.70.

Per 1,000 deals: 88 wins about 552, AJo wins about 445, and about 3 end in a split pot.

The same matchup from the other side

The mirror image, AJo against 88, is 44.65% to 55.35%, and its address redirects to this page.

Open the calculator with 8s8h against AdJc already entered, a deal with no shared suit, and change any card to try your own hand. The matchups after it each swap one hand for a nearby one in the ranking.

How this was computed

The figures are counted, not estimated: 1,712,304 boards for every suit pattern of the 72 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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