55

55 (pocket fives) wins 60.3% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 27th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 16% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 18.6% and its rank moves to 63; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 13.2% for rank 58. 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 KJo at 60.5% and one place below is QJs at 60.0%. 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, 55 is a favourite against 147 of them and an underdog against 21. Its best matchup is 52o at 89.6% and its worst is 66 at 18.6% — a spread of 71 points, which is why calling 55 simply "strong" or "weak" says very little. 8 opponents land inside one point of a coinflip, the closest being JTo at 50.0%.

55 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 18.6%. The table further down lists all 168 opponents individually.

Within the 13 pocket pairs it comes 10 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 24.9 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 10.1 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, 55 lands +9.3 points from the middle of the pack, and 26 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 60.3% against one opponent, 40.1% against two, 22.6% against four and 13.2% against eight. That last figure is 119% 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 55 reads as 60.3% 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.

55 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.

When the set misses, all three flop cards come in below 5 — leaving an overpair — 1.12% of the time, while at least one higher card lands 87.1% of the time (1 in 1.1). The chance of staying an overpair is 2.86% for 66 (one pair up), and 0.286% for 44 (one pair down).

Against one random hand, 55 goes from 60.3% before the flop to 91.3% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). Without a set, it holds 70.7% when all three cards are below 5 (still an overpair) and drops to 56.0% when a card above 5 lands (87.1%, 17,076 of 19,600 flops).

By board shape: rainbow 61.1%, two-tone 60.0%, monotone 57.4%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 61.8%. A paired board gives 61.5%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 58.0%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one 5 on the flop)" at 91.3%, the worst "No set, at least one card above 5" at 56.0%.

The 60.3% 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 60.32% (a gap of 0.02 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.