AJo

AJo (ace-jack offsuit) wins 63.6% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 15th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 8.9% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 24.3% and its rank moves to 21; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 16.1% for rank 24. An ace-high hand — watch out for kicker trouble and domination.

Its suited/offsuit twin AJs runs at 65.4% (rank 11), a gap of 1.8 points. Losing the shared suit costs 1.8 points of raw equity. The hand directly above it in the ranking is AQo at 64.4%, and directly below is KQs at 63.4%, so three hands are packed into a band of 1 points.

Played heads-up against each of the other 168 hands, AJo is a favourite against 150 of them and an underdog against 18. Its best matchup is J2o at 77.4% and its worst is AA at 7.6% — a spread of 69.8 points, which is why calling AJo simply "strong" or "weak" says very little.

AJo dominates 8 hands that share one of its ranks, pushing hardest against J2o at 77.4%. It is dominated by 4 hands in return, the worst of them AKs, which leaves AJo with only 24.7%. 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 3 of 78. The strongest hand in that group, AKo, is 1.8 points away, and the weakest, 32o, sits 31.3 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, AJo lands +12.6 points from the middle of the pack, and 14 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 63.6% against one opponent, 45.4% against two, 28.7% against four and 16.1% against eight. That last figure is 145% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 8 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 AJo reads as 63.6% 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.

AJo pairs the board on the flop — at least one of its two ranks hits — 32.4% of the time, and flops top pair or better (the paired card is the highest on the board, or two pair and up) 27.6%. By the river it has made a pair or better 48.7% of the time.

For straights, the flop completes one 0.327% of the time (64 flops), gives an eight-out draw 0.980% and a four-out gutshot 12.0%. By the river a straight using a hole card completes 3.89% of the time.

Put together, AJo flops a pair or better or a strong draw (an eight-out straight draw) 33.7% of the time — rank 143 of the 156 unpaired hands (tied with 6 others). The highest is JTs, T9s, 98s and 4 others at 50.6% and the lowest AKo, A2o at 32.8%.

Against one random hand, AJo goes from 63.6% before the flop up to 83.2% when either card pairs, and down to 54.1% when both miss. It connects 32.4% of the time (6,356 of 19,600 flops). Nothing ranks above A, so a miss never brings an overcard.

By board shape: rainbow 64.3%, two-tone 63.2%, monotone 61.7%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 71.5%. A paired board gives 65.7%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 59.4%. The best row in the table is "Either card hits (a matching rank on the flop)" at 83.2%, the worst "Neither card hits" at 54.1%.

The 63.6% 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 63.56% (a gap of 0.04 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.