--- title: "K9s vs A5s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a5s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a5s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, K9s or A5s? A5s leads 58.48% to 41.52% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a6s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-kto.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qjs-vs-a5s.md"] --- # K9s vs A5s: preflop equity Who is ahead, K9s or A5s? A5s leads 58.48% to 41.52% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Averaged over every possible board, A5s is ahead of K9s by 16.96 points of equity, 58.48% to 41.52%. ## K9s against A5s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for K9s against A5s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9s | 41.263 | 0.522 | 58.215 | 41.524 | | A5s | 58.215 | 0.522 | 41.263 | 58.476 | This is a contest between two suited hands, K9s and A5s. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits. A 16.96 point lead is real, and K9s still takes about 413 of every 1,000 deals outright. Ties are part of the picture: 0.52% of boards end in a split pot, and each side counts that as half a win. In the ranking of all 169 starting hands, K9s is number 29 and A5s is number 30. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9s | 11,305,000 | 143,000 | 15,949,000 | | A5s | 15,949,000 | 143,000 | 11,305,000 | 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. **K9s against A5s read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9s | 0.710 | 2.423 | 1.718 | 1.408 | | A5s | 1.408 | 1.718 | 2.423 | 0.710 | 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, A5s' equity runs from 55.72% on monotone flops up to 63.09% on paired flops. A5s stays ahead on all five textures. **K9s against A5s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | K9s wins | Ties | A5s wins | K9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 24.543 | 41.913 | 0.172 | 57.915 | 41.999 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 6.366 | 41.378 | 0.880 | 57.742 | 41.818 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 42.468 | 0.285 | 57.247 | 42.611 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 42.566 | 3.435 | 53.999 | 44.284 | | Paired | 17.091 | 36.591 | 0.637 | 62.772 | 36.909 | 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 K9s from 59.99% by -18.47 points and A5s from 59.92% by -1.44 points. **K9s and A5s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9s, all flops | 41.524 | 59.988 | -18.464 | 0.69221 | | K9s, rainbow, ten or higher | 41.999 | 59.988 | -17.989 | 0.70012 | | K9s, rainbow, nine or lower | 41.818 | 59.988 | -18.170 | 0.69711 | | K9s, two-tone | 42.611 | 59.988 | -17.377 | 0.71033 | | K9s, monotone | 44.284 | 59.988 | -15.704 | 0.73821 | | K9s, paired | 36.909 | 59.988 | -23.079 | 0.61527 | | A5s, all flops | 58.476 | 59.923 | -1.447 | 0.97585 | | A5s, rainbow, ten or higher | 58.001 | 59.923 | -1.922 | 0.96793 | | A5s, rainbow, nine or lower | 58.182 | 59.923 | -1.741 | 0.97095 | | A5s, two-tone | 57.389 | 59.923 | -2.534 | 0.95771 | | A5s, monotone | 55.716 | 59.923 | -4.207 | 0.92979 | | A5s, paired | 63.091 | 59.923 | +3.168 | 1.05287 | ## Does a shared suit matter? When the hands share a suit, A5s holds 60.51%; when they do not, it holds 57.80%. A5s does better with a shared suit, by 2.71 points. **K9s against A5s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | K9s wins | Ties | A5s wins | K9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 39.189 | 0.603 | 60.208 | 39.491 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 41.954 | 0.495 | 57.551 | 42.202 | ## How often this matchup comes up Counting specific cards, K9s against A5s 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 Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average A5s takes back $116.96 of it, which is $16.96 more than it put in, and K9s takes back $83.04, $16.96 less than it put in. A thousand deals look like this: A5s takes 582, K9s takes 413, 5 are ties. ## The same matchup from the other side The reversed view, A5s against K9s, shows 58.48% for A5s and 41.52% for K9s. It is the same count, so it redirects here. ## Keep exploring Ks9s against Ah5h 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 Ks9s against Ah5h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=Ks9s&p2=Ah5h) - [K9s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/k9s.md) - [A5s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a5s.md) - [K9s vs A6s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a6s.md) - [K9s vs KTo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-kto.md) - [QJs vs A5s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qjs-vs-a5s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed Method: exact enumeration. The 16 specific deals are grouped by suit pattern, each is run against all 1,712,304 boards, and both seven-card hands are scored. Equity adds half of every tie, and flop textures are tallied over the ten flops inside each board. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [K9s vs A6s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a6s.md) - [K9s vs KTo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-kto.md) - [QJs vs A5s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qjs-vs-a5s.md)