10-12-06, LearnTexasHoldem:

Playing Suited Connectors

If you are an intermediate poker player, most likely you are playing poker with the standard tight and aggressive style. The style usually plays only with strong starting hands and has you play them aggressively both pre and post-flop. While playing tight-aggressive is a winning combination for most poker players, advanced players often increase the range of hands the play to vary up their game.

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Learning how to correctly play speculative hands such as suited connectors is one excellent way of developing your advanced poker skills.

Though many poker hands are able to make a profit over time, suited connectors are often preferred over other speculative hands because of their ability to draw to both to straights and flushes. In addition, suited connectors are often well disguised if they end up making big hands like two pair or trips, which is valuable when laying traps for your opponent.

One of the benefits of playing suited connectors is that they are actually relatively easy to play. As they are drawing hands the majority of the time, all that is required to play them is an understanding of poker odds and knowing when to draw. Like most drawing hands, this means that suited connectors are best played in late position because they give you the ability to observe the actions of your opponents first, before making an action yourself. This means that you will have more accurate information about the pot count, aggression and other factors if you act late rather than act first.

Deciding when to play suited connectors

Being skilled poker player, you should already know that the drawing odds for a flush are both approximately 4:1. This means that should you flop a flush draw or straight draw, you are in good shape if you have 2 or more opponents who are likely to call along, if someone bets at the pot. As such, when deciding whether or not to play suited connectors pre-flop, you should be observing how many players are limping into the hand before you simply decide on playing your hand.

Ideally, you will have as many limpers as possible, but 3 to 4 limpers (that are preferably loose) is a reasonable requirement. Having fewer than 3 limpers should generally be avoided however, because it reduces the number of potential callers and hurts your pot odds as a result. This is why playing in late position on the button or the cut-off are the ideal spots for suited connectors.

The other main reason for not playing suited connectors early is that you are about 8:1 to flop a flush draw and 8:1 to flop a straight draw - or about 6:1 to flop either draw. This means that you will not flop a draw the majority of the time, so you need to make sure that there are many players in the pot when you do. This is why we cannot stress enough that playing in late position behind many limpers is the optimal and safe way to play suited connectors.

Strategies after the flop

After the flop, the easiest way to play is a simple call or fold strategy. If the action offers the correct odds to draw to a straight or flush, you should do so. Of course, if there are other mitigating factors such as very heavy betting, drawing to the lower end of a straight or things of that nature, you should of course analyze the situation and decide what is best. For the most part however, your correct play should be very straightforward.

With standard tight-aggressive strategies, you may also consider semi-bluffing as a viable play. By semi-bluffing, you can often pick up pots where you might not have had pot odds to draw, but were able to scare the initial bettor out of the pot. Semi-bluffing can still work even with a caller or two, because those are generally showing weakness by their willingness to simply call as opposed to raise the bettor themselves. This article is not focused on bluffing though, but there are plenty of good articles on this site about bluffing and semi-bluffing as well.

Conclusion

Suited connectors can and will make you money if you know how to play them correctly. By selectively picking out the situations to enter the pot and knowing when to draw and when to fold, you will be able to expand your game and develop a bigger edge on not only the fish, but other tight opponents as well.

 

 

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