88

88 (pocket eights) wins 69.2% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 7th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 4.1% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 24.1% and its rank moves to 22; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 15.9% for rank 25. A middle pair — frequently chased by two overcards.

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 99 at 72.2% and one place below is AKs at 67.2%. 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, 88 is a favourite against 162 of them and an underdog against 6. Its best matchup is 83o at 93.3% and its worst is 99 at 18.1% — a spread of 75.2 points, which is why calling 88 simply "strong" or "weak" says very little. 4 opponents land inside one point of a coinflip, the closest being JTs at 50.3%.

88 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 18.1%. The table further down lists all 168 opponents individually.

Within the 13 pocket pairs it comes 7 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 16 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 19 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, 88 lands +18.2 points from the middle of the pack, and 6 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 69.2% against one opponent, 50.2% against two, 29.2% against four and 15.9% against eight. That last figure is 143% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 8 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 88 reads as 69.2% 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.