AK vs AQ: Who Wins? Exact Odds
AK dominates AQ: about 73.6% to 26.4% across all suit combinations, with an unusually high 4.6% chop rate. AQ's ace is dead weight: when both players pair their ace, the king kicker beats the queen, so AQ mostly needs a queen without a king.
Win, tie, loss
Share of all possible runouts across every suit combination (192 combo pairs). Equity adds half the ties to each side: AK 73.60%, AQ 26.40%.
Equity by suit configuration
AKo vs AQo74.39% / 25.61%
| Suit configuration | Combos | AKo equity | AQo equity |
|---|---|---|---|
A♠K♥ vs A♦Q♠ Q♠ shares the ace's suit | 24 | 74.75% | 25.25% |
A♠K♥ vs A♦Q♥ Q♥ shares the king's suit | 24 | 74.69% | 25.31% |
A♠K♥ vs A♦Q♣ no shared suits: every backdoor flush is live | 24 | 74.02% | 25.98% |
A♠K♥ vs A♥Q♦ A♥ shares the king's suit | 24 | 73.96% | 26.04% |
A♠K♥ vs A♥Q♠ A♥ shares the king's suit; Q♠ shares the ace's suit | 12 | 74.70% | 25.30% |
| All AKo vs AQo combos | 108 | 74.39% | 25.61% |
AKo vs AQs70.12% / 29.88%
| Suit configuration | Combos | AKo equity | AQs equity |
|---|---|---|---|
A♠K♥ vs A♦Q♦ no AQ flush-suit card in the other hand: the flush draw is fully live | 24 | 69.73% | 30.27% |
A♠K♥ vs A♥Q♥ K♥ blocks one card of AQ's flush suit | 12 | 70.90% | 29.10% |
| All AKo vs AQs combos | 36 | 70.12% | 29.88% |
AKs vs AQo75.45% / 24.55%
| Suit configuration | Combos | AKs equity | AQo equity |
|---|---|---|---|
A♠K♠ vs A♥Q♦ no AK flush-suit card in the other hand: the flush draw is fully live | 24 | 75.56% | 24.44% |
A♠K♠ vs A♥Q♠ Q♠ blocks one card of AK's flush suit | 12 | 75.22% | 24.78% |
| All AKs vs AQo combos | 36 | 75.45% | 24.55% |
AKs vs AQs71.28% / 28.72%
| Suit configuration | Combos | AKs equity | AQs equity |
|---|---|---|---|
A♠K♠ vs A♥Q♥ each hand is suited in its own suit: both flush draws fully live | 12 | 71.28% | 28.72% |
| All AKs vs AQs combos | 12 | 71.28% | 28.72% |
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 the queen kicker is dead
Both hands share an ace, so the most common decisive runout (one ace, nothing else interesting) goes to the better kicker every time. That single fact moves the matchup from the 43.2%-ish equity AK gets in a race to 26.4% for AQ. The queen is AQ's only clean out (28.6% to appear), and some queen boards still lose to a king or a straight. This is the matchup behind the old advice that "any ace" is a leak: dominated aces don't lose often, they lose big.
- A queen reaches the board 28.6% of the time, close to AQ's total equity of 26.4%. Not every queen board is safe, because a king can arrive with it.
- Chops are unusually common: 4.6% of runouts. When the board plays (a straight, or two pair with a bigger kicker than both hands), the shared ace cancels the kicker battle entirely.
- Suits barely dent the domination: even the best layout for AQ (AQs vs AKo) only reaches 29.9%. Rank domination is worth far more than suited-ness here.
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 AK vs AQ yourself in the odds calculator and watch the Monte Carlo estimate converge on these numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Who wins AK vs AQ all-in preflop?+
AK: 73.6% vs 26.4% overall, with 4.6% ties. AK wins 71.3% of boards outright; AQ only 24.1%.
How bad is AQ against AK?+
AQ wins about 1 in 3.8, better than KK-vs-AA odds, but the money goes in behind a dead kicker. AQ's escape hatch is a queen-high board; a queen appears 28.6% of the time.
How often do AK and AQ split the pot?+
4.6%, one of the highest chop rates of any common matchup, because the shared ace means the board frequently plays for both hands.