--- title: "A9s vs T8s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-t8s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-t8s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, A9s or T8s? A9s leads 59.58% to 40.42% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-t9o.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-98s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ato-vs-t8s.md"] --- # A9s vs T8s: preflop equity Who is ahead, A9s or T8s? A9s leads 59.58% to 40.42% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Dealt all in against each other, A9s takes 59.58% of the pot on average and T8s takes the other 40.42%. ## A9s against T8s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for A9s against T8s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9s | 59.346 | 0.465 | 40.189 | 59.578 | | T8s | 40.189 | 0.465 | 59.346 | 40.422 | This is a contest between two suited hands, A9s and T8s. With no overlap in ranks, every card that pairs one hand is a card that does not pair the other. The lead is steady rather than large, and the flop still has plenty of say in who wins. Of every 100 boards, about 0.47 are split pots, and the equity figures already include them. In the ranking of all 169 starting hands, A9s is number 18 and T8s is number 73. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | A9s | 16,259,000 | 127,000 | 11,011,000 | | T8s | 11,011,000 | 127,000 | 16,259,000 | Exact total: 16 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 T8s 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 | 1.474 | 1.685 | 2.488 | 0.678 | | T8s | 0.678 | 2.488 | 1.685 | 1.474 | 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 If you know the kind of flop that came, the numbers shift: A9s holds 63.77% on paired flops and 56.76% on monotone flops. A9s stays ahead on all five textures. **A9s against T8s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | A9s wins | Ties | T8s wins | A9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 24.543 | 59.233 | 0.176 | 40.591 | 59.321 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 6.366 | 58.897 | 0.495 | 40.608 | 59.145 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 58.449 | 0.220 | 41.331 | 58.559 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 55.064 | 3.390 | 41.546 | 56.759 | | Paired | 17.091 | 63.448 | 0.637 | 35.915 | 63.766 | 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 Each hand has a baseline against a random hand: 62.78% for A9s, 52.33% for T8s. Here the change is -3.20 and -11.91 points. **A9s and T8s 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 | 59.578 | 62.781 | -3.203 | 0.94898 | | A9s, rainbow, ten or higher | 59.321 | 62.781 | -3.460 | 0.94489 | | A9s, rainbow, nine or lower | 59.145 | 62.781 | -3.636 | 0.94208 | | A9s, two-tone | 58.559 | 62.781 | -4.222 | 0.93275 | | A9s, monotone | 56.759 | 62.781 | -6.022 | 0.90408 | | A9s, paired | 63.766 | 62.781 | +0.985 | 1.01569 | | T8s, all flops | 40.422 | 52.334 | -11.912 | 0.77239 | | T8s, rainbow, ten or higher | 40.679 | 52.334 | -11.655 | 0.77730 | | T8s, rainbow, nine or lower | 40.855 | 52.334 | -11.479 | 0.78066 | | T8s, two-tone | 41.441 | 52.334 | -10.893 | 0.79186 | | T8s, monotone | 43.241 | 52.334 | -9.093 | 0.82625 | | T8s, paired | 36.234 | 52.334 | -16.100 | 0.69236 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Of the deals of this matchup, 4 share a suit (A9s at 61.71%) and 12 do not (58.87%). A9s does better with a shared suit, by 2.84 points. **A9s against T8s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | A9s wins | Ties | T8s wins | A9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 61.437 | 0.538 | 38.025 | 61.706 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 58.649 | 0.441 | 40.910 | 58.869 | ## How often this matchup comes up This page stands for 16 specific-card matchups (0.0010% of 1,624,350 ordered deals), or 32 once you count the seats both ways (0.0020%). ## A worked example Worked example: both players commit $100, so $200 sits in the middle. Over every board, A9s' average share is $119.16 (a gain of $19.16) and T8s' is $80.84 (a loss of $19.16). Out of 1,000 deals you should see around 593 outright wins for A9s, 402 for T8s, and 5 split pots. ## The same matchup from the other side T8s against A9s adds nothing new: it is 40.42% for T8s and 59.58% for A9s, the same figures reversed. ## Keep exploring As9s against Th8h 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 As9s against Th8h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=As9s&p2=Th8h) - [A9s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a9s.md) - [T8s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/t8s.md) - [A9s vs T9o](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-t9o.md) - [A9s vs 98s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-98s.md) - [ATo vs T8s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ato-vs-t8s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed Each figure is a complete count over boards. Take the 16 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 - [A9s vs T9o: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-t9o.md) - [A9s vs 98s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a9s-vs-98s.md) - [ATo vs T8s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ato-vs-t8s.md)