--- title: "KQs vs A9s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a9s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a9s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, KQs or A9s? A9s leads 57.46% to 42.55% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-ato.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-kjs.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-a9s.md"] --- # KQs vs A9s: preflop equity Who is ahead, KQs or A9s? A9s leads 57.46% to 42.55% 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, A9s finishes with 57.45% of the pot and KQs with 42.55%. ## KQs against A9s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for KQs against A9s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 42.290 | 0.509 | 57.201 | 42.545 | | A9s | 57.201 | 0.509 | 42.290 | 57.455 | 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** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 11,586,000 | 139,000 | 15,671,000 | | A9s | 15,671,000 | 139,000 | 11,586,000 | 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** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 0.740 | 2.365 | 1.748 | 1.350 | | A9s | 1.350 | 1.748 | 2.365 | 0.740 | 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** | Flop | Share of flops | KQs wins | Ties | A9s wins | KQs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.867 | 48.405 | 0.115 | 51.480 | 48.463 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 24.642 | 0.988 | 74.370 | 25.136 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 43.611 | 0.274 | 56.115 | 43.748 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 43.613 | 3.416 | 52.971 | 45.321 | | Paired | 17.091 | 37.003 | 0.608 | 62.389 | 37.307 | 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** | Case | Equity here | Against a random hand | Change in points | Times the random-hand equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs, all flops | 42.545 | 63.400 | -20.855 | 0.67106 | | KQs, rainbow, ten or higher | 48.463 | 63.400 | -14.937 | 0.76440 | | KQs, rainbow, nine or lower | 25.136 | 63.400 | -38.264 | 0.39647 | | KQs, two-tone | 43.748 | 63.400 | -19.652 | 0.69003 | | KQs, monotone | 45.321 | 63.400 | -18.079 | 0.71484 | | KQs, paired | 37.307 | 63.400 | -26.093 | 0.58844 | | A9s, all flops | 57.455 | 62.781 | -5.326 | 0.91517 | | A9s, rainbow, ten or higher | 51.537 | 62.781 | -11.244 | 0.82090 | | A9s, rainbow, nine or lower | 74.864 | 62.781 | +12.083 | 1.19246 | | A9s, two-tone | 56.252 | 62.781 | -6.529 | 0.89600 | | A9s, monotone | 54.679 | 62.781 | -8.102 | 0.87095 | | A9s, paired | 62.693 | 62.781 | -0.088 | 0.99860 | ## 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** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | KQs wins | Ties | A9s wins | KQs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 40.283 | 0.589 | 59.128 | 40.577 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 42.959 | 0.483 | 56.558 | 43.201 | ## 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%. ## Keep exploring 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. - [Open KsQs against Ah9h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=KsQs&p2=Ah9h) - [KQs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/kqs.md) - [A9s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/a9s.md) - [KQs vs ATo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-ato.md) - [KQs vs KJs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-kjs.md) - [66 vs A9s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-a9s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## 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. ## Related - [KQs vs ATo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-ato.md) - [KQs vs KJs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-kjs.md) - [66 vs A9s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-a9s.md)