Bluffing with suited connectors and suited gaps.

[RevolverX]

I've begun to experiment a bit with this. I play these hands when I'm on the button, or in last position to the raiser preflop, where I can defnitley put him on overpairs or overcards. I realize that the majority of the profit to be made off of played SC's and SG's is through bluffing, so I'm curious just what the flop textures look like when you miss, but you decide to bluff anyway?

At micro, I only try this at tight tables, against tight players, and today I had 5d6d, against high overpair or overcards, flop came 7c3cKd. I decided to represent that I had clubs instead, and played just like I did, reraising his cbet 3x, turn came, 10c fell, he checked, I bet 75% of the pot, he folded. Nice.

[Rondavu]

Raising his c-bet isn't a true metagame line to a made flush. Keep that in mind. Smooth calling like a chasing donk is more believable (it's called floating). In the example you gave, smooth calling a tight player can essentially give you 12 equity cards since you have a true gutshot along with 9 phantom flush cards.

[TLR]

When you want to win the pot by bluffing, your hole card are pretty much meaningless.
If you want to semi-bluff (you have AcXo and there are 3 hearts on the board for example) your hole card matters since you still have outs if you get caught

[jackvance]

People will give you the benefit of the doubt if you normally only value bet, or even play pretty scared, and then "bluff". However, to incorporate succesful bluffing into your strategy on a routinely basis is another thing altogether.

Btw I play pretty semi-laggish preflop, but I *never* raise a sc or a sg, even on the button. Weird come to think of it. I use other hands to increase my PFR. SC and those sorts of hands I use to float.

EDIT: pretty interesting, if I sort my hands over "$ won per hand", over the last 3.6k hands I played at 20NL, the top 10 is:

1. KQs
2. QJs
3. AA
4. AJs
5. 44
6. 87s
7. A7s
8. JJ
9. T9s
10. T7s


So it's probably more than just "for bluff value" as 87s has made me more per hand than KK, QQ, AK,.. (AK is my absolute top hand in total profit though, it falls off this list, but it has come up 41 times and made me $33, runner-up KQs came up 13 times for a total of $28)

[crushednuts]

Suited connectors are great because they are so easy to get away from. If you make middle pair you can easily dump it but they can produce some very strong draws (which play great in multiway pots common at lower limits). It is not surprising that Big suited broadways oftentimes play better than QQ and lower PP because you can too easily get attached to these. Big suited cards play awesome multiway which is almost always the situation in the loose games at lower limits. With too many players seeing a flop after a raise, Big suited and connecting cards play awesome and pocket pairs get harder to play. Say you have AA and the flop is K 9 2 rainbow w/ four people in the pot you could either be really far ahead or really far behind but if you have KQ of hearts and the flop is JT2 and the JT is hearts you are guaranteed to be the advantage over anyone in the pot...

[TLR]

Suited connectors are great if you know to get away from the hand when neccessary.
Remember why you play them - flush or str8. The problem a lot of beginners have is that they limp 89s, the flop comes 952 rainbow and they commit a hugh part of their stack only to be outkicked