K9s

K9s (king-nine suited) wins 59.9% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 30th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 17.8% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 23.4% and its rank moves to 24; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 16.4% for rank 21. A suited hand — the flush adds a few points of raw equity.

Its suited/offsuit twin K9o runs at 57.8% (rank 40), a gap of 2.1 points. Sharing a suit is worth exactly those 2.1 points here — nothing about the ranks changes. The hand directly above it in the ranking is A6s at 59.9%, and directly below is A8o at 59.9%, so three hands are packed into a band of 0 points.

Played heads-up against each of the other 168 hands, K9s is a favourite against 126 of them and an underdog against 42. Its best matchup is 92o at 77.2% and its worst is KK at 12.8% — a spread of 64.4 points, which is why calling K9s simply "strong" or "weak" says very little. 3 opponents land inside one point of a coinflip, the closest being 33 at 49.9%.

K9s dominates 8 hands that share one of its ranks, pushing hardest against 92o at 77.2%. It is dominated by 8 hands in return, the worst of them AKs, which leaves K9s with only 27.4%. 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 suited hands it comes 13 of 78. The strongest hand in that group, AKs, is 7.3 points away, and the weakest, 32s, sits 24 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, K9s lands +8.9 points from the middle of the pack, and 29 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 59.9% against one opponent, 42.0% against two, 27.2% against four and 16.4% against eight. That last figure is 148% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 6 points, and it arrives 0.3% of the time (4 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 K9s reads as 59.9% 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.

K9s 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) 21.2%. 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 1.31% and a four-out gutshot 11.3%. By the river a straight using a hole card completes 3.84% of the time. For flushes, two or more of its suit land on the flop 11.8% of the time (a made flush 0.842%), and a flush is complete by the river 6.40%.

Put together, K9s flops a pair or better or a strong draw (a flush draw or an eight-out straight draw) 43.9% of the time — rank 51 of the 156 unpaired hands (tied with 13 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, K9s goes from 60.0% before the flop up to 78.8% when either card pairs, and down to 51.0% when both miss. It connects 32.4% of the time (6,356 of 19,600 flops). Missing with a card above K on board leaves 52.8%; missing with nothing above K leaves 50.4%.

By board shape: rainbow 59.7%, two-tone 60.5%, monotone 57.3%. Two of your suit (a flush draw) gives 69.5% (10.9% of flops), and three of your suit (a made flush) 97.0% (0.842%). A paired board gives 60.9%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 56.8%. The best row in the table is "Three of your suit (made flush)" at 97.0%, the worst "and nothing above K" at 50.4%.

The 59.9% 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 59.99% (a gap of 0.09 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.