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AQs vs AKo

AQs
VS
AKo
29.9%
equity for AQs — AKo takes 70.1%

Domination — a shared rank turns this into a kicker fight, and kicker fights are lopsided.

AQs Win
27.6%
Tie
4.5%
AQs Lose
67.9%
Card combinations
36
AQs vs random
66.2% · #10
AKo vs random
65.4% · #12
Breakdown

Win, tie and loss for AQs

Win 27.6%Lose 67.9%

When AQs and AKo get all in before the flop, AQs wins 29.9% of the time and AKo takes 70.1%. Broken down, AQs wins outright 27.6%, chops 4.5% and loses 67.9% — a margin of -40.3 points. Domination — a shared rank turns this into a kicker fight, and kicker fights are lopsided.

The same matchup shifts depending on how the suits overlap. With one shared suit the number is 29.1% (for example As Qs against Ah Ks); with no shared suit it is 30.3% (As Qs against Ah Kd). That is a spread of 1.19 points across the 36 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 AQs 26.3%, AKo 46.0%, random 27.8%. AQs gives up 3.6 points and AKo gives up 24.2, so the underdog loses more than the favourite does. Extra players always eat into the leader's share faster than into anyone else's.

Taken on their own, AQs is worth 66.2% against a random hand (rank 10 of 169) and AKo is worth 65.4% (rank 12). The gap between them in the ranking is only 0.8 points, yet head to head the gap is 40.3 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, AQs scoops roughly 28 pots, splits about 4, and loses the remaining 68. Against eight random opponents rather than this one specific hand, AQs would be down to 21.1% and AKo to 19.1%, so the shape of this particular confrontation matters far more than either hand's standing in the overall ranking.

From AKo's side, 70.1% is the break-even point for calling an all-in at 0.43:1 pot odds. Put another way, the call is profitable as long as the amount you have to put in is less than 70.1% of the pot you are playing for. AQs holds the other 29.9% of that same pot.

Two caveats keep this figure honest. First, it is showdown equity across all 36 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 AKo really does hold exactly AKo; against the wider range a player would actually get all in with, AQs's 29.9% moves. Use the individual pages for AQs and AKo to see how each of them fares against all 168 other holdings before treating this single pairing as the whole picture.

By shared suits

Overlapping suits move the number

200,000 simulated showdowns per condition. The example column shows one concrete four-card layout.

ConditionExampleCombosAQs EquityWinTieLose
No shared suitAs Qs vs Ah Kd2430.3%28.0%4.5%67.5%
One shared suitAs Qs vs Ah Ks1229.1%26.8%4.5%68.7%
Three-way

Adding a random third hand

200,000 simulated showdowns, with the third hand dealt at random each time.

AQs
26.3%
vs heads-up -3.6pt
AKo
46.0%
vs heads-up -24.2pt
Random third hand
27.8%
Player count

At a bigger table

Random opponentsAQsAKo
166.2%65.4%
249.7%47.9%
434.0%32.4%
821.1%19.1%

Related

FAQ

AQs or AKo — which is ahead preflop?

AKo is the favourite. AQs takes 29.9% and AKo 70.1%, a margin of 40.3 points, with 4.5% of hands ending in a chop.

Do the suits change AQs vs AKo?

Yes. With one shared suit it is 29.1%, and with no shared suit it is 30.3% — a swing of up to 1.19 points.

What happens three-way?

With one extra random hand in the pot the split is AQs 26.3%, AKo 46.0%, random 27.8%. AQs drops 3.6 points compared with heads-up.

433 words / 29 distinct figures — Method