--- title: "K9o vs 98s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-98s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-98s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "K9o is a big favorite over 98s before the flop: 67.44% to 32.57% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-22.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-97s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/q9s-vs-98s.md"] --- # K9o vs 98s: preflop equity K9o is a big favorite over 98s before the flop: 67.44% to 32.57% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. In equity, K9o against 98s stands at 67.44% to 32.56%, a gap of 34.88 points. ## K9o against 98s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for K9o against 98s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9o | 65.835 | 3.200 | 30.965 | 67.435 | | 98s | 30.965 | 3.200 | 65.835 | 32.565 | The first hand is an offsuit hand; the second is 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. K9o is well ahead, and 98s needs a specific kind of board to catch up. Ties are part of the picture: 3.20% of boards end in a split pot, and each side counts that as half a win. The hand ranking puts K9o at 40 and 98s at 83 out of 169 starting hands. **Boards behind the percentages: 61,642,944 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9o | 40,583,000 | 1,973,000 | 19,088,000 | | 98s | 19,088,000 | 1,973,000 | 40,583,000 | Exact total: 36 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. **K9o against 98s read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9o | 2.071 | 1.519 | 3.229 | 0.483 | | 98s | 0.483 | 3.229 | 1.519 | 2.071 | 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 Split by what the flop looks like, K9o peaks at 72.29% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better and bottoms out at 53.50% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). K9o stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **K9o against 98s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | K9o wins | Ties | 98s wins | K9o equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.293 | 70.940 | 2.701 | 26.359 | 72.290 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.654 | 51.621 | 3.758 | 44.621 | 53.500 | | Two-tone | 46.527 | 64.174 | 2.725 | 33.101 | 65.536 | | Monotone | 5.192 | 61.303 | 4.056 | 34.641 | 63.331 | | Paired | 17.334 | 68.838 | 4.766 | 26.396 | 71.221 | 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 Compared with a random opponent, this matchup shifts K9o from 57.81% by +9.63 points and 98s from 50.80% by -18.24 points. **K9o and 98s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9o, all flops | 67.435 | 57.812 | +9.623 | 1.16645 | | K9o, rainbow, ten or higher | 72.290 | 57.812 | +14.478 | 1.25043 | | K9o, rainbow, nine or lower | 53.500 | 57.812 | -4.312 | 0.92541 | | K9o, two-tone | 65.536 | 57.812 | +7.724 | 1.13361 | | K9o, monotone | 63.331 | 57.812 | +5.519 | 1.09546 | | K9o, paired | 71.221 | 57.812 | +13.409 | 1.23194 | | 98s, all flops | 32.565 | 50.801 | -18.236 | 0.64103 | | 98s, rainbow, ten or higher | 27.710 | 50.801 | -23.091 | 0.54546 | | 98s, rainbow, nine or lower | 46.500 | 50.801 | -4.301 | 0.91534 | | 98s, two-tone | 34.464 | 50.801 | -16.337 | 0.67841 | | 98s, monotone | 36.669 | 50.801 | -14.132 | 0.72182 | | 98s, paired | 28.779 | 50.801 | -22.022 | 0.56650 | ## Does a shared suit matter? When the hands share a suit, K9o holds 68.48%; when they do not, it holds 66.91%. K9o does better with a shared suit, by 1.57 points. **K9o against 98s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | K9o wins | Ties | 98s wins | K9o equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 12 | 33.33 | 66.834 | 3.296 | 29.870 | 68.482 | | No shared suit | 24 | 66.67 | 65.335 | 3.152 | 31.513 | 66.911 | ## How often this matchup comes up Exactly 36 specific deals fit this matchup in one seat order, which is 0.0022% of 1,624,350; both orders together give 72, or 0.0044%. ## A worked example A $100 all-in from each player makes a $200 pot, and the exact equity says K9o gets $134.88 of it on average and 98s gets $65.12. A thousand deals look like this: K9o takes 658, 98s takes 310, 32 are ties. ## The same matchup from the other side 98s against K9o adds nothing new: it is 32.56% for 98s and 67.44% for K9o, the same figures reversed. ## Keep exploring The calculator link fills in Ks9h against 9d8d, 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 Ks9h against 9d8d in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=Ks9h&p2=9d8d) - [K9o combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/k9o.md) - [98s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/98s.md) - [K9o vs 22](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-22.md) - [K9o vs 97s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-97s.md) - [Q9s vs 98s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/q9s-vs-98s.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 - [K9o vs 22: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-22.md) - [K9o vs 97s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9o-vs-97s.md) - [Q9s vs 98s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/q9s-vs-98s.md)