Poker Equity & OddsDominated hands: AK vs AQ
Short answer
AK against AQ all-in preflop: AK has 73.6% equity and AQ 26.4%, with the 4.6% of boards that split the pot counted as half for each. A dominated hand sits near a quarter of the pot whatever its kicker: AK against AT is 73.0%, against A2 73.3%. Every figure here counts all 1,712,304 boards for every suit combination in the Poker Equity & Odds engine.
The kicker fights
Same ace. Mine kicks harder.
| Matchup | Better kicker | Worse kicker | Tie |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK vs AQ | 73.6% | 26.4% | 4.6% |
| AK vs AJ | 73.3% | 26.7% | 4.5% |
| AK vs AT | 73.0% | 27.0% | 4.5% |
| AK vs A9 | 73.5% | 26.5% | 4.6% |
| AK vs A5 | 71.9% | 28.1% | 4.6% |
| AK vs A2 | 73.3% | 26.7% | 4.9% |
| AQ vs AJ | 73.1% | 26.9% | 5.7% |
| AJ vs AT | 72.1% | 27.9% | 7.9% |
| KQ vs KJ | 73.2% | 26.8% | 5.5% |
| QJ vs QT | 72.0% | 28.0% | 7.9% |
Read the middle column: from AK against AQ down to QJ against QT, the dominated hand keeps between 26.4% and 28.1%. It wins when its second card pairs and the better kicker doesn't, or when a straight or flush comes. Everything else goes to the better kicker or splits.
A worse kicker is not always worse
AQ against AK
The biggest kicker in the table, and the lowest number.
A5 against AK
The best of them. The five makes a wheel, A-2-3-4-5, and AK can't share it.
Straights explain the small wiggles. A five or a ten can make straights that AK has no part in; a queen or a nine mostly makes straights that AK shares or beats with a higher one. The differences are a point or two. The lesson is the size of the hole, not which kicker digs it.
Suited and offsuit
| Matchup | AK has | AQ has | Tie |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK offsuit vs AQ offsuit | 74.4% | 25.6% | 4.7% |
| AK offsuit vs AQ suited | 70.1% | 29.9% | 4.4% |
| AK suited vs AQ offsuit | 75.4% | 24.6% | 4.4% |
Suited buys the dominated hand about four points against an offsuit AK, because a flush is one of the few ways it wins the whole pot. It is still a big underdog.
Sharing the lower card
| Matchup | Bigger card has | Smaller card has | Tie |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK vs KQ | 73.9% | 26.1% | 1.2% |
| AQ vs KQ | 73.8% | 26.2% | 1.1% |
| AJ vs KJ | 73.6% | 26.4% | 1.5% |
Same quarter of the pot, but far fewer ties: when both pair the shared card, the other cards are different ranks, so somebody's kicker plays. With a shared ace the kickers often both get beaten by the board, and the pot splits 4.6% of the time.
Dominated against two live cards
AQ vs KQ, the queen shared
AQ vs KJ, nothing shared
Take the shared card away and the worse hand gets about eleven points back: KJ has 37.5% against AQ, KQ only 26.2%. AK against QJ is 64.3%. That is why a hand like KJ plays much worse against a raise full of kings and aces than its rank suggests. Lesson 1.3 of the course, When you share a card, is about exactly this.
Check your own kicker fight
Tap in the two hands and the calculator counts every board in a second, on the phone, with no connection. The label says EXACT when nothing was sampled.
Questions
What are the odds of AK vs AQ preflop?
73.6% for AK and 26.4% for AQ, with 4.6% of boards a tie. Every suit combination, every one of the 1,712,304 boards.
What is a dominated hand?
A hand that shares a card with a better hand and has a worse second card. AQ against AK can only win by pairing the queen or making something bigger, so it ends up with about a quarter of the pot.
Is AK vs AJ worse for the ace-jack than AK vs AQ?
No, about the same: AJ has 26.7%, AQ 26.4%. Even A2 has 26.7%. The size of the kicker barely matters once you are dominated.
Does being suited help a dominated hand?
A little. AQ suited against AK offsuit has 29.9%; AQ offsuit against AK suited has 24.6%.
Where the numbers come from. Every figure on this page comes from the app's own engine, the code that runs on your phone. Outs come from the Outs & Odds tool, hit chances are exact counts, and equities count every runout with no sampling. Engine build 18a5e00d. More worked numbers: flush draw odds and the pot odds cheat sheet.