--- title: "K9s vs QTs: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-qts.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-qts" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, K9s or QTs? K9s leads 57.16% to 42.84% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a4s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a3s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-qts.md"] --- # K9s vs QTs: preflop equity Who is ahead, K9s or QTs? K9s leads 57.16% to 42.84% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, K9s finishes with 57.16% of the pot and QTs with 42.84%. ## K9s against QTs: the numbers **Exact preflop results for K9s against QTs, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9s | 56.803 | 0.706 | 42.491 | 57.156 | | QTs | 42.491 | 0.706 | 56.803 | 42.844 | Two suited hands meet here: K9s against QTs. The two hands share no rank, which makes this a pure matchup of card strength, straight chances and flush chances. A 14.32 point lead is real, and QTs still takes about 425 of every 1,000 deals outright. Split pots make up 0.71% of the boards, and both equity figures count them as half a win each. The hand ranking puts K9s at 29 and QTs at 34 out of 169 starting hands. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | K9s | 15,562,000 | 193,000 | 11,641,000 | | QTs | 11,641,000 | 193,000 | 15,562,000 | 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. **K9s against QTs 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 | 1.334 | 1.760 | 2.353 | 0.750 | | QTs | 0.750 | 2.353 | 1.760 | 1.334 | The last column is the smallest pot odds, written as a pot-to-call ratio, at which a call breaks even with this equity. ## Who is ahead on which flops If you know the kind of flop that came, the numbers shift: K9s holds 72.35% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) and 51.88% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better. K9s stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **K9s against QTs by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | K9s wins | Ties | QTs wins | K9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.867 | 51.733 | 0.286 | 47.981 | 51.876 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 71.960 | 0.771 | 27.269 | 72.345 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 55.797 | 0.355 | 43.848 | 55.974 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 52.741 | 3.468 | 43.791 | 54.475 | | Paired | 17.091 | 61.643 | 1.371 | 36.986 | 62.328 | 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 Relative to a random opponent, K9s changes by -2.83 points (baseline 59.99%) and QTs by -16.63 points (baseline 59.47%). **K9s and QTs 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 | 57.156 | 59.988 | -2.832 | 0.95279 | | K9s, rainbow, ten or higher | 51.876 | 59.988 | -8.112 | 0.86477 | | K9s, rainbow, nine or lower | 72.345 | 59.988 | +12.357 | 1.20599 | | K9s, two-tone | 55.974 | 59.988 | -4.014 | 0.93309 | | K9s, monotone | 54.475 | 59.988 | -5.513 | 0.90810 | | K9s, paired | 62.328 | 59.988 | +2.340 | 1.03901 | | QTs, all flops | 42.844 | 59.468 | -16.624 | 0.72045 | | QTs, rainbow, ten or higher | 48.124 | 59.468 | -11.344 | 0.80924 | | QTs, rainbow, nine or lower | 27.655 | 59.468 | -31.813 | 0.46504 | | QTs, two-tone | 44.026 | 59.468 | -15.442 | 0.74033 | | QTs, monotone | 45.525 | 59.468 | -13.943 | 0.76554 | | QTs, paired | 37.672 | 59.468 | -21.796 | 0.63348 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Looking only at deals where the hands share a suit, K9s has 59.10%; looking only at deals where they do not, 56.51%. K9s does better with a shared suit, by 2.59 points. **K9s against QTs by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | K9s wins | Ties | QTs wins | K9s equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 58.703 | 0.792 | 40.505 | 59.099 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 56.170 | 0.677 | 43.153 | 56.508 | ## How often this matchup comes up You will meet this exact matchup 0.0020% of the time in a random heads-up deal: 32 of 1,624,350, counting either seat order. ## A worked example With $100 from each side, the $200 pot is split on average as $114.32 for K9s and $85.68 for QTs; the first side gains $14.32 per all-in and the second gives up $14.32. In 1,000 deals of exactly this matchup, expect about 568 won outright by K9s, about 425 won outright by QTs and about 7 split. ## The same matchup from the other side If you came looking for QTs against K9s, the numbers are the same with the hands swapped: 42.84% and 57.16%. ## Keep exploring Try Ks9s against QhTh in the calculator: the hands share no suit, and every card can be changed. The links after it are the closest matchups in the ranking. - [Open Ks9s against QhTh in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=Ks9s&p2=QhTh) - [K9s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/k9s.md) - [QTs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/qts.md) - [K9s vs A4s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a4s.md) - [K9s vs A3s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a3s.md) - [A5s vs QTs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-qts.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed We counted every case. Each suit pattern of the 16 specific K9s against QTs deals meets all 1,712,304 boards, and the better five-card hand wins; a split pot is half a win each. The flop table reads each board under all ten of its three-card flops. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [K9s vs A4s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a4s.md) - [K9s vs A3s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/k9s-vs-a3s.md) - [A5s vs QTs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a5s-vs-qts.md)