*Poker thought experiment* Suited connectors pre-flop

Poker Strategy
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I’m gonna lay out two similar hold’em scenarios and I want you folks to answer the questions that follow them. I will give my own answers, but I want to see some other peoples’ first.

(Scenario 1:) On a 9-handed table, you have suited connectors pre-flop. The blinds are fairly high but you have a sizeable stack to gamble with, and you’re in early position.

Q1) What is your action?

Q2) Is your action influenced by how high your suited connectors are?

…
(Scenario 2:) You have the same suited connectors pre-flop on a 9-handed board, and the blinds are still as high, but this time you’re in late position and you’re a little short-stacked.

Q1) Suppose someone raises before you, for about a third of your pot. What is your action?

Q2) Now suppose no one raises before you. What is your action?

…
Final question: Suppose you find yourself in either of these scenarios when the table is one player short of the pay-out cut-off. How, if at all, might this affect your action?

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Fascinating question. I’m glad you posted. I think in Scenario 1 my action would absolutely depend on how high my suited connectors are. In Scenario 2 I think I would fold in Q1, probably play in Q2. But I’m never over-confident playing with connectors. I prefer pairs, suited or otherwise. Tell me, everyone else: am I so wrong?

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I would play in all 4 scenarios except S2 Q1, And S2 Q1 is based on face cards or better.
But agree with JC pairs preferred.

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Either scenarios I’m not interested. Suited connector’s just don’t get it for me on Replay tables enough to invest big chip amounts. I’m going to get beat regardless.

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It depends for me on the exact position, the exact suited connectors, and the way the table has been playing, and if other stacks still to act are also deep. If we say it is a full table, and two players in front of me have folded, and so low jack, high jack, cutoff, button, and the blinds remain to act, and the table is playing moderately normally, then I’m usually raising with T9s and higher suited connectors 100% of the time, and employing a mixed strategy with other suited connectors:

  • raise 2/3 of the time with 65s
  • raise 1/2 of the time with 76s and 54s
  • raise 1/4 of the time with T8s and 98s

When not raising, I just muck the hand, and I’m always mucking hands like 87s, 43s and 32s (I say this, but in reality I’ll probably raise 87s some of the time too, just because I don’t always remember what my pre-flop ranges are supposed to be).

Depends how short stacked. If I have 50bb or more and limpers in front, I’m likely to limp behind. If I’m more shallow than that, I’ll mostly fold the smaller connectors, and mostly raise with the larger (JTs+). If there is a raise in front, it will generally be 3 bet or fold, especially as stacks get shorter, and so most of the smaller holdings will just be folds.

Hmmm, I was answering the earlier questions purely from a cash game perspective. In a really short stacked tournament situation, I’m often going allin with most of these hands with no raise in front of me. I like getting more aggressive as the bubble approaches since many other players will get tighter, and I’m generally not very interested in just finishing in the money, and generally prefer plays I think maximize my winnings overall by improving my odds of finishing as near as possible to the top.

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Questions one and two ought to be reversed. If my suited connectors are AK, then I make an opening raise. If they are lower than that, then I fold, unless I want to try to play KQ as a kind of bluff hand to win the blinds or knock down the pot on the flop.

As far as calling from the small blind with suited connectors, pretty much the same thing with Q1. If you are small stacked, and you shove and you get called, high card strength is optimal, because you want to start from ahead and make your opponents draw from behind to beat you, rather than the reverse. And if your opponent calls with a pair, with two over cards at least you have some chance. You don’t want to be shoving with something like 7/8 suited, because what is your opponents probable range? There cannot be many cards in his range that you are beating pre-flop.

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S1. Q1:

7/8 or less fold in early position. A better suited hand I just call, (maybe fold to any raise??) unless J or better.

S1. Q2:

Yes.

S2. Q1:

Fold.

S2. Q2:

Call.

Final ?:

I do keep track of my position in tournies but, I play the cards and how people respond to raises. So, no changes.

I’ll have to remember this. Thanks. :wink:

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In early position, I like to open bigger suited connectors and fold the rest.

In late position, it depends. If several players have limped in, I often limp behind with all but the smallest ones, and sometimes those too, especially if the blinds are passive. Suited connectors are drawing hands, multi-way pots have a better chance of giving me good direct odds if i flop a good draw.

Near or on the bubble, I tend to dial up the aggro, but if short stacked, I don’t usually bother with most suited connectors. In that spot, I’ll be in push/fold mode and can’t really afford to speculate with hands that will mostly lose.

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Primarily because virtually everyone limps into pots there are too many suckouts to bother with suited connectors unless they are Broadways.

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At Replay, it’s better to just fold low suited connectors, or else just limp with them and try to make the nut straight. The reason is because when you make squeeze plays against this particular pool, you end up getting called by K9o, T7o, etc., which really undermines the profitability of these hands, since they need some fold equity to be played successfully.

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It’s pretty much a good idea to fold low suited connectors, especially OOP. Winning probability is very small.

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I do not agree. The reason is that to play profitable poker you will never have enough premium hands. Last night I had AA and I limped in on a 100K/200K ring game. The only caller was the big blind. Check check on the flop. I tried a very small bet on the turn, and he folded.

In tournaments you can shove pre-flop with AA, and very likely you will get called and double up, however you don’t want to try this in a ring game when you have a stack of 50 million chips at stake.

If you have 5 4 hearts, you can raise pre and the following things may happen.

  1. You flop a monster and win the pot.

  2. You flop nothing but you win the pot with a bluff if the texture of the flop favors you and does not favor a player with two high cards. Remember that flops are often single suited or paired, but that place rarely flop flushes. A person who calls with the Ace of a suited flop may still fold to a bet on the river if they miss the draw.

  3. Everyone else folds pre-flop.

  4. You flop a low draw and to make a straight win an Ace falls on the river. You win a big pot.

  5. You flop a pair, and a second pair on the turn or river. You crack AA.

The whole idea of the strength of hands is based on the idea that if there are two players heads-up and neither of them make a pair by the river, then AK has the highest showdown value, but AK is only ace high.

When you play low suited connectors, you will have to give up some pots on the flop, but when you win pots they will be big ones. In a ring game you are more likely to stack somebody with 3 5 suited than with AA, because players with high pairs often won’t give up. When your low suited connectors make a wheel straight when an ace falls on the river, the player with AA will pay when the board is not paired, because they will not believe that you raised from UTG and called a 3 bet with 3 5 suited.

In ring games you can play for hours and just more or less break even, but it is the really big pots that put you into profitable territory. In a three-way raised pot two players have Ace King and the third player has four five. Which hand is most likely to improve and take the huge pot?

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Here is a hand that shows the power of suited connectors. Actually the cards are not even suited or connected, but the hand illustrates the point.

First of all a couple of limpers, so just wanting to see a flop. I raise with five two unsuited. This is a bluff which hopefully informs the opponents that I have two high cards.

The flop comes and it doesn’t look very promising, except that there is a gutshot straight draw. So I make a pot size bet to see if I can take down the pot at the flop. There is only one Broadway card that my opponent, a loose caller, might have, so the odds are in my favor. Yes, he might also have a pocket pairs, or have flopped a set, but we will soon find out.

Oops, he flat calls the flop bet, but does not reraise. Most likely a Queen with a moderate kicker. His flat call on the flop indicates that he is not trying to take the pot down right now. Is this because he is weak, or because he is super strong, and does not fear the turn or the river. Let’s find out!

Now the turn card comes to my rescue, giving me a straight. It is not even a wheel straight, it is a straight from 2 to 6. Since there is no flush draw and no pair on the board, I must be ahead. I decide to shove, because shoving is extremely polarizing, and if the opponent has already called a pot size bet on the flop, there is a fair chance that he will see my bet as a desperation bluff, perhaps with the AK that I represented pre-flop, or a small pocket pair that has failed to make a set. He calls. He makes a second pair on the river, but it is too little too late.

This is why we play low suited connectors. Sure, you can say that this was just a lucky hand, and it was, and for every hand like this there are several that are given up on the flop, but when it pays off it can pay off bigly.

And if you are not going to use your small suited connectors as bluffing hands, what are you going to use for your bluffing hands? Where else are you going to find non-dominated hands?

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Suited connectors can make big hands, but these kinds of situations don’t show up that often. Because of this, you really need some fold equity to make suited connectors lower than about 98s profitable (depending somewhat on table position). I just think that without fold equity, they’re just a losing proposition on the whole. And people here limp verrry widely (AQo, etc.), and they also call very widely (T4s, etc.). Because of this, you have minimal fold equity when trying to make a squeeze. Therefore, your squeezes should mainly consist of hands like QQ+, AJo+, KQo, etc. And sure, I’ll occasionally throw some other hands in for various reasons; balance, boredom, etc. But at the end of the day, most of these other hands I’m throwing in don’t actually make me any extra money in the long run, compared with just limping and seeing the flop cheaply. In fact, I’m convinced that raising with them costs me more than it makes. Indeed, I’d argue you could fold everything from 87s down and lose only a minimal amount of EV.

And if you are not going to use your small suited connectors as bluffing hands, what are you going to use for your bluffing hands?

You can use KJs as a bluff when the flop comes T84 rainbow (overcards + backdoor draws). Also, you can use pocket 4’s and/or A4s as a bluff when the flop comes 236 (blockers). You can use pocket 4’s and/or A4s as a bluff on a Q55 board (blockers again, this time indirect). There’s lots of bluffs you can find even if you decide to fold a lot of suited connectors. Also, finding bluffs is mainly important when you’re heads-up, and that practically never happens here.

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The problem with King Jack is that it is a dominated hand and you can lose some big pots with it. It seems better to me to use a non-dominated hand as a bluffer. But it all depends on the game. As you say, if you have no fold equity because you are on the table when people will call with anything, then it is probably better to just limp in and see a flop.

I do find it on RP, the size of pre-flop raises matters a lot. If you make a really large raise, you are more likely to get fold equity, but when stacks are very deep either in ring games or tournaments, then people will tend to call small pre-flop raises with pretty much any two cards.

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I hear what you’re saying, but given a choice between KJs (which might be dominated) and 75s (which probably isn’t dominated), I’d choose the former every time. It’s just a lot easier to play. You’ll often make top pair, and then you can bet 25-30% of pot three streets in a row, and if someone raises, it’s time to fold. Easy as that. Whereas 75s is much harder to play. You’ll often find yourself in awkward spots where you’ve got some fold equity + bottom pair + a tonne of backdoor draws, and it’s really easy to misplay these kinds of spots, because checking is often a mistake and betting is often mistake, so no matter what you do you’re probably screwing up :slight_smile: To make up for this, I want a tonne of fold equity when I 3-bet 75s. And, in my experience, we don’t get the necessary fold equity on RP. That’s just my opinion of course. YMMD

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In early position, I’m folding. Depending on how many people call when I’m in late position I may call. But I get tighter once the blinds get higher

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Part of the issue is how wide people call.
Are people folding K7o?

If yes, then KJ is terrible to squeeze with, because you isolate the hands that dominate you, and never the hands that you dominate.

If no, not only does that make KJ a lot better, but it also makes 75s worse: Not only are you now dominated by some calling hands, but also you’re not getting much fold equity, which is the only reason you were squeezing with bluffs like 75s anyways.

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