KQs vs A3s: preflop equity

The exact count puts A3s at 57.31% and KQs at 42.69% when the two hands see all five board cards.

KQs

42.69%

Wins 42.42%, ties 0.55%

A3s

57.31%

Wins 57.03%, ties 0.55%

Equity counts a tie as half a win. Exact over every board.

KQs against A3s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for KQs against A3s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
KQs42.4150.55457.03142.692
A3s57.0310.55442.41557.308

Each side holds one of the suited hands: KQs and A3s. The two hands share no rank, which makes this a pure matchup of card strength, straight chances and flush chances.

A3s is ahead, but KQs is far from dead: it takes 424 of every 1,000 deals outright. About 0.55% of boards chop the pot, which is why equity sits slightly above the win figure for both hands.

For context, KQs sits at number 16 of 169 starting hands and A3s at number 38 when each is run against a random hand.

Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
KQs11,620,000152,00015,625,000
A3s15,625,000152,00011,620,000

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.

KQs against A3s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
KQs0.7452.3581.7531.342
A3s1.3421.7532.3580.745

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

Low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) are the best for A3s (75.50%); rainbow flops topped by a ten or better are the worst (51.12%). A3s stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal.

KQs against A3s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsKQs winsTiesA3s winsKQs equity
Rainbow, ten or higher23.86748.8250.11751.05848.884
Rainbow, nine or lower7.04223.8911.21674.89324.499
Two-tone46.72743.7030.32155.97643.864
Monotone5.27343.5933.45252.95545.319
Paired17.09137.2090.63362.15837.526

A rainbow flop shows three suits, a two-tone flop repeats one suit, a monotone flop is a single suit, and a paired flop repeats a rank.

Compared with a random hand

Each hand has a baseline against a random hand: 63.40% for KQs, 58.22% for A3s. Here the change is -20.71 and -0.91 points.

KQs and A3s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
KQs, all flops42.69263.400-20.7080.67338
KQs, rainbow, ten or higher48.88463.400-14.5160.77104
KQs, rainbow, nine or lower24.49963.400-38.9010.38642
KQs, two-tone43.86463.400-19.5360.69186
KQs, monotone45.31963.400-18.0810.71481
KQs, paired37.52663.400-25.8740.59189
A3s, all flops57.30858.220-0.9120.98434
A3s, rainbow, ten or higher51.11658.220-7.1040.87798
A3s, rainbow, nine or lower75.50158.220+17.2811.29682
A3s, two-tone56.13658.220-2.0840.96420
A3s, monotone54.68158.220-3.5390.93921
A3s, paired62.47458.220+4.2541.07307

Does a shared suit matter?

Does suit overlap move the numbers? A3s has 59.23% when the hands share a suit and 56.67% when they do not. A3s does better with a shared suit, by 2.56 points.

KQs against A3s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsKQs winsTiesA3s winsKQs equity
Share a suit425.0040.4490.63758.91440.767
No shared suit1275.0043.0700.52656.40443.333

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

Worked example: both players commit $100, so $200 sits in the middle. Over every board, A3s' average share is $114.62 (a gain of $14.62) and KQs' is $85.38 (a loss of $14.62).

In 1,000 deals of exactly this matchup, expect about 570 won outright by A3s, about 424 won outright by KQs and about 6 split.

The same matchup from the other side

Swap the hands and you get A3s with 57.31% against KQs with 42.69%. We keep one page per matchup, with the better-ranked hand first.

The calculator link fills in KsQs against Ah3h, 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.

How this was computed

Each figure is a complete count over boards. Take the 16 specific deals, group them by suit pattern, deal all 1,712,304 boards against each, and compare the two seven-card hands. Equity counts a tie as half a win; the flop rows use every one of a board's ten flops.

Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used.

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