what is so good about suited connectors? |
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Posted Mon Jul 10, 2006 3:45 am GMT by MrDarling
J see many players play them like it a premium hand, is it?
I hate getting a flush with low cards on hand, and the chances of a str8 are never that big.
So please educate me why I should play these, unless I can see a cheap flop?
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Posted Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:51 am GMT by Tadzio
I wouldn't play them like a premium hand, but there's many spots where they can be good to play. For example let's say you're at a full table and UTG bets BBx4 and 2 people call before you. If all the villians have face cards, making this call is usually worth it with a small-medium suited connectors. Like so:
A  K  = 27.85% win
A  J = 17.25% win
Q  J = 24.55% win
7 6 = 27.7% win
Contributing to 25% of the pot to win 28% of it is a winning play. Smallish suited connectors are also very difficult for people to put you on, especially in a raised pot, so the implied odds are pretty decent. Playing them is definitely a gamble, but if you can get the odds right, you shouldn't be disappointed in the long-term.
What you really want with smallish suited connectors are multiway pots and dominated hands (if one of the villians doesn't share a card with another of the villains, your odds drop quite a bit). So you don't want to play them in early position unless you somehow know others will call behind you. You really shouldn't play them heads-up.
An interesting thing to keep in mind is that smallish gapped suited connectors don't lose much pot equity as long as they can still make a straight. So in the example I gave above, if your hand was 7 3 you'd lose 2.75% of a chance to win (still enough to break even, without considering implied odds). And if your hand was 7 5 you'd only lose 0.08% of a chance to win.
Suited connectors are a much better fit in FL and NL ring games, where the threat of playing them is lessened or you can reload your stack. In NL tourneys, they can excellerate the slow drain blinds have on you if you're not careful.
Posted Sat Jul 15, 2006 3:12 pm GMT by 72o
There is nothing good about suited connectors. Experienced players fold them without hesitation. Suited connectors are only useful at very loose tables where you can expect that eight players or more seeing the flop. But today the online poker players aren't that stupid anymore. So handle them like any other trash hand.
Maniacs like to bluff with them because it give them the opportunity to impress the donks.
Posted Sat Jul 15, 2006 3:56 pm GMT by xDiamond_CutteRx
| 72o wrote: | There is nothing good about suited connectors. Experienced players fold them without hesitation. Suited connectors are only useful at very loose tables where you can expect that eight players or more seeing the flop. But today the online poker players aren't that stupid anymore. So handle them like any other trash hand.
Maniacs like to bluff with them because it give them the opportunity to impress the donks. |
You have to be joking. Suited connectos play best in loose games, but they can still operate well as semi-bluff hands in tighter games, and they do NOT have to be as loose as 8 players seeing a flop. I don't know where you got that delusion.
In No Limit poker, suited connectors gain HUGE value because of the implied odds behind flopping huge hands or huge draws.
What's so good about suited connectors? They can hit a lot of very good draws that play well multi-way and win big pots. They are far from trash hands.
Posted Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:58 pm GMT by shorn7
Not only can they hit big hands as diamond says, they are much more likely to get paid off as well, especially when you hit the str8. For the most part, sets and str8's are your big money winners in NL when you face an overpair, so there is tremendous value in playing them assuming that you have good implied odds to play (even facing a raise). THe key is to make sure you don't invest too much to play AND perhaps more importantly, playing them against players who will pay you off when you hit.
NLHE is a completely situational game. Saying that these hands are trash is wrong as is considering them the mortal nuts. But, given the right circumstances (stack sizes, position, amount of bet, players in the hand), they most certainly are +EV hands to play.
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