A8s vs 98s: preflop equity

Averaged over every possible board, A8s is ahead of 98s by 34.58 points of equity, 67.29% to 32.71%.

A8s

67.29%

Wins 66.29%, ties 2.01%

98s

32.71%

Wins 31.70%, ties 2.01%

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

A8s against 98s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for A8s against 98s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
A8s66.2882.00531.70767.290
98s31.7072.00566.28832.710

A8s meets 98s, and both are suited hands. 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 98s needs a specific kind of board to catch up. About 2.01% of boards chop the pot, which is why equity sits slightly above the win figure for both hands.

By strength against a random hand, A8s holds place 21 of 169 and 98s holds place 83.

Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
A8s13,621,000412,0006,515,000
98s6,515,000412,00013,621,000

12 specific deals times 1,712,304 boards gives the exact total. The won, tied and lost counts are approximations from the five-decimal percentages, rounded to the nearest thousand.

A8s against 98s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
A8s2.0571.5093.1540.486
98s0.4863.1541.5092.057

The final column gives the least the pot must offer for each unit called for a call to break even at this equity.

Who is ahead on which flops

Split by what the flop looks like, A8s peaks at 71.80% on paired flops and bottoms out at 55.52% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). 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 98s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsA8s winsTies98s winsA8s equity
Rainbow, ten or higher25.25469.9321.68528.38370.774
Rainbow, nine or lower5.65453.9583.11642.92655.516
Two-tone46.54364.9581.70633.33665.811
Monotone5.21559.3224.15336.52561.398
Paired17.33470.6662.26827.06671.800

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

Against one random hand instead, A8s holds 61.94% and 98s holds 50.80%. Facing each other changes that by +5.35 points for A8s and -18.09 points for 98s.

A8s and 98s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
A8s, all flops67.29061.944+5.3461.08630
A8s, rainbow, ten or higher70.77461.944+8.8301.14255
A8s, rainbow, nine or lower55.51661.944-6.4280.89623
A8s, two-tone65.81161.944+3.8671.06243
A8s, monotone61.39861.944-0.5460.99119
A8s, paired71.80061.944+9.8561.15911
98s, all flops32.71050.801-18.0910.64388
98s, rainbow, ten or higher29.22650.801-21.5750.57530
98s, rainbow, nine or lower44.48450.801-6.3170.87565
98s, two-tone34.18950.801-16.6120.67300
98s, monotone38.60250.801-12.1990.75987
98s, paired28.20050.801-22.6010.55511

Does a shared suit matter?

Suits do not split this matchup, because no legal deal has the hands holding the same suit.

A8s against 98s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsA8s winsTies98s winsA8s equity
Share a suit00.00not possiblenot possiblenot possiblenot possible
No shared suit12100.0066.2882.00531.70767.290

How often this matchup comes up

Out of 1,624,350 ways to deal two seats two cards each, 12 are A8s in one seat and 98s in the other (0.0007%); with the seats swapped too, 24 (0.0015%).

A worked example

Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average A8s takes back $134.58 of it, which is $34.58 more than it put in, and 98s takes back $65.42, $34.58 less than it put in.

Per 1,000 deals: A8s wins about 663, 98s wins about 317, and about 20 end in a split pot.

The same matchup from the other side

The mirror image, 98s against A8s, is 32.71% to 67.29%, and its address redirects to this page.

As8s against 9h8h 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.

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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