Playing suited connectors

[RevolverX]

I seem to be getting outplayed badly when I call high preflop bets with these. I know they can beat AA, KK QQ JJ AK AQ AJ when played right but this is what happens:

Say I have 67s. I call .50 bb which is probably a good hand.

flop comes. 5 8 J hits. Now I know I have 8 outs which is 32% to hit the straight, but what happens is the guy who raised big preflop bets 50-75% of the pot, making it a terrible call for me. How do you handle this? How can I play my suited connectors better so i can beat these big hands? Keep in mind this is at micro, so even if I reraise his C-Bet he probably wont fold his big hand.

[jackvance]

In that scenario it's the implied odds that matter. How much of a stack does he have behind still and do you have it covered? Say he bet $1 and you call, pot is $2 and he bets $1.5. If he has only $6 left or something, probably fold: if you miss on the turn then the pot is $5 and after his bet he won't have much left (if he hasn't pushed already) If he has enough left, then you need to try to gauge if he is going to pay you off if you hit or not (based on your read). If you think he isn't, then fold. If he likely is, implied odds make up for drawing against the odds, so call.

Another thing of note: if you are in position and you raise him on the flop, the point is not necessarily that you want him to fold, but that you want him to check the turn, so you can check behind and get a free card. (this also gives consistency to other plays where you raise made hands on the flop)

[yorib]

Assuming he bets the pot, you have a 33% chance of winning so you could bet up to.5 the (bet + pot) which in this case is up to a pot size bet. In this case you call as you also have implied odds. (i.e. You know your opponent will continue to make/call large bets if you hit your hand.)

At those stakes, you just want to ge the odds to chase and punish him when you hit. So call, if your card hits you are golden. If it doesn't, see if he gives you odds again.

With that flop your hand is completely hidden. Ideally you'd like to have at least a backdoor flush to help your odds out as well.

You played your SC fine.

Good luck

[jackvance]

Assuming he bets the pot, you have a 33% chance of winning so you could bet up to.5 the (bet + pot) which in this case is up to a pot size bet. In this case you call as you also have implied odds. (i.e. You know your opponent will continue to make/call large bets if you hit your hand.)

This is only true if he isn't gonna bet the turn anymore.

Pot: $2, his bet $1.5. Here you have to call $1.5 into $5 or 30%.

And after you call, and you miss on the turn (you had 1/6 to 1/5 to hit depending on the draw) the pot is $5 and he bets another $3.5. Now again you have to call around 30% for your 1/6-1/5 to hit. Without implied odds, this is -EV play.

[benny999]

ok i'm still learning about playing these too, so im glad you started this trhead, but going off my experience and what i've read in this forum...

if it's heads up, i reccomend NOT calling pre flop, unless you have a read that the OPP will fold if he misses the flop and/or turn and he's not a short stack. with a read, you can float which means you call (or raise) his c-bet when theres no A/K/Q, intending to bet enough to fold him if checked to on the turn (or keep him in if you hit the draw) since checking after a c-bet usually = over cards and they fold.

with no reads, if he always c-bets to give you bad odds, you don't know your fold-equity, and/or implied odds...it was a leak to call pre flop in the first place. But if you are pretty sure he actually has a hand AND stack that will pay you off if you hit your draw, like jackvance and yorib wrote, drawing against pot-odds is ok assuming you have implied. Or if you are pretty sure you can float, it's ok too. But with no reads, it's a bad play IMO.

also, if you're only playing a SC for value (not for fold-equity), keep in mind your odds of flopping 2 pair or better are around 40:1. that lets you think what size the pot needs to get to for a pre flop call to be worth it.

[RevolverX]

Ok I'm a little confused about the concept of implied odds (what does EV mean?) Does it mean bc you are staying in the hand you are implying you have good odds of beating his hand?

Few more questions:

What if you act first? Flop comes, you check, he bets 50-75%, you call. Turn comes and you miss. Do you bet or check here, because if you check he is going to bet again. What happens if the turn comes and an Ace king or queen hits it also? Time to fold?

Say turn comes you miss, he acts first, and instead of checking he still continues to bet, or even worse goes allin wiht the rest of his stack (around $5-8)?

[jackvance]

if it's heads up, i reccomend NOT calling pre flop, unless you have a read that the OPP will fold if he misses the flop and/or turn and he's not a short stack. with a read, you can float which means you call (or raise) his c-bet when theres no A/K/Q, intending to bet enough to fold him if checked to on the turn (or keep him in if you hit the draw) since checking after a c-bet usually = over cards and they fold.

Ah yes I forgot to mention how your odds improve if there's more than 2 people in the pot. And just for clarity, not to critique your post Benny (in context I think it's correct), I'd have to say in general floating encompasses more than just this.

also, if you're only playing a SC for value (not for fold-equity), keep in mind your odds of flopping 2 pair or better are around 40:1. that lets you think what size the pot needs to get to for a pre flop call to be worth it.

Heh, it's not *that* bad.. odds of flopping 2 pair or better on a SC is 5% or 19:1.

Ok I'm a little confused about the concept of implied odds (what does EV mean?) Does it mean bc you are staying in the hand you are implying you have good odds of beating his hand?

EV=expected value. Whether you win or lose, you did the right thing if your play was +EV.. meaning it'll make you money in the long run. And implied odds is not what you describe here. I could explain it like this: if you play by pot odds, it means you are ONLY playing for the pot. Say you have 1/3 to hit your draw over turn+river, then if you bet below that, then your decision is +EV. If you bet above 1/3, your decision can still be +EV because if you hit your draw, you might win more than just the pot, as your opponent might continu betting, or call your bet/raise.

Example time.

Flop
Pot is $2, he bets $1.5, you call

Turn
Pot is $5, he bets $3.5, you call

River: you hit your flush
Pot is $12, he bets $4, you go all-in for $14, he calls for the remaining $10.

Here you win more than just the pot you calculated your odds on on the flop. So it was a good decision to call *because he paid up more when you hit*. If he's gonna check and fold on the river if you hit, then your play is -EV.

Second example

Flop
Pot is $2. He bets $0.5. You call.

Turn
Pot is $3. He bets $1. You call.

River: you hit your flush
Pot is $5. He checks. You bet $4. He folds. (because he suspected you were on a flush draw)

Here your play is still +EV (ie, good) because you called under pot odds, and it doesn't matter that he folded after.


Ofcourse you don't know beforehand how much you are going to make extra should you hit your draw, so this is where reads and experience kick in.

[benny999]

Heh, it's not *that* bad.. odds of flopping 2 pair or better on a SC is 5% or 19:1.

oops thx for the correction...I remembered reading (I think from Fnord) about using 1:40 to calculate implied odds with SC. not sure right why though or if it was something else, maybe someone here knows?

Also, I want to emphasize what jackvance wrote since it felt real good to understand implied odds and EV and apply them. Implied odds are based on a series of escalating bets in a hand, whereas pot odds looks at one bet at a time. EV is about whether a decision is profitable long-term (over an infinite number of times), given the likely outcomes after the decision.

here's another example to show calculating implied odds and EV - "set hunting"...
calling a 4BB raise preflop with 22, and you somehow know your OPP has AA or KK and won't fold it post flop. Pot odds dictate this is a bad call since your call was around 40% of the pot (if only you call) while you make a set in about 11% of flops...BUT the 11% times you do hit a set, you'll win 100BB by the river (as long as the OPP hadn't improved), since the OPP can't fold his AA/KK. in this case you called only 4-5% (the implied odds) of the escalated final pot, which is much less than the 11% chance of flopping a set. that makes it a +EV decision.

The EV in this idealized example can actually be calculated (correct if wrong on the math):
89% you waste 4BB, which is a 3.6 BB "expected" loss.
11% of the time you win say 100BB, which is an 11 BB "expected" gain
Your total EV would be 11 - 3.6 = 8.4 BB. That is, if you played this situation with that OPP an infinite number of times, you'd average 8.4BB per time. At any given time you could lose, but implied odds make the decision +8.4BB EV.

What if you act first? Flop comes, you check, he bets 50-75%, you call. Turn comes and you miss. Do you bet or check here, because if you check he is going to bet again. What happens if the turn comes and an Ace king or queen hits it also? Time to fold?

Say turn comes you miss, he acts first, and instead of checking he still continues to bet, or even worse goes allin wiht the rest of his stack (around $5-8)?

You basically described why it sucks to draw out of position with no read. You will probably win a ton more if you simply stay out of these spots in the first place (ie fold pre flop, unless you have a lot of others in the pot who will call his bets to give you better odds)...heads up or 3 way, you need a read (can you fold him, will he pay you off if you hit?) and a plan (what will you do to fold him? or in position, is a semi bluff +EV?).

[TLR]

My view on suited connectors.

It is only worth to limp them if it is relatively chip (no raise, minraise) and the pot is multiway.

One point you need to take into account is that you have 32/36% to hit on the turn or the river. But when you call his flop bet you are only seeing the turn for free (unless he pushed AI), so you have about 16/18% to hit. A standard play for many players on a draw is to bet 2/3-pot sized on the flop, and if they get called and the flush does not hit the turn overbet the pot.

One point about implied odds. Other then the stack size of the opponent, you need to have a good idea that he will pot that money in the pot if the flush hits. This is why it is a good hand multiway (3+ opponents)

One more point is that if the flush hits on the turn and you have mid suited connectors you need to take the pot on the turn to not allow single high card of the suite to complete a better flush.

One final point is that there may be higher flushes out there, this is why position is also important in this hand, if you see someone calling preflop, calling the flop bet and betting when the flush hits he may have an higher flush (or he is represnting a higher flush...)

All and all I rather hit a str8 then a flush with SC

[Renton]

Raise 8+ out draws in position and expect to get checked to/check behind the turn. Then you pay almost within your odds to crack a big hand.

This works better with str8 draws than with flush draws cuz the play is kinda transparent (but at low stakes they both work good).

[RevolverX]

I'd like to reverse the situation now, since this has happened to me multiple times today, cost me ALOT of money.

I have AK, raise 4x bb, I get a caller.

Flop hits, 2 4 J rainbow.

I raise 50% of pot to destroy odds, and I get reraised.

I fold at this point (or sometimes I call, and then fold at the turn or river) only to find out the villain was bluffing and had 89s.

How do you handle this here?

EDIT: I brought my bankroll up $35 yesterday, and I lost $30 of it today because I'm getting my overcards (AK AQ AJ KQ KJ QJ) either busted, or outplayed with a bluff like the situation described above. I'm playing these with standard patterns, raising 3-4xbb, and then Cbetting 50-75% of the pot if I don't hit, so any advice on how I can play these hands better would be much appreciated. Looking at poker tracker for today, my biggest losers were AQo (-9.45) AJs (-10.55) and ATo (-5.60).

[benny999]

Most times you get raised at low stakes it isn't a bluff so IMO you made a good fold. I used to call sometimes there and it would cost a lot. Only thing is I think a 50% pot c-bet gets bluffed at a little bit more often then a 75% pot. So I usually c-bet closer to 3/4 pot unless I have a read they're tight then I do 1/2, or if they float a lot, a check/raise is probably better than c-betting.

C-bets are generally profitable, but if someone does that move consistently, I would check/raise them. As for explaining those results, try posting some hands and you'll get some real good feedback. It probably is just a short term thing, but maybe you need to c-bet or fold top pair more often.

[salsa4ever]

write down every cont bet you make for a sequence of about 1000 hands at least. see how much you lose and how much you win from them.

You will get check raised. That's just a fact of life. Every session I play I'll get my cont bets raised at least 10 times. There are some flops that are especially bad and sometimes you want to just take the free card. There are times when you just get a feel that he's making a play on you and you can double his raise. Helps if you got some outs, which you normally do if you're looking at AK or something.

At micro stakes you're pretty much reduced to chasing for implied odds and getting paid off when you hit. But at 50NL and above, you can be quite aggressive with your draws. Heck, you should be aggressive with 2nd pair, good draws, excellent draws, top pair, sets (get the picture?) Out of position I probably check raise the pre-flop-raiser to pick off a lot of cont bets... probably continue on the turn if missed about 45% of the time. But I often win right there. In position you can raise the cont bet and get the free card as well.

When you play at higher levels you really have to do something to counter the semi bluff (8 or 9 outs for a good made hand draw or even a 2nd pair for 5 outs can and will raise you). Which gets tricky because the default line for a set is for many people check-raise or raise behind if in position (call in position sometimes to imitate a flush chase if you're feeling daring and feel the other guy can't slow down). You'll find that your sets start getting paid off lots when you play them aggressively on suited/connected boards (as you should) because you play aggressively with your draws. That's the real value of suited connectors at higher levels - not to win overwhelming amounts of money with them (though you certainly can) but to keep your opponents off balance.

[yorib]

JackVance: You are 100% correct about my misassesment.

RevloverX: The hands you are describing with the exception of AK/AQ can be horrid multiway hands. I've noticed that with AJ/AT/KJ/KQ/QJ there is tremendous potential to lose my stack. Two broadway cards can easily be 2pair to a straight (draw) toss in flush chasers and you can see why the hands are high risk. (That's ignoring hands like KQ/KJ/QJ with an A high flop).

I think I've finally pulled out of a $10NL tailspin by really thinking about what I'm doing and what I want to see on the flop. If someone raises (say 4xbb+) and I'm looking at KQ/KJ/QJ/AJ I have no idea what I want to see and I"ll usually fold. I've started tightening up and focusing on playing the few hands I do correctly. Hands like AQ/AJ can be dangerous on A high flops because someone can always have 2pair because they called with Axs or A higher kicker.

As far a c-bets go, try mixing them up, espeically if you are out of position. If you always c-bet then even poor players will pick up on the fact that they don't mean anything and won't respect them. If you check and everyone else checks, that's usually sign that noone else is interested in the pot and a reasonable bet on the turn can take down the pot.