QQ

QQ (pocket queens) wins 79.9% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 3th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 1.8% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 38.1% and its rank moves to 3; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 24.5% for rank 3. 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 KK at 82.5% and one place below is JJ at 77.5%. 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, QQ is a favourite against 166 of them and an underdog against 2. Its best matchup is Q2o at 94.4% and its worst is KK at 18.2% — a spread of 76.2 points, which is why calling QQ simply "strong" or "weak" says very little.

QQ 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 18.2%. The table further down lists all 168 opponents individually.

Within the 13 pocket pairs it comes 3 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 5.3 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 29.7 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, QQ lands +28.9 points from the middle of the pack, and 2 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 79.9% against one opponent, 65.0% against two, 44.9% against four and 24.5% against eight. That last figure is 221% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 14 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 QQ reads as 79.9% 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.

QQ 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 Q — leaving an overpair — 50.4% of the time, while at least one higher card lands 37.8% of the time (1 in 2.6). The chance of staying an overpair is 67.6% for KK (one pair up), and 36.4% for JJ (one pair down).

Against one random hand, QQ goes from 79.9% before the flop to 93.6% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). Without a set, it holds 79.4% when all three cards are below Q (still an overpair) and drops to 76.4% when a card above Q lands (37.8%, 7,416 of 19,600 flops).

By board shape: rainbow 81.1%, two-tone 79.6%, monotone 74.7%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 82.3%. A paired board gives 82.8%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 75.9%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one Q on the flop)" at 93.6%, the worst "Monotone (all three one suit)" at 74.7%.

The 79.9% 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 79.93% (a gap of 0.03 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.