Pair vs pair

AA vs JJ: Who Wins? Exact Odds

81.2%AA equity vs 18.9% for JJ

AA wins about 81.1% of the time (JJ 18.9%, ties 0.4%) — roughly a 4.3-to-1 favorite. That number is exact: every suit combination and all 1,712,304 possible boards per configuration were enumerated.

Win, tie, loss

AA wins 80.9%tie 0.4%JJ wins 18.6%

Share of all possible runouts across every suit combination (36 combo pairs). Equity adds half the ties to each side: AA 81.2%, JJ 18.9%.

Equity by suit configuration

AA vs JJ81.2% / 18.9%

Suit configurationCombosAA equityJJ equity
A♠A♥ vs J♠J♦
one shared suit — one of JJ's flush suits only makes flushes AA beats
2481.15%18.85%
A♠A♥ vs J♠J♥
both suits shared — every flush JJ makes, AA makes bigger
681.82%18.18%
A♠A♥ vs J♦J♣
no shared suits — JJ has two live flush suits
680.47%19.53%
All AA vs JJ combos3681.15%18.85%

Each row is a suit-isomorphism class: relabeling the four suits doesn't change equity, so every combo in a row has the identical, exactly-enumerated number. “Combos” counts the hand-vs-hand combinations the row represents.

Why JJ is in so much trouble

Both players hold a made pair, but only one of them is winning unimproved — and pocket pairs rarely improve. JJ has exactly two set cards left in the deck, seen on the board just 19.9% of the time, and even a jack doesn't guarantee the pot on straight- or flush-heavy runouts. Meanwhile AA needs nothing: it can check-snooze to the river and still win most showdowns. That asymmetry is the whole story of pair-over-pair "coolers".

  • JJ's main lifeline is one of the two remaining jacks, and at least one lands on the board only 19.9% of the time. The rest of its 18.9% comes from straights, flushes and runout quirks.
  • Suits shift the matchup by 1.3 points: JJ does best with no shared suits (19.5% — two live flush suits) and worst when both suits are shared (18.2% — every flush it makes loses to a bigger one).
  • Dropping from QQ to JJ buys the underdog almost nothing: JJ wins 18.9% against aces vs 18.5% for QQ.

How it was calculated

Exact enumeration, not simulation: for every suit configuration above, all 1,712,304 possible five-card boards were dealt and both hands scored with app/lib/poker-eval.js — the same 7-card evaluator behind /tools/odds-calculator. Ties split the pot, so equity is win% plus half the tie%. Computed 2026-07-27.

Don't take our word for it — run AA vs JJ yourself in the odds calculator and watch the Monte Carlo estimate converge on these numbers.

Frequently asked questions

How often does JJ beat AA?+

18.9% of the time — about 1 in 5.3. JJ wins 18.6% of boards outright and chops 0.4%.

Do suits matter in AA vs JJ?+

A little. With no shared suits JJ gets 19.5%; with both suits shared it falls to 18.2% because its flush outs are dead. The full breakdown is in the table above.

Is AA vs JJ really 80/20?+

Almost exactly. The precise all-suits figure is 81.1% vs 18.9% with 0.4% ties — "four to one" is a fair way to say it at the table.

Related matchups

Take it further