JJ

JJ (pocket jacks) wins 77.5% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 4th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 2.4% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 33.7% and its rank moves to 4; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 21.7% for rank 5. 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 QQ at 79.9% and one place below is TT at 75.1%. 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, JJ is a favourite against 165 of them and an underdog against 3. Its best matchup is J2o at 94.0% and its worst is QQ at 18.1% — a spread of 75.9 points, which is why calling JJ simply "strong" or "weak" says very little.

JJ 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 4 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 7.7 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 27.3 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, JJ lands +26.5 points from the middle of the pack, and 3 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 77.5% against one opponent, 61.4% against two, 40.2% against four and 21.7% against eight. That last figure is 195% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 12 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 JJ reads as 77.5% 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.

JJ 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 J — leaving an overpair — 36.4% of the time, while at least one higher card lands 51.8% of the time (1 in 1.9). The chance of staying an overpair is 50.4% for QQ (one pair up), and 25.3% for TT (one pair down).

Against one random hand, JJ goes from 77.5% before the flop to 92.8% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). Without a set, it holds 77.3% when all three cards are below J (still an overpair) and drops to 74.1% when a card above J lands (51.8%, 10,156 of 19,600 flops).

By board shape: rainbow 78.6%, two-tone 77.1%, monotone 72.4%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 79.6%. A paired board gives 80.3%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 74.8%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one J on the flop)" at 92.8%, the worst "Monotone (all three one suit)" at 72.4%.

The 77.5% 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 77.47% (a gap of 0.03 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.