Fundamentals of Post-Flop play for Suited Connectors

I want to start a discussion about what the fundamentals of post-flop play might be at the micro-stakes. I decided this is a pretty huge topic, dependent on position, board texture and a lot of other factors. In this regard, most HH's posted in the forum are a micro-scale look at post-flop play as applied to a specific situation. I would like to organize this thread around the macro-scale concepts that guide situational choices.

Playing PP's is a huge topic of interest that many new players pick up, as well as playing suited A's and broadway pockets. I chose to limit this thread to playing SC's, S1G's and S2G's after the flop, as there is the most subtlety (in my opinion) in playing these pockets.

For this discussion, Hero has one of the following:
{ Q9s,J8s+,T7s+,97s+,86s+,75s+,64s+,53s+,43s }

Just to get the ball rolling, here are some of the questions that occur to me when broaching this topic:
How do pre-flop bets affect your overall strategy or goal when playing these pockets?
What board textures are favorable/unfavorable?
How does position and number/style of opponents factor in to your play?
In what circumstances is building the pot favorable to playing a small pot?

What obvious questions am I missing here?

A super obvious question is how stack depth will affect how/if you play these hands under different circumstances.

As stated above stack depth is very important especially when playing a pot heads up, multi-way i don't think its as important as long as everyone is around 100BB deep.

Pre Flop Bets: It is better to have a raiser and a few callers so we get a good price to call with suited connectors. If a loose aggressive player opens you can use these hands to 3bet IP to take it down preflop or possibly flop huge and get it in, also if you completely miss the flop these hands are easy to get away from.

Board Textures: Low to mid connected flops which bring OESD's, FD's, gutshots, doublegutters, OESFD or disguised two pair type hands are ideal, high broadway or ace high unconnected rainbow flops aren't so hot.

Position/Opponents/Style: Its always better to be in position as you will gain more information before you have to act through opponents decisions also you can be more aggresive IP re-raising c-bets with big draws etc. Its better to have multiple opponents as these hands don't lose there value vs. multiple opponents if your not deepstacked as if you hit the flop its more likely somebody else will catch a piece increasing the chances of us getting action with a funky two pair for example. With more opponents we also get a better price to call pre. Playing these kind of hands IP against spewy players who cant fold bottom, second or even weak top pair hands is ideal as you have a much better chance of extracting max value.

Building the pot: It is good to build the pot when you are happy to stack off on the flop with a open ended straight flush draw for example which my actually have more equity than an opponents range. Building the pot is also useful if you are deepstacked when you have a lot of implied odds and will be greatly rewarded if you hit. Can't seem to think of a scenario where you would favour keeping the pot small? I'm sure someone will.

Q9s is a VERY different hand than 54s. Short handed Q9s can expect to hit a pair and be best a fair % of the time. Against a very loose player, Q9s is a value raise, 54s is a lot more bluffy/spewy.

They play these roles in my game:
o To broaden my range so you can't assume certain flop textures miss me.
o To broaden my range to exploit someone who's making very large mistakes post-flop. (Usually folding too much on the flop/turn and not playing back enough.)
o It's a little something-something of a hand to pre-flop bluff with.

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

A super obvious question is how stack depth will affect how/if you play these hands under different circumstances.

Too right. I knew it would be foolish of me to think I hadn't forgotten something. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Q9s is a VERY different hand than 54s. Short handed Q9s can expect to hit a pair and be best a fair % of the time. Against a very loose player, Q9s is a value raise, 54s is a lot more bluffy/spewy.

This is a useful insight, as I've come to expect from you.

I must admit that I thought longest and hardest about the Q9s. My reasoning to include it as S2G is 1) It is not a PP. 2) It is not a suited broadway. 3) It is not a suited Ax or Kx. 4) I was not thinking about short-handed play.

Originally Posted by Fnord

[Suited connectors] play these roles in my game:
o To broaden my range so [villains] can't assume certain flop textures miss me.
o To broaden my range to exploit someone who's making very large mistakes post-flop. (Usually folding too much on the flop/turn and not playing back enough.)
o It's a little something-something of a hand to pre-flop bluff with.

These seem to answer questions that I took for granted:
Why would these hands be playable?
What value do they add to/remove from a range?


@seven-deuce: Wow, all excellent answers to the posed questions. Thanks. I will use more of this material when I am satisfied that my list of questions is (at least mostly) complete.

Originally Posted by seven-deuce

Can't seem to think of a scenario where you would favour keeping the pot small? I'm sure someone will.

Personally, I like to keep the pot small when I have bottom 2 pair or low pair and gut-shot.

Revised list of questions:
Why would these hands be playable?
What value do they add to/remove from a range?
How does stack sizing affect your decision to get involved in a pot with these hands?
How do pre-flop bets affect your overall strategy or goal when playing these pockets?
How does stack sizing or SPR affect post-flop play of these hands?
What board textures are favorable/unfavorable?
How does position and number/style of opponents factor in to your play?
In what circumstances is building the pot favorable to playing a small pot?

What obvious questions am I missing here?

why not look at fundamentals of pre-flop play with scs? or at least address pre-flop action/relative position/stack depth/villain tendencies before trying to make blanket rules for postflop play.

I mean, i guess we can talk about draws and made hands and stuff? (see isf's made hand article etc). What is fold equity? how do outs + etc impact decisions? what boards hit your range hard vs those that hit your hand hard? this goes forever. Is it worth perhaps narrowing it down a bit?

playing high scs and s1gs in position 100bb deep after having attempted to isolate a limper preflop would be a huge topic by itself.

Originally Posted by daven

(see isf's made hand article etc).

What is isf? could you post a link please?

Originally Posted by seven-deuce

What is isf? could you post a link please?

IowaSkinsFan's Poker Strategy Articles

Originally Posted by daven

Why not look at fundamentals of pre-flop play with SCs... or at least address pre-flop action/relative position/stack depth/villain tendencies before trying to make blanket rules for post-flop play?

I feel that pre-flop play is one of the most-discussed topics in NLHE and I'm not sure what another thread would contribute. Also, I feel like these questions are covered implicitly in other questions I have already posed. I have re-organized the list of questions again to emphasize the way pre-flop action sets the scenario for post-flop play.

Do you feel as though I am missing your point?
What specific questions do you think need asking?
How may one of my questions be re-worded to yield more enlightening answers?

Originally Posted by daven

What is fold equity?

Exploitation and the FTC Theorem

Fold equity is based on a stat attached to a specific villain on a specific street to a specific bet. I don't think much can be generalized about fold equity in the context of this discussion, other than that it IS equity to count against all but the most stubborn of calling stations.
Again: Have I misunderstood you / is my analysis complete bunk?

Originally Posted by daven

how do outs + etc impact decisions? what boards hit your range hard vs those that hit your hand hard? this goes forever. Is it worth perhaps narrowing it down a bit?

I think any topic is too broad when: It keeps digressing into specifics and no patterns emerge which categorize the specifics. I am confident that poker lends itself to descriptions in the form of broad guidelines from which deviations are made.

I think "outs + etc" is covered in the "board textures" question. I really like your range vs hand question.

Originally Posted by daven

playing high scs and s1gs in position 100bb deep after having attempted to isolate a limper preflop would be a huge topic by itself.

I honestly feel that these hands play the same whether they're high or low. Mid pair/weak kicker or worse is likely to happen more times than not with these pockets. In short handed play, I can see some showdown equity in these hands, but not in FR. Other than that, this statement seems related to questions 3 - 5.

Revised list of questions (2):
<< Justification >>
1) Why would these hands be playable?
2) What value do they add to/remove from a range?
<< Pre-Flop Scenario >>
3) How does stack sizing affect your decision to get involved in a pot with these hands?
4) How does position and number/style of opponents factor in to your play?
5) How do pre-flop bets affect your overall strategy or goal when playing these pockets?
<< Tactics >>
6) What board textures are favorable/unfavorable?
6a) What boards hit your range hard vs those that hit your hand hard?
7) How does stack sizing or SPR affect post-flop play of these hands?
8) In what circumstances is building the pot favorable to playing a small pot?

What obvious questions am I missing here?

OK, it's been a couple of days with no additional questions added to the list. I'd like to open the discussion on the first 2 questions.

<< Justification >>
1) Why would these hands be playable?
2) What value do they add to/remove from a range?

1) These hands are playable because they can make nut straights. When both pocket cards are used to make a straight, it is capable of building and taking down a big pot.

2) They add the value of deception into a range. These pockets are rated as 0 EV +/- 0.15 bb (most of them slightly negative). This plays into the shania theory. (I can't help but think of it as the 'shunya theory'. Shunya is Sanskrit for zero/void/emptiness/nothing.) The idea here is that pockets that add 0EV to your bankroll over many hands neither help you nor hurt you. They DO make your opponents have to think harder about your range and this makes them more likely to mis-read your holdings, which leads to +EV opportunities.

Thoughts?

1) these hands are good for 3betting IP to a villain who folds to 3bets a lot and only 4bets a tight range therefore an easy laydown can be made and if he flat calls they play well IP and they can win big pots. They are also useful for set mining IP preferably the BTN when stacks are deep. Flopping trips, houses, big draws and disguised 2pairs.

2) I suppose your opponents have to widen your range which makes their decisions harder as you can rep alot more board textures. Also you may put your opponent on tilt by cracking a big hand of his which is very +EV.

I thought this would be a hugely interesting topic to explore. I'll give it another day for responses to questions 1 & 2.

In preparation for answering question 3: Does anyone have a system for determining pre-flop equity with these holdings... or even a rule of thumb? I usually don't chase with these hands, I'd say less than 50%, based on position and pre-flop aggression. I don't know if this is in any way optimal. I don't like to get involved unless I'm at least 90bb deep with these hands and so are my (multiple) opponents. I don't know if this is too tight for optimal EV. Any ideas on this one?

Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey

Does anyone have a system for determining pre-flop equity with these holdings... or even a rule of thumb?

I'm not convinced pre-flop equities are important in deciding whether to play these hands i mean if your flatting an early position raise IP or calling from the BB you know your behind villains range and he knows it if he's at all a thinking player. Its very unlikely your flatting with the very top of your range in these spots AA,KK,QQ or AK. Your basically set mining if the stacks are deep enough or 3bet bluffing.


83,902,896,000 games 0.014 secs 5,993,064,000,000 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 24.950% 24.44% 00.51% 20504801064 429316098.00 { random }

Hand 1: 75.050% 74.54% 00.51% 62539462740 429316098.00 { JJ+, AKs, AKo }

ATC vs a super tight range still has 24.44% equity to win pre-flop, this might be of some use for a rough guide.

I didn't read a word of this thread because you guys are going way too deep into this.

Think of m2ms 3 P's of fucking shit up at the poker tables when it comes down to this very broad question
1) Position - that villain is in, how many ppl left to act if u call, hint defending your BB skillfully can add a TON to your win rate if you learn to do it well and get that bb/100 loss rate cut down from this position
2) Pot odds - raise sizing is pretty fucking important when it comes to affecting your pot odds I guess, you gotta think beyond just what the pot is offering you tho, i..e post flop steal equity or lack of if facing narrow ranges, someone who barrels off a ton and doesnt fold when reraised etc..
3) Power - how shitt your opponent is, i.e. how well you will play against him postflop which will determine how wide to call pre that is after you consider your position and power relative to those left to act hence I list Power 3rd.

"Going way too deep into this"

is what defines FTR.

@m2m: I am still chewing on the advice you posted, so please add more if you're inclined. Please forgive me if I seem pedantic to you. Maybe you know we're going way too deep into it because you've gone this deep before, but I haven't ever really thought about this; I've just kind of built up an intuitive sense of it.

@ seven-deuce: set mining w/o a PP..?!? :mind blown:
That got me thinking, and looking through some odds tables.

With ATC (no PP), the odds of catching a hand (2 pair or better) on the flop are:
2 pair: 2.02% + set: 1.35% + boat: 0.09% + quads: 0.01% :: total: 3.47%

Adding in the chance to flop a flush with any suited pocket (0.84%) brings the base to:
total: 4.31%

for SC, 4.31% + 1.31% to flop a straight :: total: 5.62% odds: 16.8:1

for S1G, 4.31% + 0.98% to flop a straight :: total 5.29% odds: 17.9:1

for S2G, 4.31% + 0.65% to flop a straight :: total 4.96% odds: 19.2:1

*note: this excludes all draws (I'm considering a single pair to be a drawing hand)

my post was designed to give your brain a sigh of relief in that it isn't as hard as it seems to figure all this out.

going as deep as you possibly can into analyzing things off the table is really good for your poker mind in the long run. just remember when at the tables to push all the equations aside in the moment and take in as much info that is being thrown at you as you can.

I think actively thinking about the 3 p's I listed during play will help make things go smoother. In the long run though just trying to remember those 3 points won't do you any good compared to what you are doing running as many numbers as you can because that is what really builds your intuition to give you a better handle on conceptualizing ranges and the actions you take at the table blah blah blah

Keep exploring everything you can. I think you're on the right track.

I'm going to move on to the next block of questions. Feel free to add your own answers to any open questions. My answers are based on FR NLHE games, so 6max, SNG and MTT perspectives are welcome.

For this discussion, Hero has one of the following:
{ Q9s,J8s+,T7s+,97s+,86s+,75s+,64s+,53s+,43s }

<< Pre-Flop Scenario >>
3) How does stack sizing affect your decision to get involved in a pot with these hands?
4) How does position and number/style of opponents factor in to your play?
5) How do pre-flop bets affect your overall strategy or goal when playing these pockets?

3) I wouldn't usually consider playing these pockets from any position with less than 90bb. However, I re-buy when I fall below 90bb, so this a moot point for me. I want at least 2 villains in the pot with stacks at least this deep. The more the merrier. These hands are not likely to win a lot of pots, so big pot odds is important. However, when they do hit (especially a straight), they can stack all kinds of hands.

4) The earliest position I commonly play from is UTG+2, provided the rest of the table is likely to cooperate with a cheap flop. E.g. a min-raise from UTG, call from UTG+1 and a table that almost never 3-bets would work. In practice, I almost never play these hands from earlier than CO. However, when there is at least one loose villain (85/3/0 ring a bell?) left to act and a passive post-flop villain in the bb (any stats), these hands become far more playable. Also, these can be good hands to defend my own bb from steal attempts.

5) I wont be playing if there was 3+ bet action pre-flop. If there was a pre-flop aggressor, I'll check to him/her on most boards. My overall goal is to either flop a big hand or draw or else check/fold, with a note that small hands play small pots. Only a very specific read on something pre-flop would change that strategy post-flop.

#3 depends upon your preflop raise size, as the overall stack to pot ratio matters . What our pfr sizing these days MP in full ring?

#4 6max is different, but I wouldn't play any of these from MP or EP, only CO or later, and sometimes I will 3bet bluff a weak steal. We don't get tons of community pots in 6max, so I'm looking for a profitable way to exploit one villain, and that's only going to happen with absolute position postflop (and some luck) or w/ a preflop takedown.

Originally Posted by Robb

What are PFR sizing these days MP in full ring?

I'm grinding 5NL on Bovada right now. The short answer is that limp and min-raise are by far the most common bet sizing from most players. ~65%
There are a few that open to $0.25 whenever they enter, no matter how many limpers (god bless 'em). ~5%
The better players are immediately obvious because they make pot-sized bets to enter. (I include the "3x plus 1 for each limper" rule as a pot-sized raise. It's only a SB off anyway.) Plus they know when to 3-bet and how to follow it up. ~30%

I'm about to digress:
Also, they some of them know how to avoid each other, I think (intuition on small sample). I think I noticed one guy making funny small bets against me earlier today. Smaller than he'd been making against other people. I folded the first time, 'cause I didn't know what was going on, but it felt wrong. Then I noticed he and myself and one other had been there for over 130 hands and everyone else was under 50 hands, and guess what, it was the 3 of us that were way over our buy-in. weeeee!

Maybe he knew there was less of an edge against me? I never thought of this, but I think I really should. I've been just cold avoiding the "smart" players unless I have position and more premium holdings than usual. Is it a wise adjustment to bet smaller, and thereby give them better drawing odds?

FTS

Originally Posted by WeaselT

FTS

I'm trying to figure out a way to apply Fourier Transform Spectroscopy to poker, but to no avail.

I appreciate your contribution to this thread, although I would encourage you to criticize with more enthusiasm (and words) next time.

I'm posing a bunch of questions and trying to find reasonable answers to them. If you think my questions are missing the point, please let me know. If you think my answers are missing the point, also, please let me know. I'm not claiming to be anything but a seeker of new points of view here, so (cogent) criticism is welcome. Your post doesn't help me figure out what I may do to address your disapproval (and my guess is that it doesn't adequately vent your frustration, either). I'd also guess that you read this thread hoping to find some piece of information that is NOT HERE. Please let me know and I will add it.

I intend to compile all of the useful information that comes out of this thread into a single essay, which, of course, I will post at the end of the thread. This is the research portion of the essay.

EDIT: Sorry, WeaselT. I thought FTS meant F*** That S***. My so wrongly by the think it.

The final block of questions are the tough ones for me, and the place where I feel I have the least confidence in my decisions. After all, we're getting to the meat of this discussion. The answers I pose to these questions are filled with doubt, so correct me or critique my thought processes if you think I'm wrong.

<< Tactics >>
6) What board textures are favorable/unfavorable?
6a) What boards hit your range hard vs those that hit your hand hard?
7) How does stack sizing or SPR affect post-flop play of these hands?
8) In what circumstances is building the pot favorable to playing a small pot?

OESFD = Open Ended Straight Flush Draw
DGSFD = Double Gutter Straight Flush Draw

6) Big made hands on the flop, OESFDs, and DGSFD's are most favorable, of course, but come at a low frequency. Next is OESDs and DGs on rainbow boards, immediately followed by the same draws on 2-suited boards, and FD's (the 8+ out boards). Then rainbow boards that give Hero 1 pair (the 5 out boards). Finally, least favorable are broadway heavy boards, and suited boards that miss Hero's suit.

6a) My range depends on whether or not I called into a limped pot, called a PFR or PFR'd myself. The broadway boards become more bluffable when I was the aggressor. The suited boards become more bluffable when I entered passively.

7) I'm clueless on this one. I could guess, but it'd be just that. Help please!

8) Small hands play small pots. I keep it small with 1 and 2 pair hands and even sets with a paired board on the flop (It's so obv. what I have it's hard to get paid by worse if they call the flop.). When I make a set with a 2-outer on the turn or river, it's a better spot to build the pot. With a flush, it has to be a 3-flush on the board at the turn before I make a stack-committing bet. I will bet to price out draws and call with a made flush on the flop or turn, but I'm not trying to get it all-in until the river. All of this is because these hands have kicker problems. Flopping 2 pair is a good spot to build the pot and any straight that uses both cards is so sneaky that building is optimal almost every time (I slow down when the turn or river pairs the board).

If I entered the pot passively, I'm going to continue playing passive unless I have a made hand or a big draw. This would include a ~50% chance to float a 1 pair hand, depending on the villain. If I was the pre-flop aggressor, then I'm going to C-bet ~75% of the time, and re-evaluating on the turn. At 5NL, I tend to fold to any donk bets w/o a specific read or a big draw.