What is every hand worth on a K Q J rainbow flop?

K Q J rainbow is the most connected board you can build from pure broadway cards, and it plays a full gear more violently than its ace-high cousin. Two different straights are already possible, every big pocket pair has either flopped a set or picked up a draw, and the only quiet corner of the deck is the low junk, which has never been deader.

AT owns the flop: it makes the nut straight, ace through ten, and sits clear at the top of the table. T9 has the other straight, king-high, and even offsuit it beats nearly everything. The three sets, kings, queens, and jacks, arrive stacked on top of each other, while pocket aces keep genuine overpair status and add a gutshot to the same nut straight AT already holds. KQ flops top two and rounds out a very crowded penthouse.

The board is far less generous one floor down. Pocket tens hold an open-ended draw plus unimproved showdown value, which keeps them respectable, but nines and especially eights have sunk toward even money against a random hand. 98 suited looks like it should love this flop and gets only a gutshot for its trouble.

The trap here is the second-best straight and the second-best everything else. T9 is a mighty favorite against a random hand, but it is precisely the hand that loses a big pot to AT when the money piles in. Same story for one-pair hands like KQ running into a set. Against random, bet everything good; against real resistance on K Q J, remember how deep the top of this board runs.