Pair vs pair

KK vs QQ: Who Wins? Exact Odds

81.9%KK equity vs 18.1% 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 81.7%tie 0.5%QQ wins 17.8%

Share of all possible runouts across every suit combination (36 combo pairs). Equity adds half the ties to each side: KK 81.9%, QQ 18.1%.

Equity by suit configuration

KK vs QQ81.9% / 18.1%

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% — two live flush suits) and worst when both suits are shared (17.4% — 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 — "four to one" is a fair way to say it at the table.

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