--- title: "TT vs 88: preflop equity" url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-88.md" canonical_url: "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-88" last_updated: "2026-10-23" type: "reference" summary: "TT is a big favorite over 88 before the flop: 81.62% to 18.38% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit." related: ["https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-aks.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-77.md", "https://georgelipoker.com/equity/99-vs-88.md"] --- # TT vs 88: preflop equity TT is a big favorite over 88 before the flop: 81.62% to 18.38% equity, counted exactly over every board, with the split by flop type and suit. Dealt all in against each other, TT takes 81.62% of the pot on average and 88 takes the other 18.38%. ## TT against 88: the numbers **Exact preflop results for TT against 88, in percent** | Hand | Wins | Ties | Loses | Equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | TT | 81.380 | 0.488 | 18.132 | 81.624 | | 88 | 18.132 | 0.488 | 81.380 | 18.376 | Two pocket pairs meet here: TT against 88. Both hands are pairs, so the bigger pair is ahead on every board that does not pair a card below it. A gap this wide means 88 is in trouble before the flop and has few good runouts. Ties are part of the picture: 0.49% of boards end in a split pot, and each side counts that as half a win. Ranked by equity against a random hand, TT is number 5 of the 169 starting hands and 88 is number 7. **Boards behind the percentages: 61,642,944 counted in all** | Hand | Boards won, about | Boards tied, about | Boards lost, about | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | TT | 50,165,000 | 301,000 | 11,177,000 | | 88 | 11,177,000 | 301,000 | 50,165,000 | Exact total: 36 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. **TT against 88 read as odds** | Hand | Equity as odds (to 1) | Wins one deal in | Loses one deal in | Pot odds needed to call (to 1) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | TT | 4.442 | 1.229 | 5.515 | 0.225 | | 88 | 0.225 | 5.515 | 1.229 | 4.442 | 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 Across the five flop textures TT's equity moves by 16.88 points, from 69.56% on low rainbow flops (nine high or lower) to 86.44% on paired flops. TT stays ahead on all five textures, but the swing between them is large, so how the flop looks matters a great deal. **TT against 88 by flop texture, in percent** | Flop | Share of flops | TT wins | Ties | 88 wins | TT equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Rainbow, ten or higher | 24.595 | 84.145 | 0.264 | 15.591 | 84.277 | | Rainbow, nine or lower | 6.314 | 69.199 | 0.719 | 30.082 | 69.558 | | Two-tone | 46.363 | 80.494 | 0.346 | 19.160 | 80.667 | | Monotone | 5.152 | 75.065 | 1.742 | 23.193 | 75.936 | | Paired | 17.576 | 86.075 | 0.724 | 13.201 | 86.437 | Read the flop types this way: rainbow has three suits, two-tone has two cards of one suit, monotone has three, and paired repeats a rank. ## Compared with a random hand A random hand would give TT 75.01% and 88 69.16%. Against each other the change is +6.61 points for TT and -50.78 for 88. **TT and 88 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 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | TT, all flops | 81.624 | 75.012 | +6.612 | 1.08815 | | TT, rainbow, ten or higher | 84.277 | 75.012 | +9.265 | 1.12351 | | TT, rainbow, nine or lower | 69.558 | 75.012 | -5.454 | 0.92729 | | TT, two-tone | 80.667 | 75.012 | +5.655 | 1.07539 | | TT, monotone | 75.936 | 75.012 | +0.924 | 1.01232 | | TT, paired | 86.437 | 75.012 | +11.425 | 1.15231 | | 88, all flops | 18.376 | 69.163 | -50.787 | 0.26569 | | 88, rainbow, ten or higher | 15.723 | 69.163 | -53.440 | 0.22733 | | 88, rainbow, nine or lower | 30.442 | 69.163 | -38.721 | 0.44015 | | 88, two-tone | 19.333 | 69.163 | -49.830 | 0.27953 | | 88, monotone | 24.064 | 69.163 | -45.099 | 0.34793 | | 88, paired | 13.563 | 69.163 | -55.600 | 0.19610 | ## Does a shared suit matter? Looking only at deals where the hands share a suit, TT has 81.76%; looking only at deals where they do not, 80.94%. TT does better with a shared suit, by 0.82 points. **TT against 88 by suit overlap, in percent** | Deals | Specific deals | Share of deals | TT wins | Ties | 88 wins | TT equity | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Share a suit | 30 | 83.33 | 81.509 | 0.504 | 17.987 | 81.761 | | No shared suit | 6 | 16.67 | 80.736 | 0.409 | 18.855 | 80.940 | ## How often this matchup comes up How often does it happen? 36 of the 1,624,350 ordered deals (0.0022%) are TT against 88, and 72 (0.0044%) if either hand may sit in either seat. ## A worked example Put $100 each into a $200 pot and deal every board once: TT averages $163.24 back, ahead of its $100 by $63.24, while 88 averages $36.76, short of its $100 by $63.24. Scaled to 1,000 deals, that is roughly 814 wins for TT, 181 for 88 and 5 chopped pots. ## The same matchup from the other side If you came looking for 88 against TT, the numbers are the same with the hands swapped: 18.38% and 81.62%. ## Keep exploring Try TsTh against 8d8c 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 TsTh against 8d8c in the equity calculator](https://georgelipoker.com/tools/equity-calculator.md#p1=TsTh&p2=8d8c) - [TT combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/tt.md) - [88 combos](https://georgelipoker.com/combos/88.md) - [TT vs AKs](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-aks.md) - [TT vs 77](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-77.md) - [99 vs 88](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/99-vs-88.md) - [All hand matchups](https://georgelipoker.com/equity.md) ## How this was computed The figures are counted, not estimated: 1,712,304 boards for every suit pattern of the 36 specific deals, with both seven-card hands compared each time. Equity gives half a win for a tie. For the flop rows, a board is counted once under each of the ten flops inside it. Source: our own exact count from the GeorgeLiPoker poker math library. No outside data is used. ## Related - [TT vs AKs: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-aks.md) - [TT vs 77: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/tt-vs-77.md) - [99 vs 88: preflop equity](https://georgelipoker.com/equity/99-vs-88.md)