KQs vs A8s: preflop equity

Dealt all in against each other, A8s takes 56.90% of the pot on average and KQs takes the other 43.10%.

KQs

43.10%

Wins 42.85%, ties 0.50%

A8s

56.90%

Wins 56.65%, ties 0.50%

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

KQs against A8s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for KQs against A8s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
KQs42.8450.50056.65543.095
A8s56.6550.50042.84556.905

The matchup is suited hands on both sides, KQs against A8s. With no overlap in ranks, every card that pairs one hand is a card that does not pair the other.

That is a modest edge, the kind that shows up over many hands and is easy to miss in one. Ties are 0.50% of the outcomes here; each tied board gives both hands half the pot.

KQs ranks number 16 of 169 starting hands, and A8s ranks number 21, by equity against a random hand.

Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
KQs11,738,000137,00015,522,000
A8s15,522,000137,00011,738,000

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.

KQs against A8s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
KQs0.7572.3341.7651.320
A8s1.3201.7652.3340.757

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

Across the five flop textures A8s' equity moves by 24.33 points, from 50.64% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better to 74.97% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). A8s stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal.

KQs against A8s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsKQs winsTiesA8s winsKQs equity
Rainbow, ten or higher23.86749.2980.11550.58749.356
Rainbow, nine or lower7.04224.5710.91974.51025.030
Two-tone46.72744.1690.26355.56844.300
Monotone5.27343.9543.41152.63545.660
Paired17.09137.4030.61261.98537.709

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

How much does the opponent matter? Compared with its random-hand 63.40%, KQs changes by -20.30 points, and A8s, from 61.94%, by -5.04.

KQs and A8s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
KQs, all flops43.09563.400-20.3050.67973
KQs, rainbow, ten or higher49.35663.400-14.0440.77849
KQs, rainbow, nine or lower25.03063.400-38.3700.39479
KQs, two-tone44.30063.400-19.1000.69874
KQs, monotone45.66063.400-17.7400.72019
KQs, paired37.70963.400-25.6910.59478
A8s, all flops56.90561.944-5.0390.91865
A8s, rainbow, ten or higher50.64461.944-11.3000.81758
A8s, rainbow, nine or lower74.97061.944+13.0261.21029
A8s, two-tone55.70061.944-6.2440.89920
A8s, monotone54.34061.944-7.6040.87724
A8s, paired62.29161.944+0.3471.00560

Does a shared suit matter?

Two kinds of deal exist here. In 4 of them the hands share a suit and A8s holds 58.79%. In 12 they do not, and it holds 56.28%. A8s does better with a shared suit, by 2.51 points.

KQs against A8s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsKQs winsTiesA8s winsKQs equity
Share a suit425.0040.9220.57858.50041.211
No shared suit1275.0043.4860.47356.04143.723

How often this matchup comes up

Counting specific cards, KQs against A8s 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

A $100 all-in from each player makes a $200 pot, and the exact equity says A8s gets $113.80 of it on average and KQs gets $86.20.

Out of 1,000 deals you should see around 567 outright wins for A8s, 428 for KQs, and 5 split pots.

The same matchup from the other side

A8s against KQs adds nothing new: it is 56.90% for A8s and 43.10% for KQs, the same figures reversed.

Open the calculator with KsQs against Ah8h already entered, a deal with no shared suit, and change any card to try your own hand. The matchups after it each swap one hand for a nearby one in the ranking.

How this was computed

This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 16 ways to deal one KQs and one A8s without reusing a card, grouped by suit pattern, every one of the 1,712,304 possible boards is dealt and both seven-card hands are compared. A tie counts as half a win in the equity column, and each board is counted once under each of its ten three-card flops.

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

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