---
title: "A2s vs 86s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-86s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-86s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "Who is ahead, A2s or 86s? A2s leads 55.27% to 44.73% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-75s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qto-vs-86s.md"]
---

# A2s vs 86s: preflop equity

Who is ahead, A2s or 86s? A2s leads 55.27% to 44.73% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

If A2s and 86s get all the chips in before the flop, A2s owns 55.27% of the pot in the long run and 86s owns 44.73%.

## A2s against 86s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for A2s against 86s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A2s | 55.012 | 0.520 | 44.468 | 55.272 |
| 86s | 44.468 | 0.520 | 55.012 | 44.728 |

Both hands are suited hands: A2s and 86s. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits.

A 10.54 point lead is real, and 86s still takes about 445 of every 1,000 deals outright. A split pot comes up on 0.52% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that.

By strength against a random hand, A2s holds place 46 of 169 and 86s holds place 110.

**Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all**

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A2s | 15,072,000 | 142,000 | 12,183,000 |
| 86s | 12,183,000 | 142,000 | 15,072,000 |

Exact total: 16 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.

**A2s against 86s read as odds**

| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A2s | 1.236 | 1.818 | 2.249 | 0.809 |
| 86s | 0.809 | 2.249 | 1.818 | 1.236 |

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

Break the boards down by their first three cards and A2s is strongest on paired flops (61.51%) and weakest on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) (33.38%). Low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) favor 86s, the hand that is behind overall.

**A2s against 86s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | A2s wins | Ties | 86s wins | A2s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.220 | 58.734 | 0.209 | 41.057 | 58.838 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.689 | 33.016 | 0.722 | 66.262 | 33.377 |
| Two-tone | 46.727 | 53.831 | 0.275 | 45.894 | 53.969 |
| Monotone | 5.273 | 51.459 | 3.435 | 45.106 | 53.177 |
| Paired | 17.091 | 61.169 | 0.682 | 38.149 | 61.510 |

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

The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of -2.11 points for A2s, from 57.38%, and -1.51 for 86s, from 46.24%.

**A2s and 86s 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A2s, all flops | 55.272 | 57.379 | -2.107 | 0.96328 |
| A2s, rainbow, ten or higher | 58.838 | 57.379 | +1.459 | 1.02543 |
| A2s, rainbow, nine or lower | 33.377 | 57.379 | -24.002 | 0.58169 |
| A2s, two-tone | 53.969 | 57.379 | -3.410 | 0.94057 |
| A2s, monotone | 53.177 | 57.379 | -4.202 | 0.92677 |
| A2s, paired | 61.510 | 57.379 | +4.131 | 1.07199 |
| 86s, all flops | 44.728 | 46.243 | -1.515 | 0.96724 |
| 86s, rainbow, ten or higher | 41.162 | 46.243 | -5.081 | 0.89012 |
| 86s, rainbow, nine or lower | 66.623 | 46.243 | +20.380 | 1.44072 |
| 86s, two-tone | 46.031 | 46.243 | -0.212 | 0.99542 |
| 86s, monotone | 46.823 | 46.243 | +0.580 | 1.01254 |
| 86s, paired | 38.490 | 46.243 | -7.753 | 0.83234 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Does suit overlap move the numbers? A2s has 56.93% when the hands share a suit and 54.72% when they do not. A2s does better with a shared suit, by 2.21 points.

**A2s against 86s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A2s wins | Ties | 86s wins | A2s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 56.625 | 0.601 | 42.774 | 56.926 |
| No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 54.475 | 0.493 | 45.032 | 54.721 |

## How often this matchup comes up

How often does it happen? 16 of the 1,624,350 ordered deals (0.0010%) are A2s against 86s, and 32 (0.0020%) if either hand may sit in either seat.

## A worked example

Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: A2s averages $110.54 back, ahead of its $100 by $10.54, while 86s averages $89.46, short of its $100 by $10.54.

Scaled to 1,000 deals, that is roughly 550 wins for A2s, 445 for 86s and 5 chopped pots.

## The same matchup from the other side

One page covers both views. From 86s' side the equity is 44.73%, and from A2s' side it is 55.27%.

## Keep exploring

As2s against 8h6h 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 As2s against 8h6h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As2s&p2=8h6h)
- [A2s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a2s.md)
- [86s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/86s.md)
- [A2s vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-76s.md)
- [A2s vs 75s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-75s.md)
- [QTo vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qto-vs-86s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

Method: exact enumeration. The 16 specific deals are grouped by suit pattern, each is run against all 1,712,304 boards, and both seven-card hands are scored. Equity adds half of every tie, and flop textures are tallied over the ten flops inside each board.

Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used.

## Related

- [A2s vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-76s.md)
- [A2s vs 75s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a2s-vs-75s.md)
- [QTo vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qto-vs-86s.md)