KK

KK (pocket kings) wins 82.5% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 2th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 1.2% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 42.9% and its rank moves to 2; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 29.6% for rank 2. A premium pair — ahead of almost every other hand before the flop.

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 AA at 85.2% and one place below is QQ at 79.9%. 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, KK is a favourite against 167 of them and an underdog against 1. Its best matchup is K2o at 94.6% and its worst is AA at 18.0% — a spread of 76.6 points, which is why calling KK simply "strong" or "weak" says very little.

KK 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 18.0%. The table further down lists all 168 opponents individually.

Within the 13 pocket pairs it comes 2 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 2.7 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 32.3 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, KK lands +31.5 points from the middle of the pack, and 1 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 82.5% against one opponent, 68.9% against two, 49.3% against four and 29.6% against eight. That last figure is 267% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 16 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 KK reads as 82.5% 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.

KK 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 K — leaving an overpair — 67.6% of the time, while at least one higher card lands 20.7% of the time (1 in 4.8). The chance of staying an overpair is 88.2% for AA (one pair up), and 50.4% for QQ (one pair down).

Against one random hand, KK goes from 82.4% before the flop to 94.3% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). Without a set, it holds 81.6% when all three cards are below K (still an overpair) and drops to 78.3% when a card above K lands (20.7%, 4,052 of 19,600 flops).

By board shape: rainbow 83.6%, two-tone 82.0%, monotone 77.0%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 85.0%. A paired board gives 85.1%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 77.1%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one K on the flop)" at 94.3%, the worst "Monotone (all three one suit)" at 77.0%.

The 82.5% 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 82.40% (a gap of 0.10 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.