--- title: "A4s vs 87s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-87s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-87s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, A4s or 87s? A4s leads 55.23% to 44.78% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-86s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a3s-vs-87s.md"] --- # A4s vs 87s: preflop equity Who is ahead, A4s or 87s? A4s leads 55.23% to 44.78% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, A4s finishes with 55.23% of the pot and 87s with 44.77%. ## A4s against 87s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for A4s against 87s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A4s | 54.974 | 0.502 | 44.524 | 55.225 | | 87s | 44.524 | 0.502 | 54.974 | 44.775 | Two suited hands meet here: A4s against 87s. The two hands share no rank, which makes this a pure matchup of card strength, straight chances and flush chances. A 10.46 point lead is real, and 87s still takes about 445 of every 1,000 deals outright. A split pot comes up on 0.50% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that. The hand ranking puts A4s at 35 and 87s at 100 out of 169 starting hands. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A4s | 15,061,000 | 138,000 | 12,198,000 | | 87s | 12,198,000 | 138,000 | 15,061,000 | 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. **A4s 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) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A4s | 1.233 | 1.819 | 2.246 | 0.811 | | 87s | 0.811 | 2.246 | 1.819 | 1.233 | 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 A4s prefers paired flops, where it holds 61.10%, and likes low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) least, where it holds 37.21%. Watch for low rainbow flops (nine high or lower): on those flops 87s holds the better equity. **A4s against 87s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | A4s wins | Ties | 87s wins | A4s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.220 | 57.914 | 0.221 | 41.865 | 58.024 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.689 | 36.941 | 0.538 | 62.521 | 37.210 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 53.861 | 0.257 | 45.882 | 53.989 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 51.453 | 3.426 | 45.121 | 53.166 | | Paired | 17.091 | 60.768 | 0.670 | 38.562 | 61.103 | 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 A random hand would give A4s 59.03% and 87s 47.94%. Against each other the change is -3.80 points for A4s and -3.17 for 87s. **A4s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A4s, all flops | 55.225 | 59.034 | -3.809 | 0.93548 | | A4s, rainbow, ten or higher | 58.024 | 59.034 | -1.010 | 0.98289 | | A4s, rainbow, nine or lower | 37.210 | 59.034 | -21.824 | 0.63031 | | A4s, two-tone | 53.989 | 59.034 | -5.045 | 0.91454 | | A4s, monotone | 53.166 | 59.034 | -5.868 | 0.90060 | | A4s, paired | 61.103 | 59.034 | +2.069 | 1.03505 | | 87s, all flops | 44.775 | 47.936 | -3.161 | 0.93406 | | 87s, rainbow, ten or higher | 41.976 | 47.936 | -5.960 | 0.87567 | | 87s, rainbow, nine or lower | 62.790 | 47.936 | +14.854 | 1.30987 | | 87s, two-tone | 46.011 | 47.936 | -1.925 | 0.95984 | | 87s, monotone | 46.834 | 47.936 | -1.102 | 0.97701 | | 87s, paired | 38.897 | 47.936 | -9.039 | 0.81144 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Suit overlap shows up in the numbers. With a suit in common A4s has 56.88% equity, and with none in common it has 54.67%. A4s does better with a shared suit, by 2.21 points. **A4s against 87s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A4s wins | Ties | 87s wins | A4s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 56.587 | 0.581 | 42.832 | 56.877 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 54.436 | 0.475 | 45.089 | 54.674 | ## How often this matchup comes up Exactly 16 specific deals fit this matchup in one seat order, which is 0.0010% of 1,624,350; both orders together give 32, or 0.0020%. ## A worked example Try it with money: two players each put in $100 and the whole board runs out every possible way. A4s averages $110.46 from the $200, up $10.46; 87s averages $89.54, down $10.46. Out of 1,000 deals you should see around 550 outright wins for A4s, 445 for 87s, and 5 split pots. ## The same matchup from the other side 87s against A4s adds nothing new: it is 44.77% for 87s and 55.23% for A4s, the same figures reversed. ## Keep exploring Try As4s against 8h7h in the calculator: the hands share no suit, and every card can be changed. The links after it are the closest matchups in the ranking. - [Open As4s against 8h7h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As4s&p2=8h7h) - [A4s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a4s.md) - [87s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/87s.md) - [A4s vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-86s.md) - [A4s vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-76s.md) - [A3s vs 87s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a3s-vs-87s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed All 1,712,304 five-card boards are dealt for every suit pattern among the 16 specific deals of A4s against 87s, and both hands are scored on each. That is a full count, so the percentages are exact. Ties are half a win each, and each board appears once per flop it contains. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [A4s vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-86s.md) - [A4s vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-76s.md) - [A3s vs 87s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a3s-vs-87s.md)