---
title: "A9o vs 98s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-98s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-98s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "A9o is a big favorite over 98s before the flop: 66.21% to 33.80% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-22.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-97s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjo-vs-98s.md"]
---

# A9o vs 98s: preflop equity

A9o is a big favorite over 98s before the flop: 66.21% to 33.80% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

Dealt all in against each other, A9o takes 66.21% of the pot on average and 98s takes the other 33.79%.

## A9o against 98s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for A9o against 98s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A9o | 65.148 | 2.114 | 32.738 | 66.205 |
| 98s | 32.738 | 2.114 | 65.148 | 33.795 |

A9o and 98s are an offsuit hand and a suited hand, in that order. 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.

A9o is the clear favorite, though 98s gets there on roughly one board in 3. The tie share is 2.11%: on those boards the pot is chopped and neither hand wins outright.

By strength against a random hand, A9o holds place 25 of 169 and 98s holds place 83.

**Boards behind the percentages: 61,642,944 counted in all**

| Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| A9o | 40,159,000 | 1,303,000 | 20,181,000 |
| 98s | 20,181,000 | 1,303,000 | 40,159,000 |

The total is exact: 36 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.

**A9o against 98s 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 | 1.959 | 1.535 | 3.055 | 0.510 |
| 98s | 0.510 | 3.055 | 1.535 | 1.959 |

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

Paired flops are the best for A9o (71.29%); low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) are the worst (54.03%). A9o stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal.

**A9o against 98s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | A9o wins | Ties | 98s wins | A9o equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.293 | 69.273 | 1.768 | 28.959 | 70.157 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.654 | 52.382 | 3.287 | 44.331 | 54.025 |
| Two-tone | 46.527 | 63.109 | 1.918 | 34.973 | 64.068 |
| Monotone | 5.192 | 60.706 | 3.376 | 35.918 | 62.394 |
| Paired | 17.334 | 70.094 | 2.386 | 27.520 | 71.287 |

Read the flop types this way: rainbow has three suits, two-tone has two cards of one suit, monotone has three, and paired repeats a rank.

## Compared with a random hand

Against one random hand instead, A9o holds 60.77% and 98s holds 50.80%. Facing each other changes that by +5.44 points for A9o and -17.01 points for 98s.

**A9o and 98s 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 | 66.205 | 60.773 | +5.432 | 1.08938 |
| A9o, rainbow, ten or higher | 70.157 | 60.773 | +9.384 | 1.15441 |
| A9o, rainbow, nine or lower | 54.025 | 60.773 | -6.748 | 0.88896 |
| A9o, two-tone | 64.068 | 60.773 | +3.295 | 1.05422 |
| A9o, monotone | 62.394 | 60.773 | +1.621 | 1.02667 |
| A9o, paired | 71.287 | 60.773 | +10.514 | 1.17300 |
| 98s, all flops | 33.795 | 50.801 | -17.006 | 0.66524 |
| 98s, rainbow, ten or higher | 29.843 | 50.801 | -20.958 | 0.58745 |
| 98s, rainbow, nine or lower | 45.975 | 50.801 | -4.826 | 0.90500 |
| 98s, two-tone | 35.932 | 50.801 | -14.869 | 0.70731 |
| 98s, monotone | 37.606 | 50.801 | -13.195 | 0.74026 |
| 98s, paired | 28.713 | 50.801 | -22.088 | 0.56521 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Looking only at deals where the hands share a suit, A9o has 67.23%; looking only at deals where they do not, 65.69%. A9o does better with a shared suit, by 1.54 points.

**A9o against 98s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A9o wins | Ties | 98s wins | A9o equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 12 | 33.33 | 66.135 | 2.190 | 31.675 | 67.230 |
| No shared suit | 24 | 66.67 | 64.654 | 2.076 | 33.270 | 65.692 |

## How often this matchup comes up

A9o against 98s is made up of 36 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0022% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 72 counting both seat orders, 0.0044%.

## A worked example

Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: A9o averages $132.42 back, ahead of its $100 by $32.42, while 98s averages $67.58, short of its $100 by $32.42.

Per 1,000 deals: A9o wins about 652, 98s wins about 327, and about 21 end in a split pot.

## The same matchup from the other side

Read it from the other side: 98s against A9o is the same matchup with the numbers swapped, so 98s holds 33.79% and A9o holds 66.21%. That address sends you back to this page.

## Keep exploring

The calculator link fills in As9h against 9d8d, a deal where the two hands share no suit. Change any card to test your own hand. The neighboring matchups below swap one of the two hands for one of similar strength.

- [Open As9h against 9d8d in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As9h&p2=9d8d)
- [A9o combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a9o.md)
- [98s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/98s.md)
- [A9o vs 22](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-22.md)
- [A9o vs 97s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-97s.md)
- [KJo vs 98s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjo-vs-98s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

Each figure is a complete count over boards. Take the 36 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

- [A9o vs 22: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-22.md)
- [A9o vs 97s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9o-vs-97s.md)
- [KJo vs 98s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kjo-vs-98s.md)