AK vs AQ
Ace-king against ace-queen, all in before the flop. The same ace on both sides, and the king kicker makes ace-queen a big underdog.
Also written as ace-king vs ace-queen. Suitedness variants: AKs vs AQs, AKs vs AQo, AKo vs AQs and AKo vs AQo.
The numbers
AK
ace-king
73.6%
equity
AQ
ace-queen
26.4%
equity
| Outcome | Share of boards |
|---|---|
| AK wins | 71.3% |
| AQ wins | 24.1% |
| Split pot | 4.6% |
Exact, not simulated. AK means ace-king and AQ means ace-queen: 192 legal ways to deal the two hands, and every one of the 1,712,304 possible five-card boards dealt for each — 328,762,368 board-and-hand combinations in total, each one scored by the same evaluator the calculator uses. Combinations that are the same hand with the suits renamed were counted once and weighted by how many they stand for: 10 distinct suit patterns stand in for all 192, which is the same answer for 19 times less work.
Why it comes out this way
Both hands contain an ace, but ace-king has the stronger kicker: king over queen. Pairing the queen can put ace-queen ahead, while straights and flushes can also change the winner. The hands split the pot on 4.6% of boards.
Ace-king wins 71.3% and ace-queen wins 24.1%. Suitedness is part of the answer: against ace-queen, AKs wins 72.2% and AKo wins 71.0%. The AK wins figure in the table is the average of both, weighted the way they actually come out of a deck — one suited combination for every three offsuit.
Open it in the calculator
The link below deals one typical version of this matchup — Aof spadesKof spades against Aof heartsQof diamonds — into the calculator, with both hands set and the board empty. Add community cards one at a time to watch the equity move, or change a card to see how much the suits are worth.