Joined: Jun '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 67 (M)
Posts: 221
after reading an earlier thread one poster I forget who I think it was bigfoot but may be wrong told how his favourite hand in cash games was suited connector 78 , now I also love playing low suited connectors but have failed to make it pay one reason being that I am a tourney player and not cash,, and I tend to over play them usually beting preflop even if missing trying to build the pot, anyway below is a short article copied from a free tutorial site for you to read and discuss if you feel you can improve on it or give advice on how to play suited connectors, or why not to play them,,,
Although some suited connectors also have high card strength, in this discussion we'll mainly be referring to the smaller connectors and the speculative value of these hands: namely, their ability to make straights and flushes.
Suited Connectors are part of a group called "speculative hands", which also includes small pocket pairs. Since they generally have little high card strength, speculative hands rely heavily on implied odds to show a profit, and therefore do best in large, multi-way pots. They prefer passive tables, since you will often flop a draw or a combo draw and will need further cards to improve.
The purpose of a speculative hand is to make a straight or a flush against a top pair type hand. Because of the way these hands develop, a speculative hand can often have a top pair hand drawing completely dead after the flop. That being said, it can be easy to drain your stack if you're not careful - for novice players especially, the motto of speculative hands should be this: get in cheap and stay in cheap, or fold.
However, in no-limit poker, suited connectors can be quite lucrative, especially against the typical player who overvalues one pair post-flop. While they don't hit that often, when they do, you could be in for a big score if you're up against a premium starting hand. For this reason, they can absorb a few more raises pre-flop (and perhaps on the flop) if it means a ripe payout when the right card(s) come(s).
Although I wouldn't get too carried away, I firmly believe that a solid player, (and by this I mean one who is well versed in post-flop analysis) can play these cards in any position.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 1242
Thanks for sharing this with us. Looks to me like a very informative article which will also help me to play these cards. Normally I try to see the flop cheap with suited connectors, but sometimes I have problems with them postflop.
Joined: Oct '10
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 63 (M)
Posts: 442
I can't remember where i read this but have found it to be good advice for playing speculative hands in tourneys.
If you are first in always raise, 2.5 x BB if you are early, 3 - 4 BB if middle to late. Often you will win the blinds. If you are re-raised then fold but quite often you'll get callers who will check to you on the flop. If so bet about 2/3 the pot even if you hit nothing but only when the flop has no more than one high card an two unconnected low cards e.g.Q 8 3. Pre-flop callers will fail to hit the flopabout 66% of time so you will pick up many orphaned pots this way.
If there is a pre-flop raise you should always call if the raise was 5% or less of the effective stack and always fold if the raise was 10% or more. In between use your judgement but tend toward calling more the later your position is and the better your hand is.
This advise has helped me play specualtive hands with confidence. Occaisionally you will flop a well disguised hand that enables you to win an opponenets entire stack if they have been slow playing big pairs, for example. This is very satisfying!
Joined: May '08
Location: Germany
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 6786
Suited connectors are not really good cards for a player in early position. More difficult to control the size of the pot, and preflop someone down the table can still raise big time, forcing us to fold the connectors. So they are better for later positions. Of cause one must know how to play draws, and opponents must be willing to stack off with one pair type of hands.
playing this types of hand is just for the sake of mixing it up , so the other players carnt put you on a hand if your playing tight, dont get me wrong its ok to play these types of hand every now and then, hoping to hit the flop with a draw, but many time nothink ever comes of playing these hands, but they seem to work for gus hansen
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 2387
Posted by ArcticBear: after reading an earlier thread one poster I forget who I think it was bigfoot but may be wrong told how his favourite hand in cash games was suited connector 78
Hi ArcticBear, you are referring to my thread I started yesterday about flopping straight against two over-pairs, and where the board then cancelled out my lead. I agree with the article and with some of the posters in this thread. I normally fold these in early position, will sometimes raise with them in late position when nobody else is in the pot, and will duke it out with these in a battle of the blinds. However their strength lies when several players have underrepresented their hands, and the flop is reasonably cheap to see. Oh, one more thing, be ready to be called a DONK when you take down monsters with these hands!
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 217
Oh, one more thing, be ready to be called a DONK when you take down monsters with these hands!
Yes, agree totally. And in addition a video proof is highly recommended, if you dare to win such a hand and discuss it later on. Could be that some of the very very outstanding good players have their doubts you are telling the truth lol
Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 6669
Interesting rad by the way, but you are right of course, casg games are an entire different breed of poker compared to tournaments.
First of all in a tournament you need to judge you want and need to play by your current stack and most of all by the time of the tournament, and accordinf to that you have different starting hands.
On cash games you are allowed to have abit more imagination and you can have away wider range to play, especially if you can't play a lot of volume But yes, suited connectors are a very nice hand, especially 9T and J9 suited
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 2387
Posted by Macubaas: Interesting rad by the way, but you are right of course, casg games are an entire different breed of poker compared to tournaments.
First of all in a tournament you need to judge you want and need to play by your current stack and most of all by the time of the tournament, and accordinf to that you have different starting hands.
On cash games you are allowed to have abit more imagination and you can have away wider range to play, especially if you can't play a lot of volume But yes, suited connectors are a very nice hand, especially 9T and J9 suited
Fully agreed. I play more cash than tourney, and for me cash is like the beginning stages of a tourney, where if you get to see a cheap flop and stack up early you can go far. But if in later stages you are slipping below average chip stack you need to watch how you splash around those chips.
Joined: May '09
Location: India
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 4873
i like suited connectors but only in cash games and early stages of tournaments when i can see cheap flops, if you hit any of them you can win a big pot but most of the times you have to endup folding. so avoid playing them in late stages of tournament.
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Canada
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1660
Good articles with better discussion, thanks for all the tips guys. As for myself I may try to implement some of these strategies and see where I end up. Usually I won't mess around to much with low suited connectors unless I'm, in position and out of position not unless it's cheap. Really cheap, or lots of callers of course.