---
title: "A5s vs 98s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-98s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-98s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "Who is ahead, A5s or 98s? A5s leads 55.56% to 44.44% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-22.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-97s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a6s-vs-98s.md"]
---

# A5s vs 98s: preflop equity

Who is ahead, A5s or 98s? A5s leads 55.56% to 44.44% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

If A5s and 98s get all the chips in before the flop, A5s owns 55.56% of the pot in the long run and 98s owns 44.44%.

## A5s against 98s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for A5s against 98s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A5s | 55.315 | 0.499 | 44.186 | 55.564 |
| 98s | 44.186 | 0.499 | 55.315 | 44.436 |

Here suited hands face each other, A5s on one side and 98s on the other. The two hands share no rank, which makes this a pure matchup of card strength, straight chances and flush chances.

That is a modest edge, the kind that shows up over many hands and is easy to miss in one. A split pot comes up on 0.50% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that.

Ranked by equity against a random hand, A5s is number 30 of the 169 starting hands and 98s is number 83.

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

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A5s | 15,155,000 | 137,000 | 12,106,000 |
| 98s | 12,106,000 | 137,000 | 15,155,000 |

The board total is exact, 16 deals at 1,712,304 boards each. Won, tied and lost counts are rounded to the nearest thousand from the five-decimal percentages.

**A5s against 98s read as odds**

| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A5s | 1.250 | 1.808 | 2.263 | 0.800 |
| 98s | 0.800 | 2.263 | 1.808 | 1.250 |

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

The flop changes the picture. A5s does best on paired flops, at 61.07%, and worst on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), at 41.26%. Watch for low rainbow flops (nine high or lower): on those flops 98s holds the better equity.

**A5s against 98s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | A5s wins | Ties | 98s wins | A5s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.220 | 57.581 | 0.204 | 42.215 | 57.683 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.689 | 40.950 | 0.612 | 58.438 | 41.256 |
| Two-tone | 46.727 | 54.260 | 0.257 | 45.483 | 54.389 |
| Monotone | 5.273 | 51.733 | 3.424 | 44.843 | 53.445 |
| Paired | 17.091 | 60.741 | 0.657 | 38.602 | 61.069 |

A rainbow flop shows three suits, a two-tone flop repeats one suit, a monotone flop is a single suit, and a paired flop repeats a rank.

## Compared with a random hand

The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of -4.36 points for A5s, from 59.92%, and -6.36 for 98s, from 50.80%.

**A5s and 98s 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A5s, all flops | 55.564 | 59.923 | -4.359 | 0.92726 |
| A5s, rainbow, ten or higher | 57.683 | 59.923 | -2.240 | 0.96262 |
| A5s, rainbow, nine or lower | 41.256 | 59.923 | -18.667 | 0.68848 |
| A5s, two-tone | 54.389 | 59.923 | -5.534 | 0.90765 |
| A5s, monotone | 53.445 | 59.923 | -6.478 | 0.89189 |
| A5s, paired | 61.069 | 59.923 | +1.146 | 1.01912 |
| 98s, all flops | 44.436 | 50.801 | -6.365 | 0.87471 |
| 98s, rainbow, ten or higher | 42.317 | 50.801 | -8.484 | 0.83300 |
| 98s, rainbow, nine or lower | 58.744 | 50.801 | +7.943 | 1.15636 |
| 98s, two-tone | 45.611 | 50.801 | -5.190 | 0.89784 |
| 98s, monotone | 46.555 | 50.801 | -4.246 | 0.91642 |
| 98s, paired | 38.931 | 50.801 | -11.870 | 0.76634 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Two kinds of deal exist here. In 4 of them the hands share a suit and A5s holds 57.25%. In 12 they do not, and it holds 55.00%. A5s does better with a shared suit, by 2.25 points.

**A5s against 98s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A5s wins | Ties | 98s wins | A5s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 56.962 | 0.580 | 42.458 | 57.252 |
| No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 54.765 | 0.473 | 44.762 | 55.002 |

## 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

Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: A5s averages $111.12 back, ahead of its $100 by $11.12, while 98s averages $88.88, short of its $100 by $11.12.

A thousand deals look like this: A5s takes 553, 98s takes 442, 5 are ties.

## The same matchup from the other side

98s against A5s adds nothing new: it is 44.44% for 98s and 55.56% for A5s, the same figures reversed.

## Keep exploring

Open the calculator with As5s against 9h8h 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.

- [Open As5s against 9h8h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As5s&p2=9h8h)
- [A5s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a5s.md)
- [98s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/98s.md)
- [A5s vs 22](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-22.md)
- [A5s vs 97s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-97s.md)
- [A6s vs 98s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a6s-vs-98s.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

- [A5s vs 22: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-22.md)
- [A5s vs 97s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-97s.md)
- [A6s vs 98s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a6s-vs-98s.md)