---
title: "A8s vs 86s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-86s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-86s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "A8s is a big favorite over 86s before the flop: 68.65% to 31.35% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-75s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kts-vs-86s.md"]
---

# A8s vs 86s: preflop equity

A8s is a big favorite over 86s before the flop: 68.65% to 31.35% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

In equity, A8s against 86s stands at 68.65% to 31.35%, a gap of 37.30 points.

## A8s against 86s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for A8s against 86s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s | 67.408 | 2.480 | 30.112 | 68.648 |
| 86s | 30.112 | 2.480 | 67.408 | 31.352 |

Here suited hands face each other, A8s on one side and 86s on the other. 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.

A8s is the clear favorite, though 86s gets there on roughly one board in 3. A split pot comes up on 2.48% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that.

Among the 169 starting hands, A8s is number 21 and 86s is number 110 by strength against a random hand.

**Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all**

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s | 13,851,000 | 510,000 | 6,187,000 |
| 86s | 6,187,000 | 510,000 | 13,851,000 |

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.

**A8s 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) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s | 2.190 | 1.484 | 3.321 | 0.457 |
| 86s | 0.457 | 3.321 | 1.484 | 2.190 |

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

Paired flops are the best for A8s (73.52%); low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) are the worst (51.27%). A8s stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal.

**A8s against 86s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | A8s wins | Ties | 86s wins | A8s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.254 | 72.352 | 2.113 | 25.535 | 73.409 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.654 | 49.035 | 4.468 | 46.497 | 51.269 |
| Two-tone | 46.543 | 65.961 | 2.199 | 31.840 | 67.060 |
| Monotone | 5.215 | 60.173 | 4.456 | 35.371 | 62.401 |
| Paired | 17.334 | 72.258 | 2.529 | 25.213 | 73.522 |

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

A random hand would give A8s 61.94% and 86s 46.24%. Against each other the change is +6.71 points for A8s and -14.89 for 86s.

**A8s 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s, all flops | 68.648 | 61.944 | +6.704 | 1.10823 |
| A8s, rainbow, ten or higher | 73.409 | 61.944 | +11.465 | 1.18509 |
| A8s, rainbow, nine or lower | 51.269 | 61.944 | -10.675 | 0.82767 |
| A8s, two-tone | 67.060 | 61.944 | +5.116 | 1.08259 |
| A8s, monotone | 62.401 | 61.944 | +0.457 | 1.00738 |
| A8s, paired | 73.522 | 61.944 | +11.578 | 1.18691 |
| 86s, all flops | 31.352 | 46.243 | -14.891 | 0.67798 |
| 86s, rainbow, ten or higher | 26.591 | 46.243 | -19.652 | 0.57503 |
| 86s, rainbow, nine or lower | 48.731 | 46.243 | +2.488 | 1.05380 |
| 86s, two-tone | 32.940 | 46.243 | -13.303 | 0.71232 |
| 86s, monotone | 37.599 | 46.243 | -8.644 | 0.81307 |
| 86s, paired | 26.478 | 46.243 | -19.765 | 0.57258 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

A shared suit is impossible for this matchup, so A8s' 68.65% is the answer for every suit pattern.

**A8s against 86s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A8s wins | Ties | 86s wins | A8s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible |
| No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 67.408 | 2.480 | 30.112 | 68.648 |

## How often this matchup comes up

You will meet this exact matchup 0.0015% of the time in a random heads-up deal: 24 of 1,624,350, counting either seat order.

## A worked example

To see what the equity is worth, imagine $100 each in a $200 pot. A8s is worth $137.30 on average (+$37.30); 86s is worth $62.70 (-$37.30).

Think in thousands: about 674 of 1,000 go to A8s, about 301 go to 86s, and about 25 are chopped.

## The same matchup from the other side

86s versus A8s is this same page seen from the other hand: 31.35% for 86s, 68.65% for A8s.

## Keep exploring

As8s 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 As8s against 8h6h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As8s&p2=8h6h)
- [A8s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a8s.md)
- [86s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/86s.md)
- [A8s vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-76s.md)
- [A8s vs 75s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-75s.md)
- [KTs vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kts-vs-86s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

Each figure is a complete count over boards. Take the 12 specific deals, group them by suit pattern, deal all 1,712,304 boards against each, and compare the two seven-card hands. Equity counts a tie as half a win; the flop rows use every one of a board's ten flops.

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

## Related

- [A8s vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-76s.md)
- [A8s vs 75s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-75s.md)
- [KTs vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kts-vs-86s.md)