Playing the flush draw !

I usually play Party Poker 5 or 10 single table tourneys.. My question is if you have small suited cards.. Do you play them when you flop one suit or two suits come to the board.. DO you raise the preflop ???? to filter out the junk ? and continue to call .. Or do you only play premium suited stuff ? What is the highest suited connector and will you bet into a flop with one suit while your drawing ? What is the best way to handle this ?

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Ryan - new member .. This forum rocks !

It's all situational and based on position. Playing low suited connectors is a tricky thing.

One, you want to play them cheap and in late position only with multiple limpers.

Two, if there are alot of people in the pot, then there's a slight chance your flush is beat by a higher flush (not a big chance, but don't go AI just because you caught your flush - in my opinion.) And certainly take caution if 4 of your suit are on the board.

(so, there's your first contradiction. You want to play them with multiple players, but you don't want someone else to be playing larger cards of the suit.)

Three, you have to figure your pot odds and don't call bets where the odds aren't right for you.

There is an advanced play where you can semibluff your drawing hand, but it's not a beginner's move. See the tournament tactics area, I just posted something on it.

But, the basic and correct play is to fold small suited connectors unless you have a plan on how to play them or have a ton of chips compared to the blind. It's an advanced hand and you need good reads on the table and the ability to make some sophisticated moves to get them to pay off. And even then, it's pretty shaky.

Regarding raising to filter out the junk. NO! Technically, you're playing junk. If you want to raise to steal the blinds preflop, you can try. But it's a pure BLUFF move at that point. But, generally speaking you want lots of callers on your drawing hands, it gives you the best pot odds. If you're playing this head's up or just against the blinds then you're throwing money away.

As an aside, there is ANOTHER reason for playing top quality hands. When you play goofy hands like this then you chances of getting a decent sized pot decreases, because when the flop hits you it's going to miss everyone else. So you won't get action. Premium hands, like AK are better NOT JUST because they're big cards, but because the chances of someone calling you down with KQ or AQ when you have top pair are great, and people will more often call big straight draws. Imagine someone calls with KT, flop is JQK. They have top pair and a straight draw. You're gonna get paid in full. And there are only 3 aces left, not 4, and 4 9's for their straight. I don't know if that's the best example. But Slansky covers well why playing premium cards not only increases your chances to win, but also increases your chances to collect big pots.

What is the question?