--- title: "AQo vs A8s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-a8s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-a8s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "AQo is a big favorite over A8s before the flop: 69.14% to 30.86% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-kts.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-kqo.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ajo-vs-a8s.md"] --- # AQo vs A8s: preflop equity AQo is a big favorite over A8s before the flop: 69.14% to 30.86% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Counting every board, the equity split is 69.14% for AQo and 30.86% for A8s, so AQo leads by 38.28 points. ## AQo against A8s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for AQo against A8s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AQo | 66.345 | 5.598 | 28.057 | 69.144 | | A8s | 28.057 | 5.598 | 66.345 | 30.856 | We compare an offsuit hand with a suited hand. 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. AQo is well ahead, and A8s needs a specific kind of board to catch up. 5.60% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that. For context, AQo sits at number 14 of 169 starting hands and A8s at number 21 when each is run against a random hand. **Boards behind the percentages: 61,642,944 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AQo | 40,897,000 | 3,451,000 | 17,295,000 | | A8s | 17,295,000 | 3,451,000 | 40,897,000 | 36 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. **AQo against A8s read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AQo | 2.241 | 1.507 | 3.564 | 0.446 | | A8s | 0.446 | 3.564 | 1.507 | 2.241 | 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 Rainbow flops topped by a ten or better are the best for AQo (76.24%); low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) are the worst (57.07%). AQo stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **AQo against A8s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | AQo wins | Ties | A8s wins | AQo equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.905 | 74.473 | 3.530 | 21.997 | 76.238 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 54.885 | 4.372 | 40.743 | 57.071 | | Two-tone | 46.527 | 66.333 | 3.515 | 30.152 | 68.091 | | Monotone | 5.192 | 61.640 | 4.708 | 33.652 | 63.994 | | Paired | 17.334 | 61.231 | 14.809 | 23.960 | 68.635 | 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 Start from the random-hand figures, 64.43% for AQo and 61.94% for A8s. This opponent changes them by +4.71 and -31.08 points. **AQo and A8s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AQo, all flops | 69.144 | 64.432 | +4.712 | 1.07313 | | AQo, rainbow, ten or higher | 76.238 | 64.432 | +11.806 | 1.18323 | | AQo, rainbow, nine or lower | 57.071 | 64.432 | -7.361 | 0.88576 | | AQo, two-tone | 68.091 | 64.432 | +3.659 | 1.05679 | | AQo, monotone | 63.994 | 64.432 | -0.438 | 0.99320 | | AQo, paired | 68.635 | 64.432 | +4.203 | 1.06523 | | A8s, all flops | 30.856 | 61.944 | -31.088 | 0.49813 | | A8s, rainbow, ten or higher | 23.762 | 61.944 | -38.182 | 0.38360 | | A8s, rainbow, nine or lower | 42.929 | 61.944 | -19.015 | 0.69303 | | A8s, two-tone | 31.909 | 61.944 | -30.035 | 0.51513 | | A8s, monotone | 36.006 | 61.944 | -25.938 | 0.58127 | | A8s, paired | 31.365 | 61.944 | -30.579 | 0.50634 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Two kinds of deal exist here. In 12 of them the hands share a suit and AQo holds 69.96%. In 24 they do not, and it holds 68.73%. AQo does better with a shared suit, by 1.23 points. **AQo against A8s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | AQo wins | Ties | A8s wins | AQo equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 12 | 33.33 | 67.119 | 5.689 | 27.192 | 69.964 | | No shared suit | 24 | 66.67 | 65.958 | 5.553 | 28.489 | 68.734 | ## How often this matchup comes up Counting specific cards, AQo against A8s appears in 36 of the 1,624,350 ordered heads-up deals (0.0022%), and in 72 when the seats are swapped too (0.0044%). ## A worked example Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: AQo averages $138.28 back, ahead of its $100 by $38.28, while A8s averages $61.72, short of its $100 by $38.28. A thousand deals look like this: AQo takes 663, A8s takes 281, 56 are ties. ## The same matchup from the other side A8s against AQo adds nothing new: it is 30.86% for A8s and 69.14% for AQo, the same figures reversed. ## Keep exploring The calculator link fills in AsQh against Ad8d, 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. - [Open AsQh against Ad8d in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=AsQh&p2=Ad8d) - [AQo combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/aqo.md) - [A8s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a8s.md) - [AQo vs KTs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-kts.md) - [AQo vs KQo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-kqo.md) - [AJo vs A8s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ajo-vs-a8s.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 36 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 - [AQo vs KTs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-kts.md) - [AQo vs KQo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/aqo-vs-kqo.md) - [AJo vs A8s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/ajo-vs-a8s.md)