--- title: "A8s vs KTs: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-kts.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-kts" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, A8s or KTs? A8s leads 56.87% to 43.14% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-kqo.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-a7s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjs-vs-kts.md"] --- # A8s vs KTs: preflop equity Who is ahead, A8s or KTs? A8s leads 56.87% to 43.14% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. The exact count puts A8s at 56.87% and KTs at 43.13% when the two hands see all five board cards. ## A8s against KTs: the numbers **Exact preflop results for A8s against KTs, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A8s | 56.623 | 0.485 | 42.892 | 56.865 | | KTs | 42.892 | 0.485 | 56.623 | 43.135 | Each side holds one of the suited hands: A8s and KTs. With no overlap in ranks, every card that pairs one hand is a card that does not pair the other. The lead is steady rather than large, and the flop still has plenty of say in who wins. 0.49% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that. For context, A8s sits at number 21 of 169 starting hands and KTs at number 22 when each is run against a random hand. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A8s | 15,513,000 | 133,000 | 11,751,000 | | KTs | 11,751,000 | 133,000 | 15,513,000 | 16 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 KTs 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 | 1.318 | 1.766 | 2.331 | 0.759 | | KTs | 0.759 | 2.331 | 1.766 | 1.318 | 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 Split by what the flop looks like, A8s peaks at 73.82% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) and bottoms out at 50.91% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better. 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 KTs by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | A8s wins | Ties | KTs wins | A8s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.867 | 50.830 | 0.151 | 49.019 | 50.905 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 73.477 | 0.693 | 25.830 | 73.823 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 55.526 | 0.245 | 44.229 | 55.649 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 52.604 | 3.401 | 43.995 | 54.305 | | Paired | 17.091 | 62.006 | 0.620 | 37.374 | 62.316 | Rainbow flops have three suits, two-tone flops repeat one suit, monotone flops are all one suit, and paired flops repeat a rank. ## Compared with a random hand Against one random hand instead, A8s holds 61.94% and KTs holds 61.79%. Facing each other changes that by -5.07 points for A8s and -18.66 points for KTs. **A8s and KTs 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 | 56.865 | 61.944 | -5.079 | 0.91801 | | A8s, rainbow, ten or higher | 50.905 | 61.944 | -11.039 | 0.82179 | | A8s, rainbow, nine or lower | 73.823 | 61.944 | +11.879 | 1.19177 | | A8s, two-tone | 55.649 | 61.944 | -6.295 | 0.89838 | | A8s, monotone | 54.305 | 61.944 | -7.639 | 0.87668 | | A8s, paired | 62.316 | 61.944 | +0.372 | 1.00601 | | KTs, all flops | 43.135 | 61.789 | -18.654 | 0.69810 | | KTs, rainbow, ten or higher | 49.095 | 61.789 | -12.694 | 0.79456 | | KTs, rainbow, nine or lower | 26.177 | 61.789 | -35.612 | 0.42365 | | KTs, two-tone | 44.351 | 61.789 | -17.438 | 0.71778 | | KTs, monotone | 45.695 | 61.789 | -16.094 | 0.73953 | | KTs, paired | 37.684 | 61.789 | -24.105 | 0.60988 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Two kinds of deal exist here. In 4 of them the hands share a suit and A8s holds 58.74%. In 12 they do not, and it holds 56.24%. A8s does better with a shared suit, by 2.50 points. **A8s against KTs by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A8s wins | Ties | KTs wins | A8s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 58.464 | 0.561 | 40.975 | 58.744 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 56.009 | 0.459 | 43.532 | 56.239 | ## How often this matchup comes up A8s against KTs is made up of 16 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0010% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 32 counting both seat orders, 0.0020%. ## A worked example With $100 from each side, the $200 pot is split on average as $113.74 for A8s and $86.26 for KTs; the first side gains $13.74 per all-in and the second gives up $13.74. A thousand deals look like this: A8s takes 566, KTs takes 429, 5 are ties. ## The same matchup from the other side Swap the hands and you get KTs with 43.13% against A8s with 56.87%. We keep one page per matchup, with the better-ranked hand first. ## Keep exploring Try As8s against KhTh in the calculator: the hands share no suit, and every card can be changed. The links after it are the closest matchups in the ranking. - [Open As8s against KhTh in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As8s&p2=KhTh) - [A8s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a8s.md) - [KTs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/kts.md) - [A8s vs KQo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-kqo.md) - [A8s vs A7s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-a7s.md) - [KJs vs KTs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjs-vs-kts.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 16 ways to deal one A8s and one KTs 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 KQo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-kqo.md) - [A8s vs A7s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a8s-vs-a7s.md) - [KJs vs KTs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjs-vs-kts.md)