How to Play High Suited Connectors Preflop
March 10, 2010
High suited connectors are powerful hands. Not only can they make straights and flushes, but they’ll often win when they make a pair too. These hands include a suited KQ, and QJ. I exclude AK suited from this category since its ability to make straights is more limited.
Suited connectors are usually weak hands that need lots of action to make the pot odds favorable. High suited connectors don’t have this weakness. In fact, some people don’t consider KQ, and QJ suited connectors at all because of their ability to make strong pairs.
I believe it’s a mistake not to take the “suited-ness” of these hands into consideration because it makes them a more powerful holding. For example, KQ off-suit is a 61.46% favorite against a random hand while KQ suited is a 63.40% favorite. In fact, KQ suited is a 52.49% favorite over KQ off-suit. That 2 – 2.5% edge may not seem like much, but remember that casinos make hundreds of millions of dollars a year off small edges like that.
In addition, high suited connectors give you the ability to play monster pots. There’s a long-standing poker saying that goes, “Small hand, small pot. Big hand, big pot.” Well, high suited connectors have the ability to make big hands. Consider this example:
You’re holding the King-Queen of diamonds in late position. Two people ahead of you limp, you make a standard raise and everyone folds except for the two limpers who call. The flop comes 10-9-3 with two diamonds on the board. The first limper bets the pot and the second limper folds; what do you do?
First let’s consider what the first limper could have. Hands like KK, QQ, JJ and 10-10 are unlikely since these hands would have raised preflop. There are some tricky players who would make this move with AA, so we’ll keep that in the mix for now. Other hands that follow the limper’s line are A10, 9-10, 33 and possibly 99. So our villains possible hands are top pair, overpair, top two pair or trips. Here’s how your hand fares against each one of these holdings:
- Top Pair – You’ll win 59.36% of the time.
- Overpair – You’ll win 44.60% of the time.
- Top Two Pair – You’ll win 44.48% of the time.
- Trips – You’ll win 33.84% of the time.
I think that top two pair and trips would check to the raiser to trap on this flop so they could re-raise big and chase out the draws. So I would give more weight to top pair and overpair because both of these hands are too weak to check this flop. I would raise big on a semi-bluff and hope to buy a free card on the turn.
Article Source www.poker-tomorrow.com
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