AKs vs 86s: preflop equity

The exact count puts AKs at 62.25% and 86s at 37.75% when the two hands see all five board cards.

AKs

62.25%

Wins 62.01%, ties 0.47%

86s

37.75%

Wins 37.52%, ties 0.47%

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

AKs against 86s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for AKs against 86s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
AKs62.0130.47337.51462.250
86s37.5140.47362.01337.750

Each side holds one of the suited hands: AKs and 86s. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits.

That is a modest edge, the kind that shows up over many hands and is easy to miss in one. Of every 100 boards, about 0.47 are split pots, and the equity figures already include them.

The hand ranking puts AKs at 8 and 86s at 110 out of 169 starting hands.

Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
AKs16,990,000130,00010,278,000
86s10,278,000130,00016,990,000

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.

AKs against 86s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
AKs1.6491.6132.6660.606
86s0.6062.6661.6131.649

The last column is the break-even price: the pot odds a call needs to offer, as a ratio of pot to call.

Who is ahead on which flops

By flop texture, AKs' equity runs from 36.09% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) up to 69.08% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better. Watch for low rainbow flops (nine high or lower): on those flops 86s holds the better equity.

AKs against 86s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsAKs winsTies86s winsAKs equity
Rainbow, ten or higher24.59569.0170.13330.85069.084
Rainbow, nine or lower6.31435.7350.70963.55636.090
Two-tone46.72761.4130.23038.35761.528
Monotone5.27357.8813.40238.71759.582
Paired17.09164.5580.63734.80564.876

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

A random hand would give AKs 67.05% and 86s 46.24%. Against each other the change is -4.80 points for AKs and -8.49 for 86s.

AKs and 86s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
AKs, all flops62.25067.045-4.7950.92848
AKs, rainbow, ten or higher69.08467.045+2.0391.03041
AKs, rainbow, nine or lower36.09067.045-30.9550.53830
AKs, two-tone61.52867.045-5.5170.91771
AKs, monotone59.58267.045-7.4630.88869
AKs, paired64.87667.045-2.1690.96765
86s, all flops37.75046.243-8.4930.81634
86s, rainbow, ten or higher30.91646.243-15.3270.66856
86s, rainbow, nine or lower63.91046.243+17.6671.38205
86s, two-tone38.47246.243-7.7710.83195
86s, monotone40.41846.243-5.8250.87403
86s, paired35.12446.243-11.1190.75955

Does a shared suit matter?

Does suit overlap move the numbers? AKs has 64.48% when the hands share a suit and 61.51% when they do not. AKs does better with a shared suit, by 2.97 points.

AKs against 86s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsAKs winsTies86s winsAKs equity
Share a suit425.0064.2090.55135.24064.484
No shared suit1275.0061.2820.44738.27161.505

How often this matchup comes up

AKs against 86s is made up of 16 specific-card matchups in one seat order, 0.0010% of the 1,624,350 ordered deals, and 32 counting both seat orders, 0.0020%.

A worked example

Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average AKs takes back $124.50 of it, which is $24.50 more than it put in, and 86s takes back $75.50, $24.50 less than it put in.

Think in thousands: about 620 of 1,000 go to AKs, about 375 go to 86s, and about 5 are chopped.

The same matchup from the other side

If you came looking for 86s against AKs, the numbers are the same with the hands swapped: 37.75% and 62.25%.

Open the calculator with AsKs against 8h6h already entered, a deal with no shared suit, and change any card to try your own hand. The matchups after it each swap one hand for a nearby one in the ranking.

How this was computed

This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 16 ways to deal one AKs and one 86s 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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