AQ vs AJ
Ace-queen against ace-jack, all in before the flop. The same kicker battle as ace-king against ace-queen, one step down.
Also written as ace-queen vs ace-jack. Suitedness variants: AQs vs AJs, AQs vs AJo, AQo vs AJs and AQo vs AJo.
The numbers
AQ
ace-queen
73.1%
equity
AJ
ace-jack
26.9%
equity
| Outcome | Share of boards |
|---|---|
| AQ wins | 70.3% |
| AJ wins | 24.1% |
| Split pot | 5.7% |
Exact, not simulated. AQ means ace-queen and AJ means ace-jack: 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-queen has the stronger kicker: queen over jack. Pairing the jack can put ace-jack ahead, while straights and flushes can also change the winner. The hands split the pot on 5.7% of boards.
Ace-queen wins 70.3% and ace-jack wins 24.1%. Suitedness is part of the answer: against ace-jack, AQs wins 71.2% and AQo wins 70.0%. The AQ 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 spadesQof spades against Aof heartsJof 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.