--- title: "QTs vs K9o: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-k9o.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-k9o" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "Who is ahead, QTs or K9o? K9o leads 54.48% to 45.53% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-q9s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-jts.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-k9o.md"] --- # QTs vs K9o: preflop equity Who is ahead, QTs or K9o? K9o leads 54.48% to 45.53% before the flop, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Counting every board, the equity split is 54.47% for K9o and 45.53% for QTs, so K9o leads by 8.94 points. ## QTs against K9o: the numbers **Exact preflop results for QTs against K9o, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | QTs | 45.189 | 0.673 | 54.138 | 45.525 | | K9o | 54.138 | 0.673 | 45.189 | 54.475 | QTs and K9o are a suited hand and an offsuit hand, in that order. Neither hand shares a rank with the other, so this is a contest of high cards, connection and suits. That is a slim edge: neither hand is far ahead. Ties are part of the picture: 0.67% of boards end in a split pot, and each side counts that as half a win. For context, QTs sits at number 34 of 169 starting hands and K9o at number 40 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | QTs | 37,141,000 | 553,000 | 44,496,000 | | K9o | 44,496,000 | 553,000 | 37,141,000 | 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. **QTs against K9o 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 | 0.836 | 2.213 | 1.847 | 1.197 | | K9o | 1.197 | 1.847 | 2.213 | 0.836 | The final column gives the least the pot must offer for each unit called for a call to break even at this equity. ## Who is ahead on which flops Across the five flop textures K9o's equity moves by 20.69 points, from 50.19% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better to 70.88% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). K9o stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **QTs against K9o by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | QTs wins | Ties | K9o wins | QTs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 23.988 | 49.662 | 0.293 | 50.045 | 49.809 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 7.042 | 28.723 | 0.800 | 70.477 | 29.123 | | Two-tone | 46.667 | 47.451 | 0.379 | 52.170 | 47.641 | | Monotone | 5.212 | 46.139 | 2.456 | 51.405 | 47.367 | | Paired | 17.091 | 39.227 | 1.410 | 59.363 | 39.932 | 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 -13.94 points for QTs, from 59.47%, and -3.34 for K9o, from 57.81%. **QTs and K9o 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 | 45.525 | 59.468 | -13.943 | 0.76554 | | QTs, rainbow, ten or higher | 49.809 | 59.468 | -9.659 | 0.83758 | | QTs, rainbow, nine or lower | 29.123 | 59.468 | -30.345 | 0.48973 | | QTs, two-tone | 47.641 | 59.468 | -11.827 | 0.80112 | | QTs, monotone | 47.367 | 59.468 | -12.101 | 0.79651 | | QTs, paired | 39.932 | 59.468 | -19.536 | 0.67149 | | K9o, all flops | 54.475 | 57.812 | -3.337 | 0.94228 | | K9o, rainbow, ten or higher | 50.191 | 57.812 | -7.621 | 0.86818 | | K9o, rainbow, nine or lower | 70.877 | 57.812 | +13.065 | 1.22599 | | K9o, two-tone | 52.359 | 57.812 | -5.453 | 0.90568 | | K9o, monotone | 52.633 | 57.812 | -5.179 | 0.91042 | | K9o, paired | 60.068 | 57.812 | +2.256 | 1.03902 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Two kinds of deal exist here. In 24 of them the hands share a suit and K9o holds 54.91%. In 24 they do not, and it holds 54.04%. K9o does better with a shared suit, by 0.87 points. **QTs against K9o by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | QTs wins | Ties | K9o wins | QTs equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 24 | 50.00 | 44.730 | 0.712 | 54.558 | 45.086 | | No shared suit | 24 | 50.00 | 45.648 | 0.633 | 53.719 | 45.964 | ## How often this matchup comes up How often does it happen? 48 of the 1,624,350 ordered deals (0.0030%) are QTs against K9o, and 96 (0.0059%) if either hand may sit in either seat. ## A worked example Say each player puts $100 in before the flop, making a $200 pot. On average K9o takes back $108.94 of it, which is $8.94 more than it put in, and QTs takes back $91.06, $8.94 less than it put in. Over a long run, 1,000 deals split into about 541 for K9o, 452 for QTs and 7 tied. ## The same matchup from the other side K9o versus QTs is this same page seen from the other hand: 54.47% for K9o, 45.53% for QTs. ## Keep exploring Try QsTs against Kh9d 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 QsTs against Kh9d in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=QsTs&p2=Kh9d) - [QTs combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/qts.md) - [K9o combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/k9o.md) - [QTs vs Q9s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-q9s.md) - [QTs vs JTs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-jts.md) - [A4s vs K9o](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-k9o.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed This is an exact count with no sampling. For the 48 ways to deal one QTs and one K9o 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 Q9s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-q9s.md) - [QTs vs JTs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/qts-vs-jts.md) - [A4s vs K9o: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/a4s-vs-k9o.md)