22

22 (pocket deuces) wins 50.2% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 88th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 52.1% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 15.3% and its rank moves to 105; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 12.5% for rank 69. A small pair — cheap to play, huge when it flops a set.

As a pocket pair there is no suited twin; instead there are 6 combinations of it in the deck, so you are dealt it 0.45% of the time (6 of 1,326 two-card hands). The hand ranked one place above is Q5o at 50.2% and one place below is Q2s at 50.1%. Every pocket pair flops a set about 11.8% of the time, so the pecking order among pairs is decided almost entirely before the flop.

Played heads-up against each of the other 168 hands, 22 is a favourite against 105 of them and an underdog against 63. Its best matchup is 72o at 67.4% and its worst is AA at 17.7% — a spread of 49.7 points, which is why calling 22 simply "strong" or "weak" says very little. 8 opponents land inside one point of a coinflip, the closest being A8s at 50.0%.

22 shares a rank with relatively few hands, so it is rarely on the wrong side of a kicker problem. What does hurt it is running into a higher pair, where the number bottoms out at 17.7%. The table further down lists all 168 opponents individually.

Within the 13 pocket pairs it comes 13 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 35 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 0 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, 22 lands -0.8 points from the middle of the pack, and 87 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 50.2% against one opponent, 30.2% against two, 17.8% against four and 12.5% against eight. That last figure is 113% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 5 points, and it arrives 0.45% of the time (6 of 1,326 combinations).

One caveat worth repeating: every number on this page assumes the opponent holds a completely random hand and that the pot goes to showdown. Real opponents hold ranges, and a range that has already put money in is stronger than random — which is exactly why 22 reads as 50.2% here but plays worse than that against a raise. Use the 168 rows in the table below to see which specific holdings are the problem, rather than treating the headline figure as a verdict on the hand.

22 flops a set or better (set, full house or quads) 11.8% of the time — 2,304 of 19,600 flops, or 1 in 8.5 — and exactly a set 10.8%. By the river that rises to 19.2%. Those figures are identical for every pocket pair; what differs from pair to pair is what the flop looks like when the set misses.

No rank sits below 2, so when 22 misses its set the flop always brings at least one higher card (88.2%). The chance of staying an overpair is 0.0204% for 33 (one pair up).

Against one random hand, 22 goes from 50.3% before the flop to 92.5% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). No rank is lower than 2, so a flop without a set always brings a higher card, leaving 44.7%.

By board shape: rainbow 50.9%, two-tone 50.1%, monotone 48.5%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 51.0%. A paired board gives 50.5%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 45.3%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one 2 on the flop)" at 92.5%, the worst "No set, at least one card above 2" at 44.7%.

The 50.2% at the top of the page is a 400,000-hand simulation; this table counts every deal of the opponent's two cards and the five-card board (2,097,572,400 per starting hand), which puts the pre-flop figure at 50.33% (a gap of 0.13 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.