KQs vs 55

When KQs and 55 get all in before the flop, KQs wins 49.4% of the time and 55 takes 50.6%. Broken down, KQs wins outright 49.1%, chops 0.6% and loses 50.3% — a margin of -1.2 points. Pair against two overcards — the classic coinflip, with the pair a shade ahead.

The same matchup shifts depending on how the suits overlap. With one shared suit the number is 49.4% (for example Ks Qs against 5s 5h); with no shared suit it is 49.4% (Ks Qs against 5h 5d). That is a spread of 0.07 points across the 24 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 KQs 42.0%, 55 35.9%, random 22.2%. KQs gives up 7.4 points and 55 gives up 14.8, 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, KQs is worth 63.4% against a random hand (rank 16 of 169) and 55 is worth 60.3% (rank 27). The gap between them in the ranking is only 3.1 points, yet head to head the gap is 1.2 points, which is roughly what the ranking table predicts.

Framed as a run of one hundred identical all-ins, KQs scoops roughly 49 pots, splits about one, and loses the remaining 50. Against eight random opponents rather than this one specific hand, KQs would be down to 20.4% and 55 to 13.2%, so the shape of this particular confrontation matters far more than either hand's standing in the overall ranking.

From 55's side, 50.6% is the break-even point for calling an all-in at 0.98:1 pot odds. Put another way, the call is profitable as long as the amount you have to put in is less than 50.6% of the pot you are playing for. KQs holds the other 49.4% of that same pot.

Two caveats keep this figure honest. First, it is showdown equity across all 24 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 55 really does hold exactly 55; against the wider range a player would actually get all in with, KQs's 49.4% moves. Use the individual pages for KQs and 55 to see how each of them fares against all 168 other holdings before treating this single pairing as the whole picture.