98o

98o (nine-eight offsuit) wins 48.1% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 98th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 58% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 16.7% and its rank moves to 85; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 10.9% for rank 98. A connector — straight potential, but nothing else to lean on.

Its suited/offsuit twin 98s runs at 50.8% (rank 83), a gap of 2.7 points. Losing the shared suit costs 2.7 points of raw equity. The hand directly above it in the ranking is J3s at 48.3%, and directly below is T7o at 48.1%, so three hands are packed into a band of 0.2 points.

Played heads-up against each of the other 168 hands, 98o is a favourite against 57 of them and an underdog against 111. Its best matchup is 82o at 73.9% and its worst is 99 at 13.1% — a spread of 60.8 points, which is why calling 98o simply "strong" or "weak" says very little. 2 opponents land inside one point of a coinflip, the closest being 44 at 50.4%.

98o dominates 8 hands that share one of its ranks, pushing hardest against 82o at 73.9%. It is dominated by 8 hands in return, the worst of them T9s, which leaves 98o with only 26.7%. A single kicker can move the number by tens of points, and the full table below lists every one of those opponents.

Within the 78 offsuit hands it comes 38 of 78. The strongest hand in that group, AKo, is 17.3 points away, and the weakest, 32o, sits 15.8 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, 98o lands -2.9 points from the middle of the pack, and 97 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 48.1% against one opponent, 32.3% against two, 20.0% against four and 10.9% against eight. That last figure is 98% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 5.5 points, and it arrives 0.9% of the time (12 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 98o reads as 48.1% 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.