--- title: "KQs vs ATo: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-ato.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-ato" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, KQs or ATo? ATo leads 56.41% to 43.59% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-kjs.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a8s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-ato.md"] --- # KQs vs ATo: preflop equity Who is ahead, KQs or ATo? ATo leads 56.41% to 43.59% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. The exact count puts ATo at 56.41% and KQs at 43.59% when the two hands see all five board cards. ## KQs against ATo: the numbers **Exact preflop results for KQs against ATo, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 43.353 | 0.470 | 56.177 | 43.588 | | ATo | 56.177 | 0.470 | 43.353 | 56.412 | KQs and ATo are a suited hand and an offsuit hand, in that order. The two hands share no rank, which makes this a pure matchup of card strength, straight chances and flush chances. A 12.82 point lead is real, and KQs still takes about 433 of every 1,000 deals outright. 0.47% of boards are ties, so the equity of each hand is its win rate plus half of that. For context, KQs sits at number 16 of 169 starting hands and ATo at number 19 when each is run against a random hand. **Boards behind the percentages: 82,190,592 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 35,632,000 | 386,000 | 46,172,000 | | ATo | 46,172,000 | 386,000 | 35,632,000 | 48 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 ATo 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 | 0.773 | 2.307 | 1.780 | 1.294 | | ATo | 1.294 | 1.780 | 2.307 | 0.773 | In the last column, a pot-to-call ratio at or above the figure makes a call break even or better at this equity. ## Who is ahead on which flops Low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) are the best for ATo (73.17%); rainbow flops topped by a ten or better are the worst (51.78%). ATo stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **KQs against ATo by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | KQs wins | Ties | ATo wins | KQs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.260 | 48.163 | 0.112 | 51.725 | 48.219 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.770 | 26.337 | 0.990 | 72.673 | 26.832 | | Two-tone | 46.667 | 45.439 | 0.299 | 54.262 | 45.588 | | Monotone | 5.212 | 44.677 | 2.383 | 52.940 | 45.869 | | Paired | 17.091 | 38.442 | 0.604 | 60.954 | 38.744 | 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, 62.72% for ATo. Here the change is -19.81 and -6.31 points. **KQs and ATo 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 | 43.588 | 63.400 | -19.812 | 0.68751 | | KQs, rainbow, ten or higher | 48.219 | 63.400 | -15.181 | 0.76055 | | KQs, rainbow, nine or lower | 26.832 | 63.400 | -36.568 | 0.42322 | | KQs, two-tone | 45.588 | 63.400 | -17.812 | 0.71905 | | KQs, monotone | 45.869 | 63.400 | -17.531 | 0.72349 | | KQs, paired | 38.744 | 63.400 | -24.656 | 0.61110 | | ATo, all flops | 56.412 | 62.722 | -6.310 | 0.89940 | | ATo, rainbow, ten or higher | 51.781 | 62.722 | -10.941 | 0.82556 | | ATo, rainbow, nine or lower | 73.168 | 62.722 | +10.446 | 1.16654 | | ATo, two-tone | 54.412 | 62.722 | -8.310 | 0.86751 | | ATo, monotone | 54.131 | 62.722 | -8.591 | 0.86303 | | ATo, paired | 61.256 | 62.722 | -1.466 | 0.97663 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Looking only at deals where the hands share a suit, ATo has 56.90%; looking only at deals where they do not, 55.93%. ATo does better with a shared suit, by 0.97 points. **KQs against ATo by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | KQs wins | Ties | ATo wins | KQs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 24 | 50.00 | 42.846 | 0.511 | 56.643 | 43.102 | | No shared suit | 24 | 50.00 | 43.859 | 0.429 | 55.712 | 44.074 | ## How often this matchup comes up You will meet this exact matchup 0.0059% of the time in a random heads-up deal: 96 of 1,624,350, counting either seat order. ## A worked example Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average ATo takes back $112.82 of it, which is $12.82 more than it put in, and KQs takes back $87.18, $12.82 less than it put in. Per 1,000 deals: ATo wins about 562, KQs wins about 433, and about 5 end in a split pot. ## The same matchup from the other side The mirror image, ATo against KQs, is 56.41% to 43.59%, and its address redirects to this page. ## Keep exploring The calculator link fills in KsQs against AhTd, 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 AhTd in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=KsQs&p2=AhTd) - [KQs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/kqs.md) - [ATo combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/ato.md) - [KQs vs KJs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-kjs.md) - [KQs vs A8s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a8s.md) - [66 vs ATo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-ato.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed All 1,712,304 five-card boards are dealt for every suit pattern among the 48 specific deals of KQs against ATo, and both hands are scored on each. That is a full count, so the percentages are exact. Ties are half a win each, and each board appears once per flop it contains. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [KQs vs KJs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-kjs.md) - [KQs vs A8s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a8s.md) - [66 vs ATo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-ato.md)