KQs vs A9s: preflop equity

Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, A9s finishes with 57.45% of the pot and KQs with 42.55%.

KQs

42.55%

Wins 42.29%, ties 0.51%

A9s

57.45%

Wins 57.20%, ties 0.51%

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

KQs against A9s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for KQs against A9s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
KQs42.2900.50957.20142.545
A9s57.2010.50942.29057.455

Two suited hands meet here: KQs against A9s. The two hands share no rank, which makes this a pure matchup of card strength, straight chances and flush chances.

A9s is ahead, but KQs is far from dead: it takes 423 of every 1,000 deals outright. Split pots make up 0.51% of the boards, and both equity figures count them as half a win each.

Among the 169 starting hands, KQs is number 16 and A9s is number 18 by strength against a random hand.

Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
KQs11,586,000139,00015,671,000
A9s15,671,000139,00011,586,000

The board total is exact, 16 deals at 1,712,304 boards each. Won, tied and lost counts are rounded to the nearest thousand from the five-decimal percentages.

KQs against A9s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
KQs0.7402.3651.7481.350
A9s1.3501.7482.3650.740

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, A9s' equity runs from 51.54% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better up to 74.86% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). A9s stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal.

KQs against A9s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsKQs winsTiesA9s winsKQs equity
Rainbow, ten or higher23.86748.4050.11551.48048.463
Rainbow, nine or lower7.04224.6420.98874.37025.136
Two-tone46.72743.6110.27456.11543.748
Monotone5.27343.6133.41652.97145.321
Paired17.09137.0030.60862.38937.307

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

Relative to a random opponent, KQs changes by -20.85 points (baseline 63.40%) and A9s by -5.33 points (baseline 62.78%).

KQs and A9s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
KQs, all flops42.54563.400-20.8550.67106
KQs, rainbow, ten or higher48.46363.400-14.9370.76440
KQs, rainbow, nine or lower25.13663.400-38.2640.39647
KQs, two-tone43.74863.400-19.6520.69003
KQs, monotone45.32163.400-18.0790.71484
KQs, paired37.30763.400-26.0930.58844
A9s, all flops57.45562.781-5.3260.91517
A9s, rainbow, ten or higher51.53762.781-11.2440.82090
A9s, rainbow, nine or lower74.86462.781+12.0831.19246
A9s, two-tone56.25262.781-6.5290.89600
A9s, monotone54.67962.781-8.1020.87095
A9s, paired62.69362.781-0.0880.99860

Does a shared suit matter?

Two kinds of deal exist here. In 4 of them the hands share a suit and A9s holds 59.42%. In 12 they do not, and it holds 56.80%. A9s does better with a shared suit, by 2.62 points.

KQs against A9s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsKQs winsTiesA9s winsKQs equity
Share a suit425.0040.2830.58959.12840.577
No shared suit1275.0042.9590.48356.55843.201

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

Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: A9s averages $114.90 back, ahead of its $100 by $14.90, while KQs averages $85.10, short of its $100 by $14.90.

Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 572 for A9s, 423 for KQs and 5 ties.

The same matchup from the other side

If you came looking for A9s against KQs, the numbers are the same with the hands swapped: 57.45% and 42.55%.

The calculator link fills in KsQs against Ah9h, 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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