---
title: "A8s vs 87s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-87s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-87s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "A8s is a big favorite over 87s before the flop: 67.54% to 32.46% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-86s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kts-vs-87s.md"]
---

# A8s vs 87s: preflop equity

A8s is a big favorite over 87s before the flop: 67.54% to 32.46% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

Before any board card is dealt, A8s holds 67.54% equity against 87s, which leaves 87s with 32.46%.

## A8s against 87s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for A8s against 87s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s | 66.347 | 2.392 | 31.261 | 67.543 |
| 87s | 31.261 | 2.392 | 66.347 | 32.457 |

Both hands are suited hands: A8s and 87s. The two hands share a rank, and the one with the better other card dominates: it wins most kicker battles when that shared rank hits.

A8s is well ahead, and 87s needs a specific kind of board to catch up. 2.39% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that.

Among the 169 starting hands, A8s is number 21 and 87s is number 100 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 | 13,633,000 | 491,000 | 6,423,000 |
| 87s | 6,423,000 | 491,000 | 13,633,000 |

The total is exact: 12 specific deals times 1,712,304 boards. The three counts are approximate, worked out from the percentages to five decimals and rounded to the nearest thousand.

**A8s 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) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s | 2.081 | 1.507 | 3.199 | 0.481 |
| 87s | 0.481 | 3.199 | 1.507 | 2.081 |

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

Paired flops are the best for A8s (72.49%); low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) are the worst (52.43%). 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 87s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | A8s wins | Ties | 87s wins | A8s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.254 | 70.621 | 2.011 | 27.368 | 71.627 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.654 | 50.295 | 4.261 | 45.444 | 52.425 |
| Two-tone | 46.543 | 64.927 | 2.110 | 32.963 | 65.982 |
| Monotone | 5.215 | 59.434 | 4.426 | 36.140 | 61.647 |
| Paired | 17.334 | 71.247 | 2.485 | 26.268 | 72.490 |

Flop types: rainbow means three different suits, two-tone means one suit twice, monotone means one suit three times, paired means a repeated rank.

## Compared with a random hand

The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of +5.60 points for A8s, from 61.94%, and -15.48 for 87s, from 47.94%.

**A8s 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A8s, all flops | 67.543 | 61.944 | +5.599 | 1.09039 |
| A8s, rainbow, ten or higher | 71.627 | 61.944 | +9.683 | 1.15632 |
| A8s, rainbow, nine or lower | 52.425 | 61.944 | -9.519 | 0.84633 |
| A8s, two-tone | 65.982 | 61.944 | +4.038 | 1.06519 |
| A8s, monotone | 61.647 | 61.944 | -0.297 | 0.99521 |
| A8s, paired | 72.490 | 61.944 | +10.546 | 1.17025 |
| 87s, all flops | 32.457 | 47.936 | -15.479 | 0.67709 |
| 87s, rainbow, ten or higher | 28.373 | 47.936 | -19.563 | 0.59189 |
| 87s, rainbow, nine or lower | 47.575 | 47.936 | -0.361 | 0.99247 |
| 87s, two-tone | 34.018 | 47.936 | -13.918 | 0.70965 |
| 87s, monotone | 38.353 | 47.936 | -9.583 | 0.80009 |
| 87s, paired | 27.510 | 47.936 | -20.426 | 0.57389 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Every legal deal of A8s against 87s leaves the hands with no suit in common, so the suit split does not apply here.

**A8s against 87s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A8s wins | Ties | 87s wins | A8s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible |
| No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 66.347 | 2.392 | 31.261 | 67.543 |

## How often this matchup comes up

A8s against 87s is made up of 12 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0007% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 24 counting both seat orders, 0.0015%.

## A worked example

Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: A8s averages $135.08 back, ahead of its $100 by $35.08, while 87s averages $64.92, short of its $100 by $35.08.

Over a long run, 1,000 deals split into about 663 for A8s, 313 for 87s and 24 tied.

## The same matchup from the other side

87s versus A8s is this same page seen from the other hand: 32.46% for 87s, 67.54% for A8s.

## Keep exploring

As8s against 8h7h 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 8h7h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As8s&p2=8h7h)
- [A8s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a8s.md)
- [87s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/87s.md)
- [A8s vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-86s.md)
- [A8s vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-76s.md)
- [KTs vs 87s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kts-vs-87s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 12 ways to deal one A8s and one 87s without reusing a card, grouped by suit pattern, every one of the 1,712,304 possible boards is dealt and both seven-card hands are compared. A tie counts as half a win in the equity column, and each board is counted once under each of its ten three-card flops.

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

## Related

- [A8s vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-86s.md)
- [A8s vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-76s.md)
- [KTs vs 87s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kts-vs-87s.md)