--- title: "KQs vs QTs: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-qts.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-qts" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "KQs is a big favorite over QTs before the flop: 70.57% to 29.44% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a4s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a3s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-qts.md"] --- # KQs vs QTs: preflop equity KQs is a big favorite over QTs before the flop: 70.57% to 29.44% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Counting every board, the equity split is 70.57% for KQs and 29.43% for QTs, so KQs leads by 41.14 points. ## KQs against QTs: the numbers **Exact preflop results for KQs against QTs, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 69.365 | 2.401 | 28.234 | 70.565 | | QTs | 28.234 | 2.401 | 69.365 | 29.435 | Each side holds one of the suited hands: KQs and QTs. The two hands share a rank, and the one with the better other card dominates: it wins most kicker battles when that shared rank hits. KQs is well ahead, and QTs needs a specific kind of board to catch up. Ties are 2.40% of the outcomes here; each tied board gives both hands half the pot. For context, KQs sits at number 16 of 169 starting hands and QTs at number 34 when each is run against a random hand. **Boards behind the percentages: 20,547,648 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | KQs | 14,253,000 | 493,000 | 5,801,000 | | QTs | 5,801,000 | 493,000 | 14,253,000 | The total is exact: 12 specific deals times 1,712,304 boards. The three counts are approximate, worked out from the percentages to five decimals and rounded to the nearest thousand. **KQs against QTs 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 | 2.397 | 1.442 | 3.542 | 0.417 | | QTs | 0.417 | 3.542 | 1.442 | 2.397 | 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 If you know the kind of flop that came, the numbers shift: KQs holds 80.94% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) and 63.64% on monotone flops. KQs stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **KQs against QTs by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | KQs wins | Ties | QTs wins | KQs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.138 | 67.932 | 2.261 | 29.807 | 69.062 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.771 | 80.456 | 0.971 | 18.573 | 80.942 | | Two-tone | 46.543 | 68.365 | 1.769 | 29.866 | 69.249 | | Monotone | 5.215 | 61.468 | 4.341 | 34.191 | 63.639 | | Paired | 17.333 | 71.365 | 4.345 | 24.290 | 73.537 | 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 The table below sets each hand against its own random-hand baseline: a change of +7.17 points for KQs, from 63.40%, and -30.04 for QTs, from 59.47%. **KQs and QTs 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 | 70.565 | 63.400 | +7.165 | 1.11301 | | KQs, rainbow, ten or higher | 69.062 | 63.400 | +5.662 | 1.08931 | | KQs, rainbow, nine or lower | 80.942 | 63.400 | +17.542 | 1.27669 | | KQs, two-tone | 69.249 | 63.400 | +5.849 | 1.09226 | | KQs, monotone | 63.639 | 63.400 | +0.239 | 1.00377 | | KQs, paired | 73.537 | 63.400 | +10.137 | 1.15989 | | QTs, all flops | 29.435 | 59.468 | -30.033 | 0.49497 | | QTs, rainbow, ten or higher | 30.938 | 59.468 | -28.530 | 0.52025 | | QTs, rainbow, nine or lower | 19.058 | 59.468 | -40.410 | 0.32047 | | QTs, two-tone | 30.751 | 59.468 | -28.717 | 0.51710 | | QTs, monotone | 36.361 | 59.468 | -23.107 | 0.61144 | | QTs, paired | 26.463 | 59.468 | -33.005 | 0.44500 | ## Does a shared suit matter? There is no shared-suit case for this pair, since the cards they would need are already in the other hand. Every deal is a no-shared-suit deal. **KQs against QTs by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | KQs wins | Ties | QTs wins | KQs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible | | No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 69.365 | 2.401 | 28.234 | 70.565 | ## How often this matchup comes up Counting specific cards, KQs against QTs appears in 12 of the 1,624,350 ordered heads-up deals (0.0007%), and in 24 when the seats are swapped too (0.0015%). ## A worked example Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average KQs takes back $141.14 of it, which is $41.14 more than it put in, and QTs takes back $58.86, $41.14 less than it put in. Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 694 for KQs, 282 for QTs and 24 ties. ## The same matchup from the other side Read it from the other side: QTs against KQs is the same matchup with the numbers swapped, so QTs holds 29.43% and KQs holds 70.57%. That address sends you back to this page. ## Keep exploring Try KsQs against QhTh in the calculator: the hands share no suit, and every card can be changed. The links after it are the closest matchups in the ranking. - [Open KsQs against QhTh in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=KsQs&p2=QhTh) - [KQs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/kqs.md) - [QTs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/qts.md) - [KQs vs A4s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a4s.md) - [KQs vs A3s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a3s.md) - [66 vs QTs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-qts.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 12 ways to deal one KQs and one QTs 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. ## Related - [KQs vs A4s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a4s.md) - [KQs vs A3s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/kqs-vs-a3s.md) - [66 vs QTs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/66-vs-qts.md)