99
81.78%
Wins 81.40%, ties 0.77%
22
18.22%
Wins 17.83%, ties 0.77%
99 against 22: the numbers
| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | 81.397 | 0.772 | 17.831 | 81.783 |
| 22 | 17.831 | 0.772 | 81.397 | 18.217 |
Both hands are pocket pairs: 99 and 22. Two pairs against each other is a one-way street: the lower pair needs one of its two remaining cards.
This is one of the lopsided matchups: 22 wins only 17.83% of the boards outright. Ties are part of the picture: 0.77% of boards end in a split pot, and each side counts that as half a win.
The hand ranking puts 99 at 6 and 22 at 87 out of 169 starting hands.
| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | 50,176,000 | 476,000 | 10,992,000 |
| 22 | 10,992,000 | 476,000 | 50,176,000 |
Exact total: 36 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.
| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99 | 4.489 | 1.229 | 5.608 | 0.223 |
| 22 | 0.223 | 5.608 | 1.229 | 4.489 |
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
The flop changes the picture. 99 does best on paired flops, at 86.58%, and worst on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), at 73.90%. 99 stays ahead on all five textures.
| Flop | Share of flops | 99 wins | Ties | 22 wins | 99 equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.844 | 82.677 | 0.411 | 16.912 | 82.883 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.065 | 73.354 | 1.085 | 25.561 | 73.896 |
| Two-tone | 46.363 | 80.549 | 0.506 | 18.945 | 80.802 |
| Monotone | 5.152 | 75.100 | 2.750 | 22.150 | 76.475 |
| Paired | 17.576 | 85.911 | 1.334 | 12.755 | 86.578 |
Read the flop types this way: rainbow has three suits, two-tone has two cards of one suit, monotone has three, and paired repeats a rank.
Compared with a random hand
Compared with a random opponent, this matchup shifts 99 from 72.06% by +9.72 points and 22 from 50.33% by -32.11 points.
| Case | Equity here | Against a random hand | Change in points | Times the random-hand equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99, all flops | 81.783 | 72.057 | +9.726 | 1.13498 |
| 99, rainbow, ten or higher | 82.883 | 72.057 | +10.826 | 1.15024 |
| 99, rainbow, nine or lower | 73.896 | 72.057 | +1.839 | 1.02552 |
| 99, two-tone | 80.802 | 72.057 | +8.745 | 1.12136 |
| 99, monotone | 76.475 | 72.057 | +4.418 | 1.06131 |
| 99, paired | 86.578 | 72.057 | +14.521 | 1.20152 |
| 22, all flops | 18.217 | 50.334 | -32.117 | 0.36192 |
| 22, rainbow, ten or higher | 17.117 | 50.334 | -33.217 | 0.34007 |
| 22, rainbow, nine or lower | 26.104 | 50.334 | -24.230 | 0.51862 |
| 22, two-tone | 19.198 | 50.334 | -31.136 | 0.38141 |
| 22, monotone | 23.525 | 50.334 | -26.809 | 0.46738 |
| 22, paired | 13.422 | 50.334 | -36.912 | 0.26666 |
Does a shared suit matter?
When the hands share a suit, 99 holds 81.92%; when they do not, it holds 81.12%. 99 does better with a shared suit, by 0.80 points.
| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | 99 wins | Ties | 22 wins | 99 equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share a suit | 30 | 83.33 | 81.526 | 0.779 | 17.695 | 81.915 |
| No shared suit | 6 | 16.67 | 80.752 | 0.735 | 18.513 | 81.119 |
How often this matchup comes up
The class pair covers 36 combinations of specific cards in a fixed seat order, 0.0022% of 1,624,350, and 72 (0.0044%) in either order.
A worked example
Worked example: both players commit $100, so $200 sits in the middle. Over every board, 99's average share is $163.56 (a gain of $63.56) and 22's is $36.44 (a loss of $63.56).
Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 814 for 99, 178 for 22 and 8 ties.
The same matchup from the other side
22 versus 99 is this same page seen from the other hand: 18.22% for 22, 81.78% for 99.
Keep exploring
The calculator link fills in 9s9h against 2d2c, a deal where the two hands share no suit. Change any card to test your own hand. The neighboring matchups below swap one of the two hands for one of similar strength.
How this was computed
This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 36 ways to deal one 99 and one 22 without reusing a card, grouped by suit pattern, every one of the 1,712,304 possible boards is dealt and both seven-card hands are compared. A tie counts as half a win in the equity column, and each board is counted once under each of its ten three-card flops.
Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used.
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