A5s vs A3s: preflop equity

Before any board card is dealt, A5s holds 55.32% equity against A3s, which leaves A3s with 44.68%.

A5s

55.32%

Wins 35.93%, ties 38.79%

A3s

44.68%

Wins 25.28%, ties 38.79%

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

A5s against A3s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for A5s against A3s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
A5s35.92738.79225.28155.323
A3s25.28138.79235.92744.677

Each side holds one of the suited hands: A5s and A3s. Because the hands share one rank, the one with the higher kicker is ahead when that rank pairs and the other hand is mostly drawing.

A 10.64 point lead is real, and A3s still takes about 253 of every 1,000 deals outright. 38.79% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that.

Ranked by equity against a random hand, A5s is number 30 of the 169 starting hands and A3s is number 38.

Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
A5s7,382,0007,971,0005,195,000
A3s5,195,0007,971,0007,382,000

The board total is exact, 12 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 A3s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
A5s1.2382.7833.9560.808
A3s0.8083.9562.7831.238

In the last column, a pot-to-call ratio at or above the figure makes a call break even or better at this equity.

Who is ahead on which flops

The flop changes the picture. A5s does best on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), at 60.51%, and worst on paired flops, at 52.55%. A5s stays ahead on all five textures.

A5s against A3s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsA5s winsTiesA3s winsA5s equity
Rainbow, ten or higher24.52633.44043.99522.56555.437
Rainbow, nine or lower6.38349.08322.85528.06260.511
Two-tone46.54338.40534.59227.00355.701
Monotone5.21540.70927.16432.12754.291
Paired17.33326.51152.07321.41652.547

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 -4.60 points for A5s, from 59.92%, and -13.54 for A3s, from 58.22%.

A5s and A3s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
A5s, all flops55.32359.923-4.6000.92323
A5s, rainbow, ten or higher55.43759.923-4.4860.92514
A5s, rainbow, nine or lower60.51159.923+0.5881.00981
A5s, two-tone55.70159.923-4.2220.92954
A5s, monotone54.29159.923-5.6320.90601
A5s, paired52.54759.923-7.3760.87691
A3s, all flops44.67758.220-13.5430.76738
A3s, rainbow, ten or higher44.56358.220-13.6570.76542
A3s, rainbow, nine or lower39.48958.220-18.7310.67827
A3s, two-tone44.29958.220-13.9210.76089
A3s, monotone45.70958.220-12.5110.78511
A3s, paired47.45358.220-10.7670.81506

Does a shared suit matter?

For this pair the shared-suit row is empty: the two hands cannot both own a card of one suit without reusing a card.

A5s against A3s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsA5s winsTiesA3s winsA5s equity
Share a suit00.00not possiblenot possiblenot possiblenot possible
No shared suit12100.0035.92738.79225.28155.323

How often this matchup comes up

The class pair covers 12 combinations of specific cards in a fixed seat order, 0.0007% of 1,624,350, and 24 (0.0015%) in either order.

A worked example

Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: A5s averages $110.64 back, ahead of its $100 by $10.64, while A3s averages $89.36, short of its $100 by $10.64.

Over a long run, 1,000 deals split into about 359 for A5s, 253 for A3s and 388 tied.

The same matchup from the other side

The mirror image, A3s against A5s, is 44.68% to 55.32%, and its address redirects to this page.

The calculator link fills in As5s against Ah3h, 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

The figures are counted, not estimated: 1,712,304 boards for every suit pattern of the 12 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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