---
title: "T8s vs 98s: preflop equity"
url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-98s.md"
canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-98s"
last_updated: "2026-10-23"
type: "reference"
summary: "T8s is a big favorite over 98s before the flop: 68.77% to 31.23% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit."
related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-22.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-97s.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t9o-vs-98s.md"]
---

# T8s vs 98s: preflop equity

T8s is a big favorite over 98s before the flop: 68.77% to 31.23% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit.

Dealt all in against each other, T8s takes 68.77% of the pot on average and 98s takes the other 31.23%.

## T8s against 98s: the numbers

**Exact preflop results for T8s against 98s, in percent**

| Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| T8s | 65.493 | 6.545 | 27.962 | 68.766 |
| 98s | 27.962 | 6.545 | 65.493 | 31.234 |

The matchup is suited hands on both sides, T8s against 98s. 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.

That is a clear edge, 68.77% to 31.23%, but 98s still wins often enough that one hand proves nothing. Split pots make up 6.55% of the boards, and both equity figures count them as half a win each.

For context, T8s sits at number 73 of 169 starting hands and 98s at number 83 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| T8s | 13,457,000 | 1,345,000 | 5,746,000 |
| 98s | 5,746,000 | 1,345,000 | 13,457,000 |

Exact total: 12 deals times 1,712,304 boards. The other three counts come from the five-decimal percentages and are rounded to the nearest thousand, so read them as approximate.

**T8s against 98s read as odds**

| Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| T8s | 2.202 | 1.527 | 3.576 | 0.454 |
| 98s | 0.454 | 3.576 | 1.527 | 2.202 |

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

Split by what the flop looks like, T8s peaks at 72.81% on rainbow flops topped by a ten or better and bottoms out at 60.98% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower). T8s stays ahead on all five textures.

**T8s against 98s by flop texture, in percent**

| Flop | Share of flops | T8s wins | Ties | 98s wins | T8s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Rainbow, ten or higher | 25.254 | 69.749 | 6.115 | 24.136 | 72.806 |
| Rainbow, nine or lower | 5.654 | 59.464 | 3.022 | 37.514 | 60.975 |
| Two-tone | 46.543 | 65.331 | 5.118 | 29.551 | 67.890 |
| Monotone | 5.215 | 58.879 | 7.085 | 34.036 | 62.422 |
| Paired | 17.334 | 63.683 | 11.992 | 24.325 | 69.679 |

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

How much does the opponent matter? Compared with its random-hand 52.33%, T8s changes by +16.44 points, and 98s, from 50.80%, by -19.57.

**T8s and 98s 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| T8s, all flops | 68.766 | 52.334 | +16.432 | 1.31398 |
| T8s, rainbow, ten or higher | 72.806 | 52.334 | +20.472 | 1.39118 |
| T8s, rainbow, nine or lower | 60.975 | 52.334 | +8.641 | 1.16511 |
| T8s, two-tone | 67.890 | 52.334 | +15.556 | 1.29724 |
| T8s, monotone | 62.422 | 52.334 | +10.088 | 1.19276 |
| T8s, paired | 69.679 | 52.334 | +17.345 | 1.33143 |
| 98s, all flops | 31.234 | 50.801 | -19.567 | 0.61483 |
| 98s, rainbow, ten or higher | 27.194 | 50.801 | -23.607 | 0.53530 |
| 98s, rainbow, nine or lower | 39.025 | 50.801 | -11.776 | 0.76819 |
| 98s, two-tone | 32.110 | 50.801 | -18.691 | 0.63207 |
| 98s, monotone | 37.578 | 50.801 | -13.223 | 0.73971 |
| 98s, paired | 30.321 | 50.801 | -20.480 | 0.59686 |

## Does a shared suit matter?

Every legal deal of T8s against 98s leaves the hands with no suit in common, so the suit split does not apply here.

**T8s against 98s by suit overlap, in percent**

| Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | T8s wins | Ties | 98s wins | T8s equity |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Share a suit | 0 | 0.00 | not possible | not possible | not possible | not possible |
| No shared suit | 12 | 100.00 | 65.493 | 6.545 | 27.962 | 68.766 |

## How often this matchup comes up

You will meet this exact matchup 0.0015% of the time in a random heads-up deal: 24 of 1,624,350, counting either seat order.

## A worked example

With $100 from each side, the $200 pot is split on average as $137.54 for T8s and $62.46 for 98s; the first side gains $37.54 per all-in and the second gives up $37.54.

Out of 1,000 deals you should see around 655 outright wins for T8s, 280 for 98s, and 65 split pots.

## The same matchup from the other side

One page covers both views. From 98s' side the equity is 31.23%, and from T8s' side it is 68.77%.

## Keep exploring

Open the calculator with Ts8s against 9h8h 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.

- [Open Ts8s against 9h8h in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=Ts8s&p2=9h8h)
- [T8s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/t8s.md)
- [98s combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/98s.md)
- [T8s vs 22](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-22.md)
- [T8s vs 97s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-97s.md)
- [T9o vs 98s](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t9o-vs-98s.md)
- [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md)

## How this was computed

We counted every case. Each suit pattern of the 12 specific T8s against 98s deals meets all 1,712,304 boards, and the better five-card hand wins; a split pot is half a win each. The flop table reads each board under all ten of its three-card flops.

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

## Related

- [T8s vs 22: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-22.md)
- [T8s vs 97s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t8s-vs-97s.md)
- [T9o vs 98s: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/t9o-vs-98s.md)