--- title: "A9o vs 22: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-22.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-22" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "A9o vs 22 is close to a coin flip before the flop: 47.15% to 52.85% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-97s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-87s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjo-vs-22.md"] --- # A9o vs 22: preflop equity A9o vs 22 is close to a coin flip before the flop: 47.15% to 52.85% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Counting every board, the equity split is 52.85% for 22 and 47.15% for A9o, so 22 leads by 5.70 points. ## A9o against 22: the numbers **Exact preflop results for A9o against 22, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9o | 46.866 | 0.574 | 52.560 | 47.153 | | 22 | 52.560 | 0.574 | 46.866 | 52.847 | A9o is an offsuit hand and 22 is a pocket pair. One hand holds a pair and the other holds two cards that both outrank it, which keeps the equity closer than most people expect. 22 leads by less than 6 points of equity, so the result of any one deal is close to a toss-up. 0.57% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that. The hand ranking puts A9o at 25 and 22 at 87 out of 169 starting hands. **Boards behind the percentages: 123,285,888 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9o | 57,779,000 | 708,000 | 64,799,000 | | 22 | 64,799,000 | 708,000 | 57,779,000 | The board total is exact, 72 deals at 1,712,304 boards each. Won, tied and lost counts are rounded to the nearest thousand from the five-decimal percentages. **A9o against 22 read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9o | 0.892 | 2.134 | 1.903 | 1.121 | | 22 | 1.121 | 1.903 | 2.134 | 0.892 | The last column is the smallest pot odds, written as a pot-to-call ratio, at which a call breaks even with this equity. ## Who is ahead on which flops Split by what the flop looks like, 22 peaks at 59.05% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) and bottoms out at 50.12% on monotone flops. 22 stays ahead on all five textures. **A9o against 22 by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | A9o wins | Ties | 22 wins | A9o equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.341 | 47.517 | 0.252 | 52.231 | 47.643 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.689 | 40.408 | 1.094 | 58.498 | 40.955 | | Two-tone | 46.485 | 46.569 | 0.390 | 53.041 | 46.764 | | Monotone | 5.151 | 48.563 | 2.631 | 48.806 | 49.879 | | Paired | 17.334 | 48.329 | 0.754 | 50.917 | 48.706 | 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 Each hand has a baseline against a random hand: 60.77% for A9o, 50.33% for 22. Here the change is -13.62 and +2.52 points. **A9o and 22 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9o, all flops | 47.153 | 60.773 | -13.620 | 0.77589 | | A9o, rainbow, ten or higher | 47.643 | 60.773 | -13.130 | 0.78395 | | A9o, rainbow, nine or lower | 40.955 | 60.773 | -19.818 | 0.67390 | | A9o, two-tone | 46.764 | 60.773 | -14.009 | 0.76949 | | A9o, monotone | 49.879 | 60.773 | -10.894 | 0.82074 | | A9o, paired | 48.706 | 60.773 | -12.067 | 0.80144 | | 22, all flops | 52.847 | 50.334 | +2.513 | 1.04993 | | 22, rainbow, ten or higher | 52.357 | 50.334 | +2.023 | 1.04019 | | 22, rainbow, nine or lower | 59.045 | 50.334 | +8.711 | 1.17306 | | 22, two-tone | 53.236 | 50.334 | +2.902 | 1.05765 | | 22, monotone | 50.121 | 50.334 | -0.213 | 0.99577 | | 22, paired | 51.294 | 50.334 | +0.960 | 1.01907 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Does suit overlap move the numbers? 22 has 52.77% when the hands share a suit and 53.24% when they do not. 22 does better with no shared suit, by 0.47 points. **A9o against 22 by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A9o wins | Ties | 22 wins | A9o equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 60 | 83.33 | 46.940 | 0.581 | 52.479 | 47.231 | | No shared suit | 12 | 16.67 | 46.496 | 0.538 | 52.966 | 46.765 | ## How often this matchup comes up A9o against 22 is made up of 72 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0044% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 144 counting both seat orders, 0.0089%. ## A worked example Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average 22 takes back $105.70 of it, which is $5.70 more than it put in, and A9o takes back $94.30, $5.70 less than it put in. In 1,000 deals of exactly this matchup, expect about 525 won outright by 22, about 469 won outright by A9o and about 6 split. ## The same matchup from the other side The mirror image, 22 against A9o, is 52.85% to 47.15%, and its address redirects to this page. ## Keep exploring As9h against 2d2c 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 As9h against 2d2c in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As9h&p2=2d2c) - [A9o combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a9o.md) - [22 combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/22.md) - [A9o vs 97s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-97s.md) - [A9o vs 87s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-87s.md) - [KJo vs 22](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjo-vs-22.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed The page is built from a full enumeration: 1,712,304 boards, every suit pattern of the 72 specific deals, both seven-card hands evaluated. A tie is worth half a win to each hand, and a board is tallied under each of its ten possible flops for the texture rows. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [A9o vs 97s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-97s.md) - [A9o vs 87s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-87s.md) - [KJo vs 22: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjo-vs-22.md)