--- title: "QTs vs J9s: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-j9s.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-j9s" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "QTs is a big favorite over J9s before the flop: 62.96% to 37.04% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-jto.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-t9s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-j9s.md"] --- # QTs vs J9s: preflop equity QTs is a big favorite over J9s before the flop: 62.96% to 37.04% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. If QTs and J9s get all the chips in before the flop, QTs owns 62.96% of the pot in the long run and J9s owns 37.04%. ## QTs against J9s: the numbers **Exact preflop results for QTs against J9s, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | QTs | 62.489 | 0.937 | 36.574 | 62.957 | | J9s | 36.574 | 0.937 | 62.489 | 37.043 | QTs and J9s are both suited hands. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits. QTs is ahead, but J9s is far from dead: it takes 366 of every 1,000 deals outright. A split pot comes up on 0.94% of boards, so the wins and the equity differ by half of that. QTs ranks number 34 of 169 starting hands, and J9s ranks number 55, by equity against a random hand. **Boards behind the percentages: 27,396,864 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | QTs | 17,120,000 | 257,000 | 10,020,000 | | J9s | 10,020,000 | 257,000 | 17,120,000 | The total is exact: 16 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. **QTs against J9s read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | QTs | 1.700 | 1.600 | 2.734 | 0.588 | | J9s | 0.588 | 2.734 | 1.600 | 1.700 | 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 QTs prefers paired flops, where it holds 64.94%, and likes low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) least, where it holds 59.00%. QTs stays ahead on all five textures. **QTs against J9s by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | QTs wins | Ties | J9s wins | QTs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.867 | 64.539 | 0.441 | 35.020 | 64.759 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 58.653 | 0.702 | 40.645 | 59.004 | | Two-tone | 46.727 | 62.054 | 0.453 | 37.493 | 62.280 | | Monotone | 5.273 | 57.908 | 3.531 | 38.561 | 59.673 | | Paired | 17.091 | 63.813 | 2.246 | 33.941 | 64.936 | 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 A random hand would give QTs 59.47% and J9s 55.66%. Against each other the change is +3.49 points for QTs and -18.62 for J9s. **QTs and J9s 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | QTs, all flops | 62.957 | 59.468 | +3.489 | 1.05867 | | QTs, rainbow, ten or higher | 64.759 | 59.468 | +5.291 | 1.08897 | | QTs, rainbow, nine or lower | 59.004 | 59.468 | -0.464 | 0.99220 | | QTs, two-tone | 62.280 | 59.468 | +2.812 | 1.04729 | | QTs, monotone | 59.673 | 59.468 | +0.205 | 1.00345 | | QTs, paired | 64.936 | 59.468 | +5.468 | 1.09195 | | J9s, all flops | 37.043 | 55.662 | -18.619 | 0.66550 | | J9s, rainbow, ten or higher | 35.241 | 55.662 | -20.421 | 0.63312 | | J9s, rainbow, nine or lower | 40.996 | 55.662 | -14.666 | 0.73652 | | J9s, two-tone | 37.720 | 55.662 | -17.942 | 0.67766 | | J9s, monotone | 40.327 | 55.662 | -15.335 | 0.72450 | | J9s, paired | 35.064 | 55.662 | -20.598 | 0.62995 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Split by suits, the deals give QTs 65.42% when the hands overlap in a suit and 62.14% when they do not. QTs does better with a shared suit, by 3.28 points. **QTs against J9s by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | QTs wins | Ties | J9s wins | QTs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 4 | 25.00 | 64.902 | 1.033 | 34.065 | 65.418 | | No shared suit | 12 | 75.00 | 61.685 | 0.904 | 37.411 | 62.137 | ## How often this matchup comes up The class pair covers 16 combinations of specific cards in a fixed seat order, 0.0010% of 1,624,350, and 32 (0.0020%) in either order. ## A worked example Try it with money: two players each put in $100 and the whole board runs out every possible way. QTs averages $125.92 from the $200, up $25.92; J9s averages $74.08, down $25.92. Run 1,000 deals and the tally comes out near 625 for QTs, 366 for J9s and 9 ties. ## The same matchup from the other side J9s versus QTs is this same page seen from the other hand: 37.04% for J9s, 62.96% for QTs. ## Keep exploring The calculator link fills in QsTs against Jh9h, 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 QsTs against Jh9h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=QsTs&p2=Jh9h) - [QTs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/qts.md) - [J9s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/j9s.md) - [QTs vs JTo](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-jto.md) - [QTs vs T9s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-t9s.md) - [A4s vs J9s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-j9s.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 16 ways to deal one QTs and one J9s 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 - [QTs vs JTo: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-jto.md) - [QTs vs T9s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-t9s.md) - [A4s vs J9s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-j9s.md)