A9s vs Q9s: preflop equity

Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, A9s finishes with 69.73% of the pot and Q9s with 30.27%.

A9s

69.73%

Wins 68.79%, ties 1.89%

Q9s

30.27%

Wins 29.32%, ties 1.89%

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

A9s against Q9s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for A9s against Q9s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
A9s68.7851.88729.32869.728
Q9s29.3281.88768.78530.272

A9s meets Q9s, and both are suited hands. 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.

A lead of 39.46 points is large but not decisive: Q9s still takes about 293 of every 1,000 deals. The tie share is 1.89%: on those boards the pot is chopped and neither hand wins outright.

The hand ranking puts A9s at 18 and Q9s at 43 out of 169 starting hands.

Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
A9s14,134,000388,0006,026,000
Q9s6,026,000388,00014,134,000

12 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 Q9s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
A9s2.3031.4543.4100.434
Q9s0.4343.4101.4542.303

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

Break the boards down by their first three cards and A9s is strongest on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) (83.01%) and weakest on monotone flops (63.08%). 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 Q9s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsA9s winsTiesQ9s winsA9s equity
Rainbow, ten or higher24.59567.1241.34231.53467.795
Rainbow, nine or lower6.31481.1543.71215.13483.010
Two-tone46.54367.5241.56630.91068.307
Monotone5.21561.0923.98034.92863.082
Paired17.33372.3372.22525.43873.450

Flop types: rainbow means three different suits, two-tone means one suit twice, monotone means one suit three times, paired means a repeated rank.

Compared with a random hand

Relative to a random opponent, A9s changes by +6.95 points (baseline 62.78%) and Q9s by -27.39 points (baseline 57.66%).

A9s and Q9s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
A9s, all flops69.72862.781+6.9471.11065
A9s, rainbow, ten or higher67.79562.781+5.0141.07986
A9s, rainbow, nine or lower83.01062.781+20.2291.32222
A9s, two-tone68.30762.781+5.5261.08802
A9s, monotone63.08262.781+0.3011.00479
A9s, paired73.45062.781+10.6691.16994
Q9s, all flops30.27257.664-27.3920.52497
Q9s, rainbow, ten or higher32.20557.664-25.4590.55849
Q9s, rainbow, nine or lower16.99057.664-40.6740.29464
Q9s, two-tone31.69357.664-25.9710.54962
Q9s, monotone36.91857.664-20.7460.64023
Q9s, paired26.55057.664-31.1140.46043

Does a shared suit matter?

For this pair the shared-suit row is empty: the two hands cannot both own a card of one suit without reusing a card.

A9s against Q9s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsA9s winsTiesQ9s winsA9s equity
Share a suit00.00not possiblenot possiblenot possiblenot possible
No shared suit12100.0068.7851.88729.32869.728

How often this matchup comes up

Out of 1,624,350 ways to deal two seats two cards each, 12 are A9s in one seat and Q9s in the other (0.0007%); with the seats swapped too, 24 (0.0015%).

A worked example

Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average A9s takes back $139.46 of it, which is $39.46 more than it put in, and Q9s takes back $60.54, $39.46 less than it put in.

Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 688 for A9s, 293 for Q9s and 19 ties.

The same matchup from the other side

The mirror image, Q9s against A9s, is 30.27% to 69.73%, and its address redirects to this page.

The calculator link fills in As9s against Qh9h, 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

This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 12 ways to deal one A9s and one Q9s 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.

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