66

66 (pocket sixs) wins 63.3% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 17th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 10.1% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 19.9% and its rank moves to 49; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 13.7% for rank 51. 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 KQs at 63.4% and one place below is A9s at 62.8%. 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, 66 is a favourite against 155 of them and an underdog against 13. Its best matchup is 62o at 91.8% and its worst is 77 at 18.4% — a spread of 73.4 points, which is why calling 66 simply "strong" or "weak" says very little. 8 opponents land inside one point of a coinflip, the closest being 98s at 50.1%.

66 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 18.4%. The table further down lists all 168 opponents individually.

Within the 13 pocket pairs it comes 9 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 21.9 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 13.1 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, 66 lands +12.3 points from the middle of the pack, and 16 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 63.3% against one opponent, 43.0% against two, 24.7% against four and 13.7% against eight. That last figure is 123% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 6 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 66 reads as 63.3% 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.

66 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 6 — leaving an overpair — 2.86% of the time, while at least one higher card lands 85.4% of the time (1 in 1.2). The chance of staying an overpair is 5.82% for 77 (one pair up), and 1.12% for 55 (one pair down).

Against one random hand, 66 goes from 63.3% before the flop to 91.7% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). Without a set, it holds 70.5% when all three cards are below 6 (still an overpair) and drops to 59.1% when a card above 6 lands (85.4%, 16,736 of 19,600 flops).

By board shape: rainbow 64.1%, two-tone 63.0%, monotone 59.9%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 64.9%. A paired board gives 64.9%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 61.2%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one 6 on the flop)" at 91.7%, the worst "No set, at least one card above 6" at 59.1%.

The 63.3% 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 63.28% (a gap of 0.02 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.