--- title: "AKs vs 87s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-87s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-87s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "AKs is a big favorite over 87s before the flop: 61.40% to 38.60% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-86s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-76s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/77-vs-87s.md"] --- # AKs vs 87s: preflop equity AKs is a big favorite over 87s before the flop: 61.40% to 38.60% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, AKs finishes with 61.40% of the pot and 87s with 38.60%. ## AKs against 87s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for AKs against 87s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AKs | 61.166 | 0.463 | 38.371 | 61.398 | | 87s | 38.371 | 0.463 | 61.166 | 38.602 | Here suited hands face each other, AKs on one side and 87s on the other. With no overlap in ranks, every card that pairs one hand is a card that does not pair the other. AKs is ahead, but 87s is far from dead: it takes 384 of every 1,000 deals outright. 0.46% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that. Ranked by equity against a random hand, AKs is number 8 of the 169 starting hands and 87s is number 100. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AKs | 16,758,000 | 127,000 | 10,512,000 | | 87s | 10,512,000 | 127,000 | 16,758,000 | 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. **AKs against 87s read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AKs | 1.591 | 1.635 | 2.606 | 0.629 | | 87s | 0.629 | 2.606 | 1.635 | 1.591 | 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 The flop changes the picture. AKs does best on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better, at 67.56%, and worst on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), at 37.47%. 87s is ahead on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), even though it trails AKs when every flop is counted. **AKs against 87s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | AKs wins | Ties | 87s wins | AKs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 24.595 | 67.479 | 0.156 | 32.365 | 67.557 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 6.314 | 37.188 | 0.554 | 62.258 | 37.465 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 60.581 | 0.220 | 39.199 | 60.691 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 57.241 | 3.398 | 39.361 | 58.940 | | Paired | 17.091 | 63.749 | 0.632 | 35.619 | 64.065 | 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 The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of -5.65 points for AKs, from 67.05%, and -9.34 for 87s, from 47.94%. **AKs and 87s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AKs, all flops | 61.398 | 67.045 | -5.647 | 0.91577 | | AKs, rainbow, ten or higher | 67.557 | 67.045 | +0.512 | 1.00764 | | AKs, rainbow, nine or lower | 37.465 | 67.045 | -29.580 | 0.55880 | | AKs, two-tone | 60.691 | 67.045 | -6.354 | 0.90523 | | AKs, monotone | 58.940 | 67.045 | -8.105 | 0.87911 | | AKs, paired | 64.065 | 67.045 | -2.980 | 0.95555 | | 87s, all flops | 38.602 | 47.936 | -9.334 | 0.80528 | | 87s, rainbow, ten or higher | 32.443 | 47.936 | -15.493 | 0.67680 | | 87s, rainbow, nine or lower | 62.535 | 47.936 | +14.599 | 1.30455 | | 87s, two-tone | 39.309 | 47.936 | -8.627 | 0.82003 | | 87s, monotone | 41.060 | 47.936 | -6.876 | 0.85656 | | 87s, paired | 35.935 | 47.936 | -12.001 | 0.74965 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Suit overlap shows up in the numbers. With a suit in common AKs has 63.52% equity, and with none in common it has 60.69%. AKs does better with a shared suit, by 2.83 points. **AKs against 87s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | AKs wins | Ties | 87s wins | AKs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 63.249 | 0.541 | 36.210 | 63.520 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 60.471 | 0.438 | 39.091 | 60.690 | ## How often this matchup comes up Counting specific cards, AKs against 87s appears in 16 of the 1,624,350 ordered heads-up deals (0.0010%), and in 32 when the seats are swapped too (0.0020%). ## A worked example Take a $200 pot built from $100 each. AKs' equity of 61.40% is worth $122.80, a $22.80 edge, and 87s' 38.60% is worth $77.20, which is $22.80 under its stake. Think in thousands: about 612 of 1,000 go to AKs, about 384 go to 87s, and about 4 are chopped. ## The same matchup from the other side The mirror image, 87s against AKs, is 38.60% to 61.40%, and its address redirects to this page. ## Keep exploring Open the calculator with AsKs against 8h7h 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. - [Open AsKs against 8h7h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=AsKs&p2=8h7h) - [AKs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/aks.md) - [87s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/87s.md) - [AKs vs 86s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-86s.md) - [AKs vs 76s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-76s.md) - [77 vs 87s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/77-vs-87s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed The page is built from a full enumeration: 1,712,304 boards, every suit pattern of the 16 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. ## Related - [AKs vs 86s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-86s.md) - [AKs vs 76s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aks-vs-76s.md) - [77 vs 87s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/77-vs-87s.md)