--- title: "A9s vs KTs: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-kts.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-kts" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, A9s or KTs? A9s leads 57.38% to 42.62% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-kqo.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-a7s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ato-vs-kts.md"] --- # A9s vs KTs: preflop equity Who is ahead, A9s or KTs? A9s leads 57.38% to 42.62% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. If A9s and KTs get all the chips in before the flop, A9s owns 57.38% of the pot in the long run and KTs owns 42.62%. ## A9s against KTs: the numbers **Exact preflop results for A9s against KTs, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9s | 57.130 | 0.494 | 42.376 | 57.377 | | KTs | 42.376 | 0.494 | 57.130 | 42.623 | Two suited hands meet here: A9s against KTs. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits. A9s is ahead, but KTs is far from dead: it takes 424 of every 1,000 deals outright. A split pot comes up on 0.49% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that. A9s ranks number 18 of 169 starting hands, and KTs ranks number 22, by equity against a random hand. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9s | 15,652,000 | 135,000 | 11,610,000 | | KTs | 11,610,000 | 135,000 | 15,652,000 | 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. **A9s 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) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9s | 1.346 | 1.750 | 2.360 | 0.743 | | KTs | 0.743 | 2.360 | 1.750 | 1.346 | 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 Break the boards down by their first three cards and A9s is strongest on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) (73.72%) and weakest on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better (51.73%). A9s stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **A9s against KTs by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | A9s wins | Ties | KTs wins | A9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.867 | 51.657 | 0.151 | 48.192 | 51.732 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 73.336 | 0.762 | 25.902 | 73.717 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 56.028 | 0.256 | 43.716 | 56.156 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 52.907 | 3.406 | 43.687 | 54.610 | | Paired | 17.091 | 62.410 | 0.616 | 36.974 | 62.718 | 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: 62.78% for A9s, 61.79% for KTs. Here the change is -5.40 and -19.17 points. **A9s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9s, all flops | 57.377 | 62.781 | -5.404 | 0.91392 | | A9s, rainbow, ten or higher | 51.732 | 62.781 | -11.049 | 0.82401 | | A9s, rainbow, nine or lower | 73.717 | 62.781 | +10.936 | 1.17419 | | A9s, two-tone | 56.156 | 62.781 | -6.625 | 0.89447 | | A9s, monotone | 54.610 | 62.781 | -8.171 | 0.86985 | | A9s, paired | 62.718 | 62.781 | -0.063 | 0.99900 | | KTs, all flops | 42.623 | 61.789 | -19.166 | 0.68982 | | KTs, rainbow, ten or higher | 48.268 | 61.789 | -13.521 | 0.78117 | | KTs, rainbow, nine or lower | 26.283 | 61.789 | -35.506 | 0.42537 | | KTs, two-tone | 43.844 | 61.789 | -17.945 | 0.70958 | | KTs, monotone | 45.390 | 61.789 | -16.399 | 0.73460 | | KTs, paired | 37.282 | 61.789 | -24.507 | 0.60338 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Suit overlap shows up in the numbers. With a suit in common A9s has 59.34% equity, and with none in common it has 56.72%. A9s does better with a shared suit, by 2.62 points. **A9s against KTs by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A9s wins | Ties | KTs wins | A9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 59.050 | 0.571 | 40.379 | 59.336 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 56.490 | 0.469 | 43.041 | 56.724 | ## How often this matchup comes up The class pair covers 16 combinations of specific cards in a fixed seat order, 0.0010% of 1,624,350, and 32 (0.0020%) in either order. ## A worked example Worked example: both players commit $100, so $200 sits in the middle. Over every board, A9s' average share is $114.76 (a gain of $14.76) and KTs' is $85.24 (a loss of $14.76). Scaled to 1,000 deals, that is roughly 571 wins for A9s, 424 for KTs and 5 chopped pots. ## The same matchup from the other side KTs against A9s adds nothing new: it is 42.62% for KTs and 57.38% for A9s, the same figures reversed. ## Keep exploring Try As9s 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 As9s against KhTh in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As9s&p2=KhTh) - [A9s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a9s.md) - [KTs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/kts.md) - [A9s vs KQo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-kqo.md) - [A9s vs A7s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-a7s.md) - [ATo vs KTs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ato-vs-kts.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed All 1,712,304 five-card boards are dealt for every suit pattern among the 16 specific deals of A9s against KTs, and both hands are scored on each. That is a full count, so the percentages are exact. Ties are half a win each, and each board appears once per flop it contains. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [A9s vs KQo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-kqo.md) - [A9s vs A7s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-a7s.md) - [ATo vs KTs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ato-vs-kts.md)