AQo vs 98s

When AQo and 98s get all in before the flop, AQo wins 59.4% of the time and 98s takes 40.6%. Broken down, AQo wins outright 59.2%, chops 0.4% and loses 40.4% — a margin of 18.8 points. Two unpaired hands with no shared rank — the higher cards usually run 60–65%.

The same matchup shifts depending on how the suits overlap. With no shared suit the number is 58.7% (for example As Qh against 9d 8d); with one shared suit it is 60.0% (As Qh against 9s 8s). That is a spread of 1.29 points across the 48 distinct card combinations, and it comes almost entirely from whether the two hands are fighting over the same flush.

Add a third player holding a random hand and the split becomes AQo 44.4%, 98s 33.3%, random 22.2%. AQo gives up 15 points and 98s gives up 7.3, so the favourite loses more than the underdog does. Extra players always eat into the leader's share faster than into anyone else's.

Taken on their own, AQo is worth 64.4% against a random hand (rank 14 of 169) and 98s is worth 50.8% (rank 83). The gap between them in the ranking is only 13.6 points, yet head to head the gap is 18.8 points — a reminder that a ranking table and a direct matchup are two different questions.

Framed as a run of one hundred identical all-ins, AQo scoops roughly 59 pots, splits about one, and loses the remaining 40. Against eight random opponents rather than this one specific hand, AQo would be down to 17.5% and 98s to 14.4%, so the shape of this particular confrontation matters far more than either hand's standing in the overall ranking.

From 98s's side, 40.6% is the break-even point for calling an all-in at 1.46:1 pot odds. Put another way, the call is profitable as long as the amount you have to put in is less than 40.6% of the pot you are playing for. AQo holds the other 59.4% of that same pot.

Two caveats keep this figure honest. First, it is showdown equity across all 48 card combinations with five board cards still to come — there is no fold equity in it, so the value of shoving in practice is usually higher than the raw percentage suggests. Second, it assumes 98s really does hold exactly 98s; against the wider range a player would actually get all in with, AQo's 59.4% moves. Use the individual pages for AQo and 98s to see how each of them fares against all 168 other holdings before treating this single pairing as the whole picture.