42s

How to play it before the flop

The fundamentals charts never open it at a 6-max table: it is a preflop fold when the pot is unopened. If the button opens and you are in the big blind, the chart says fold.

A gap costs straights. Same idea as the connector — draws, not high card — with fewer ways to complete them, which is why it lives on the edge of the button opening range. Against that button range it has 34.1%. With a gap, be pickier: position always, and ideally with stacks left to get paid on the draw.

What this hand makes

You pair one of your two cards on 32.4% of flops. You flop a flush draw 10.9% of the time and a made flush 0.84%; seeing all five cards, you end up with a flush 6.5% of the time. An open-ended straight draw shows up on 3.7% of flops. Going to the river every time, the hand ends up as pair 42.3% of the time and stays high card 17.4%.

Where it ends up if you see all five cards

Exact enumeration, no sampling: the flop events run through all 19,600 possible flops and the final distribution through all 2,118,760 five-card boards. The distribution assumes you always reach the river, so it describes the hand’s potential rather than a real session, where most hands are folded earlier. Open-ended includes double gutshots (two distinct ranks complete it).

Against the reference ranges

Equity if the hand goes to the river against an opponent holding exactly that range. 120,000-hand Monte Carlo with a fixed seed, computed by our engine.

Hand versus hand

These are not estimates: they are the exact enumeration of all 1,712,304 possible boards for each matchup. Suited hands are matched up in different suits.