stacking chips with suited connectors

Stacking Chips with Suited Connectors

New Online PokerPoker Strategy

In this post we are going to explore the world on suited connectors, you will always hear people say their favourite hands are 87 of hearts or 45 of clubs, it’s because these hands are super powerful and when they hit boards they will give us a tonne of equity. Let’s look at how we play some different spots with these kinds of holdings.

Playing 78s from the Cut-off and missing

Blinds 100/200 Tournament with 10,000 starting stacks effective so 50BBs deep

Hero, Hi-Jack: 8♦ 7♦  Raise to 500
BTN: Calls
500

Flop: Q♣ 4♠ 2♥

Hero: ?

What shall we do now, we had a nice starting hand in late position so we opened up the pot for a raise and got called by the only player we didn’t want to get called by on the Button, so now we are out of position for the hand and we have completely missed this board.

Now, in general, we are going to want to have a lot of check-give-ups on this kind of board, we have literally no good turns for our hand, no backdoors to speak of so this is pretty much as bad as a flop as we can ask for.

However! Our opponent is pretty capped here, they are unlikely to have a hand like AQ, KQs or other strong hands that could call a bet like 88-JJ and it’s pretty tough to hit this board! It’s super dry.

With all that in mind I don’t mind betting here as a complete bluff to try and buy the pot, now when we are considering sizings I like going pretty large here, the reason being we are just going to stab at this board once, this is a tough board to hit for our opponent, we are going to bluff once and give up on all Turn cards if we are called, therefore because we don’t plan on barrelling let’s take a bigger sizing and look to get some folds from hands that might call a bet to a smaller size.

We bet around 75% pot and get the fold we are looking for!

Suited connector on the Button against a limper

Blinds 100/200 Tournament with 30,000 starting stacks effective so 150BBs deep

UTG +1: Calls 200
Hero, BTN:
 T♥ 9♥  Raise to 800
BB:
Calls 800
UTG+1:
Calls 800

Flop: 3♣ 8♠ 2♥

BB: Checks
UTG+1:
Bets 1,000
Hero: ?

We could easily just give up here and move on to the next hand, but our opponent isn’t ever going to be that strong in this spot whereas our range is going to be much stronger than theirs in general, this time that might not be true as we have just Ten high, but we try and play how we would play our range not just our hand in these types of spots.

So with that in mind, I don’t mind continuing with this hand, but calling seems a little weak and we will just have to give up to a more sizable Turn bet from our donk betting opponent. I like to raise here and try and get some folds maybe not here but by later streets with more pressure if needed.

Hero: Raises to 2,900
BB: Folds
UTG+1: Calls

Turn Card: 7♠

UTG+1: Checks

Hero: ?

We hit pretty much the best card for our hand, arguably hitting a nine or ten would have been better for us, but hitting this card gives us 8 clean outs even versus two pairs and sets! So we have a nice spot here, our opponent is probably pretty weak here and we need to stick to our story of having a stronger hand than our opponent here once we pick up a tonne of equity like this…

Hero: Bets 8,500

UTG+1: Folds

We go for a big sizing here, we would do this with hands for maximum value so we want to do this with our bluffs to apply max pressure too.

The upside of this is when we call and hit we get all the stacks in the middle, this time though there was no need to hit our equity, we took this pot down with a blend of aggression and hitting a nice Turn card for our hand.

Defending In the Blind with Connectors

Blinds 100/200 Tournament with 10,000 starting stacks effective so 50BBs deep

BTN: Raises to 600
SB:
 Folds
Hero, BB: 
6♠ 5Calls 600

Flop: K♣ 4♣ 6♦ 

Hero: ?

We hit a pretty decent flop here, with only a small part of our opponent’s range containing a King, when thinking how to continue we just want to be check-calling here. We want to just try and get to showdown if possible so starting with a check here is the way to go.

We could also look to work in some check-raises occasionally that will serve us well in protecting our equity as there aren’t too many good cards for us on any run-out. However, most of the time here I like the lower variance line unless I have a read that my opponent is most likely just over C-betting here.

Hero: Checks
BTN: Bets 1,200

Hero: ?

We are just calling here against this sizing, we could look to raise some smaller bets but against this sizing, we are pretty much just wanting to call, raising is just too big of a commitment with this hand but hopefully, our opponent is just trying to blow us off the pot and is going to give up.

Hero: Calls 1,200

Turn: 2♥

Hero: ?

A pretty good Turn for us here! We pick up some equity in the way of a straight draw now too. We are still going to continue checking here though, there is no need for us to lead out for the same reasons as on the Flop, let’s just hope we get a free card maybe!

Hero: Checks
BTN: Checks

River: 9♣

Hero: Checks
BTN: Bets 2,500
Hero: ?

With the board running out as K♣ 4♣ 6♦ 2♥ 9♣ we just have a bluff catcher at this point, we missed our straight draw, the flopped flush draw got there and our opponent could have been pot controlling with a top pair hand on the Turn and now be going for value on this River.

I like to mostly fold this, there are some exceptions though, let’s say we have always seen our opponent betting there draws on the Turn previously, then it’s less likely that they have a flush in this pot so we could in some scenarios get super tricky here and turn our hand into a bluff and check-raise all-in.

We would need to have a super tight reputation to even consider pulling this move off though, so don’t do it if you have been caught bluffing at all before, but it’s a great spot to put even hands like two pair in a tough position.

I would prefer to have at least one blocker to clubs to make this move though most of the time, that would actually be a great hand to to this with, most of us are just going to want to make the lay-down on this run-out.

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