TT

TT (pocket tens) wins 75.1% of the time against a single random opponent, which places it 5th out of the 169 starting hands — the top 3% of the range. At a six-handed table (five opponents) its equity falls to 29.9% and its rank moves to 6; nine-handed (eight opponents) it holds 19.3% for rank 9. 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 JJ at 77.5% and one place below is 99 at 72.2%. 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, TT is a favourite against 164 of them and an underdog against 4. Its best matchup is T2o at 93.6% and its worst is JJ at 18.1% — a spread of 75.5 points, which is why calling TT simply "strong" or "weak" says very little.

TT 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 5 of 13. The strongest hand in that group, AA, is 10.1 points away, and the weakest, 22, sits 24.9 points below. Measured against the average equity of all 169 hands, 51%, TT lands +24.1 points from the middle of the pack, and 4 hands in the full ranking are still ahead of it.

Adding players costs equity steadily: 75.1% against one opponent, 57.8% against two, 36.1% against four and 19.3% against eight. That last figure is 174% of an even nine-way share (11.1%). The Chen formula scores this hand at 10 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 TT reads as 75.1% 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.

TT 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 T — leaving an overpair — 25.3% of the time, while at least one higher card lands 62.9% of the time (1 in 1.6). The chance of staying an overpair is 36.4% for JJ (one pair up), and 16.7% for 99 (one pair down).

Against one random hand, TT goes from 75.0% before the flop to 92.1% when it flops a set or better (11.8% of flops). Without a set, it holds 75.2% when all three cards are below T (still an overpair) and drops to 71.8% when a card above T lands (62.9%, 12,336 of 19,600 flops).

By board shape: rainbow 76.1%, two-tone 74.7%, monotone 70.2%. A monotone flop in one of your suits gives 77.0%. A paired board gives 77.7%, and a connected board (three ranks within five) 73.7%. The best row in the table is "Set or better (at least one T on the flop)" at 92.1%, the worst "Monotone (all three one suit)" at 70.2%.

The 75.1% 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 75.01% (a gap of 0.09 points). Each equity is taken with the flop out and the turn and river still to come.