Poker Hand Matchups — Exact Head-to-Head Odds
AK vs QQ, AA vs KK, 22 vs AK — who really wins, and by exactly how much? Every page below is exact enumeration of every possible board, broken down by suit configuration.
Computed 2026-07-27 with the same evaluator behind our odds calculator.
Pair vs pair
Overcards vs pair
Domination
Famous long shots
Races, coolers, and dominations
Almost every famous preflop all-in falls into one of three shapes. A race pits a pocket pair against two overcards — AK vs QQ is the archetype at roughly 56.1%/43.9%. A cooler is pair over pair, like AA vs KK at 82.0%/18.1% — nobody folds, somebody pays. Domination is when the hands share a rank and one kicker is dead: AA vs AK is the extreme case at 91.8%for the aces. Knowing which shape you're in tells you whether “unlucky” or “predictable” is the right word for what just happened.
How to read these pages
Each page leads with the all-suits answer, then breaks the matchup into suit configurations— AKs vs QQ where a queen blocks the flush suit is a measurably different fight from AKs vs QQ where it doesn't. The win/tie/loss bar shows outright results; equity adds half the ties to each side, which is the number that matters for all-in EV. If a figure surprises you, don't trust us — recreate it in the odds calculator or check the hand's broader profile in the preflop hand guide.
Methodology
Every figure is exact, not simulated: for each suit-isomorphism class of a matchup, all 1,712,304 possible 5-card boards were enumerated and both hands scored with the site's production evaluator. Class results are weighted by combo count for all-suits totals. Equity = win% + tie%/2 (ties split the pot). Reproduce with: node scripts/generate-matchup-data.mjs Related reading: how rare the table coolers themselves are — set over set, flush over flush — lives on our cooler odds hub.
Frequently asked questions
Are these matchup odds exact or simulated?+
Exact. For every suit configuration of every matchup we enumerated all 1,712,304 possible five-card boards and scored both hands with the same evaluator that powers our odds calculator. There is no sampling error — the only rounding is to two decimal places.
What counts as a coin flip in poker?+
A pair against two overcards — the classic is AK vs QQ, where the pair wins about 56.1% of the time. Anything in the 45–55% band gets called a flip at the table; the pair's edge is real but small.
Why do suits change the odds?+
Because of flush blockers. In AA vs KK, for example, KK wins 18.7% when it has two live flush suits but only 17.4% when both of its suits are shared with the aces — every flush it makes loses to a bigger one. Each matchup page breaks this out configuration by configuration.
What is the biggest favorite in a common preflop all-in?+
AA vs AKo: the aces win about 93.2% of the pot. That is even more lopsided than AA vs 72o (88.2%), because ace-king's pairing outs are dead against a pair of aces while seven-deuce's rags are live.