Q9s vs A2s: preflop equity

Over all 1,712,304 boards that can follow this deal, A2s finishes with 56.85% of the pot and Q9s with 43.15%.

Q9s

43.15%

Wins 42.88%, ties 0.53%

A2s

56.85%

Wins 56.59%, ties 0.53%

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

Q9s against A2s: the numbers

Exact preflop results for Q9s against A2s, in percent
HandWinsTiesLosesEquity
Q9s42.8780.53456.58843.145
A2s56.5880.53442.87856.855

Q9s meets A2s, and both are suited hands. With no overlap in ranks, every card that pairs one hand is a card that does not pair the other.

A 13.70 point lead is real, and Q9s still takes about 429 of every 1,000 deals outright. About 0.53% of boards chop the pot, which is why equity sits slightly above the win figure for both hands.

By strength against a random hand, Q9s holds place 43 of 169 and A2s holds place 46.

Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all
HandBoards won, aboutBoards tied, aboutBoards lost, about
Q9s11,747,000146,00015,503,000
A2s15,503,000146,00011,747,000

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.

Q9s against A2s read as odds
HandEquity as odds (to 1)Wins one deal inLoses one deal inPot odds needed to call (to 1)
Q9s0.7592.3321.7671.318
A2s1.3181.7672.3320.759

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

Split by what the flop looks like, A2s peaks at 62.09% on paired flops and bottoms out at 54.48% on monotone flops. A2s stays ahead on all five textures.

Q9s against A2s by flop texture, in percent
FlopShare of flopsQ9s winsTiesA2s winsQ9s equity
Rainbow, ten or higher24.54343.7340.16256.10443.815
Rainbow, nine or lower6.36643.6870.99055.32344.182
Two-tone46.72744.1510.29655.55344.299
Monotone5.27343.7983.44252.76045.519
Paired17.09137.5810.65361.76637.908

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

Each hand has a baseline against a random hand: 57.66% for Q9s, 57.38% for A2s. Here the change is -14.51 and -0.53 points.

Q9s and A2s here compared with each against a random hand, in percent
CaseEquity hereAgainst a random handChange in pointsTimes the random-hand equity
Q9s, all flops43.14557.664-14.5190.74821
Q9s, rainbow, ten or higher43.81557.664-13.8490.75983
Q9s, rainbow, nine or lower44.18257.664-13.4820.76620
Q9s, two-tone44.29957.664-13.3650.76823
Q9s, monotone45.51957.664-12.1450.78938
Q9s, paired37.90857.664-19.7560.65739
A2s, all flops56.85557.379-0.5240.99087
A2s, rainbow, ten or higher56.18557.379-1.1940.97919
A2s, rainbow, nine or lower55.81857.379-1.5610.97279
A2s, two-tone55.70157.379-1.6780.97076
A2s, monotone54.48157.379-2.8980.94949
A2s, paired62.09257.379+4.7131.08214

Does a shared suit matter?

Of the deals of this matchup, 4 share a suit (A2s at 58.70%) and 12 do not (56.24%). A2s does better with a shared suit, by 2.46 points.

Q9s against A2s by suit overlap, in percent
DealsSpecific dealsShare of dealsQ9s winsTiesA2s winsQ9s equity
Share a suit425.0040.9920.61758.39141.301
No shared suit1275.0043.5060.50755.98743.760

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

Worked example: both players commit $100, so $200 sits in the middle. Over every board, A2s' average share is $113.70 (a gain of $13.70) and Q9s' is $86.30 (a loss of $13.70).

Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 566 for A2s, 429 for Q9s and 5 ties.

The same matchup from the other side

Read it from the other side: A2s against Q9s is the same matchup with the numbers swapped, so A2s holds 56.85% and Q9s holds 43.15%. That address sends you back to this page.

Open the calculator with Qs9s against Ah2h already entered, a deal with no shared suit, and change any card to try your own hand. The matchups after it each swap one hand for a nearby one in the ranking.

How this was computed

Method: exact enumeration. The 16 specific deals are grouped by suit pattern, each is run against all 1,712,304 boards, and both seven-card hands are scored. Equity adds half of every tie, and flop textures are tallied over the ten flops inside each board.

Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used.

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