A9s vs A8s: preflop equity

Dealt all in against each other, A9s takes 66.71% of the pot on average and A8s takes the other 33.29%.

A9s

66.71%

Wins 59.66%, ties 14.10%

A8s

33.29%

Wins 26.24%, ties 14.10%

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

A9s against A8s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for A9s against A8s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
A9s59.65714.09526.24866.705
A8s26.24814.09559.65733.295

A9s meets A8s, and both are suited hands. Sharing a rank is the signature of a dominated hand, since the weaker hand is usually out-kicked when the shared rank shows up.

A9s is well ahead, and A8s needs a specific kind of board to catch up. A split pot comes up on 14.10% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that.

Place 18 of 169 belongs to A9s and place 21 belongs to A8s in the ranking against a random hand.

Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
A9s12,258,0002,896,0005,393,000
A8s5,393,0002,896,00012,258,000

Exact total: 12 deals times 1,712,304 boards. The other three counts come from the five-decimal percentages and are rounded to the nearest thousand, so read them as approximate.

A9s against A8s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
A9s2.0031.6763.8100.499
A8s0.4993.8101.6762.003

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

By flop texture, A9s' equity runs from 61.99% on monotone flops up to 69.94% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better. A9s stays ahead on all five textures.

A9s against A8s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsA9s winsTiesA8s winsA9s equity
Rainbow, ten or higher24.52663.04713.78023.17369.937
Rainbow, nine or lower6.38366.2773.44530.27868.000
Two-tone46.54361.73010.41227.85866.936
Monotone5.21556.79910.38032.82161.989
Paired17.33347.72029.46922.81162.454

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, A9s holds 62.78% and A8s holds 61.94%. Facing each other changes that by +3.93 points for A9s and -28.65 points for A8s.

A9s and A8s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
A9s, all flops66.70562.781+3.9241.06250
A9s, rainbow, ten or higher69.93762.781+7.1561.11398
A9s, rainbow, nine or lower68.00062.781+5.2191.08313
A9s, two-tone66.93662.781+4.1551.06618
A9s, monotone61.98962.781-0.7920.98738
A9s, paired62.45462.781-0.3270.99479
A8s, all flops33.29561.944-28.6490.53750
A8s, rainbow, ten or higher30.06361.944-31.8810.48533
A8s, rainbow, nine or lower32.00061.944-29.9440.51660
A8s, two-tone33.06461.944-28.8800.53377
A8s, monotone38.01161.944-23.9330.61363
A8s, paired37.54661.944-24.3980.60613

Does a shared suit matter?

The hands cannot hold a suit in common here, which leaves a single case and a single number: 66.71% for A9s.

A9s against A8s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsA9s winsTiesA8s winsA9s equity
Share a suit00.00not possiblenot possiblenot possiblenot possible
No shared suit12100.0059.65714.09526.24866.705

How often this matchup comes up

Exactly 12 specific deals fit this matchup in one seat order, which is 0.0007% of 1,624,350; both orders together give 24, or 0.0015%.

A worked example

To see what the equity is worth, imagine $100 each in a $200 pot. A9s is worth $133.42 on average (+$33.42); A8s is worth $66.58 (-$33.42).

Think in thousands: about 597 of 1,000 go to A9s, about 262 go to A8s, and about 141 are chopped.

The same matchup from the other side

The mirror image, A8s against A9s, is 33.29% to 66.71%, and its address redirects to this page.

The calculator link fills in As9s against Ah8h, 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.

How this was computed

The page is built from a full enumeration: 1,712,304 boards, every suit pattern of the 12 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.

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