Pair vs pair

KK vs QQ: Who Wins? Exact Odds

81.93%KK equity vs 18.07% for QQ

KK wins about 81.9% of the time (QQ 18.1%, ties 0.5%), roughly a 4.5-to-1 favorite. That number is exact: every suit combination and all 1,712,304 possible boards per configuration were enumerated.

Win, tie, loss

KK wins 81.70%tie 0.46%QQ wins 17.83%

Share of all possible runouts across every suit combination (36 combo pairs). Equity adds half the ties to each side: KK 81.93%, QQ 18.07%.

Equity by suit configuration

KK vs QQ81.93% / 18.07%

Suit configurationCombosKK equityQQ equity
K♠K♥ vs Q♠Q♦
one shared suit: one of QQ's flush suits only makes flushes KK beats
2481.93%18.07%
K♠K♥ vs Q♠Q♥
both suits shared: every flush QQ makes, KK makes bigger
682.62%17.38%
K♠K♥ vs Q♦Q♣
no shared suits: QQ has two live flush suits
681.24%18.76%
All KK vs QQ combos3681.93%18.07%

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 QQ is in so much trouble

Both players hold a made pair, but only one of them is winning unimproved, and pocket pairs rarely improve. QQ has exactly two set cards left in the deck, seen on the board just 19.9% of the time, and even a queen doesn't guarantee the pot on straight- or flush-heavy runouts. Meanwhile KK 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".

  • QQ's main lifeline is one of the two remaining queens, and at least one lands on the board only 19.9% of the time. The rest of its 18.1% comes from straights, flushes and runout quirks.
  • Suits shift the matchup by 1.4 points: QQ does best with no shared suits (18.8%, with two live flush suits) and worst when both suits are shared (17.4%, because every flush it makes loses to a bigger one).
  • Same shape as AA vs KK: there the big pair holds 81.9%, here KK holds 81.9%. Any overpair vs underpair confrontation lands in this 80/20 neighborhood.

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 KK vs QQ yourself in the odds calculator and watch the Monte Carlo estimate converge on these numbers.

Frequently asked questions

How often does QQ beat KK?+

18.1% of the time, about 1 in 5.5. QQ wins 17.8% of boards outright and chops 0.5%.

Do suits matter in KK vs QQ?+

A little. With no shared suits QQ gets 18.8%; with both suits shared it falls to 17.4% because its flush outs are dead. The full breakdown is in the table above.

Is KK vs QQ really 80/20?+

Almost exactly. The precise all-suits figure is 81.9% vs 18.1% with 0.5% ties, so "four to one" is a fair way to say it at the table.

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