Q9s vs 86s: preflop equity

Averaged over every possible board, Q9s is ahead of 86s by 26.70 points of equity, 63.35% to 36.65%.

Q9s

63.35%

Wins 62.89%, ties 0.90%

86s

36.65%

Wins 36.21%, ties 0.90%

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

Q9s against 86s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for Q9s against 86s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
Q9s62.8940.90436.20263.346
86s36.2020.90462.89436.654

Here suited hands face each other, Q9s on one side and 86s on the other. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits.

That is a modest edge, the kind that shows up over many hands and is easy to miss in one. The tie share is 0.90%: on those boards the pot is chopped and neither hand wins outright.

By strength against a random hand, Q9s holds place 43 of 169 and 86s holds place 110.

Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
Q9s17,231,000248,0009,918,000
86s9,918,000248,00017,231,000

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.

Q9s against 86s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
Q9s1.7281.5902.7620.579
86s0.5792.7621.5901.728

The last column is the smallest pot odds, written as a pot-to-call ratio, at which a call breaks even with this equity.

Who is ahead on which flops

The flop changes the picture. Q9s does best on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better, at 67.74%, and worst on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower), at 46.15%. The lead reverses on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower): there 86s is the favorite even though Q9s is ahead overall.

Q9s against 86s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsQ9s winsTies86s winsQ9s equity
Rainbow, ten or higher25.22067.5160.44132.04367.736
Rainbow, nine or lower5.68945.9080.49153.60146.153
Two-tone46.72762.5060.41737.07762.715
Monotone5.27358.5853.52037.89560.345
Paired17.09164.1162.24833.63665.240

Flop types: rainbow means three different suits, two-tone means one suit twice, monotone means one suit three times, paired means a repeated rank.

Compared with a random hand

A random hand would give Q9s 57.66% and 86s 46.24%. Against each other the change is +5.69 points for Q9s and -9.59 for 86s.

Q9s and 86s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
Q9s, all flops63.34657.664+5.6821.09854
Q9s, rainbow, ten or higher67.73657.664+10.0721.17467
Q9s, rainbow, nine or lower46.15357.664-11.5110.80038
Q9s, two-tone62.71557.664+5.0511.08759
Q9s, monotone60.34557.664+2.6811.04649
Q9s, paired65.24057.664+7.5761.13138
86s, all flops36.65446.243-9.5890.79264
86s, rainbow, ten or higher32.26446.243-13.9790.69771
86s, rainbow, nine or lower53.84746.243+7.6041.16444
86s, two-tone37.28546.243-8.9580.80628
86s, monotone39.65546.243-6.5880.85754
86s, paired34.76046.243-11.4830.75168

Does a shared suit matter?

Does suit overlap move the numbers? Q9s has 65.77% when the hands share a suit and 62.54% when they do not. Q9s does better with a shared suit, by 3.23 points.

Q9s against 86s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsQ9s winsTies86s winsQ9s equity
Share a suit425.0065.2671.00033.73365.767
No shared suit1275.0062.1030.87237.02562.539

How often this matchup comes up

How often does it happen? 16 of the 1,624,350 ordered deals (0.0010%) are Q9s against 86s, and 32 (0.0020%) if either hand may sit in either seat.

A worked example

A $100 all-in from each player makes a $200 pot, and the exact equity says Q9s gets $126.70 of it on average and 86s gets $73.30.

In 1,000 deals of exactly this matchup, expect about 629 won outright by Q9s, about 362 won outright by 86s and about 9 split.

The same matchup from the other side

If you came looking for 86s against Q9s, the numbers are the same with the hands swapped: 36.65% and 63.35%.

Qs9s against 8h6h is a ready-made deal for the calculator, with no suit in common between the hands. The neighboring matchups below replace one hand with another of similar strength.

How this was computed

This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 16 ways to deal one Q9s and one 86s 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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