Playing Suited connectors, why, when, odds

Reprinting to LTUs blog from mine, this is some interesting #'s I thought.


I personally love it when I see a suited connector, for this example we will use 89 suited in my hand. I get a tingly feeling inside, because I know something exciting could happen. I might get in this hand and catch a straight, 2 pair, flush, OR, a flush draw with decisions to make, or maybe even just a pair and feel like I have the best of it. Either way, it gets my blood pumping

I wanted to talk about some recent hands I've played and seen, why, what the odds were.

First 89hearts, I had 2250 chips left in the last hand before the break in a 1500freezeout, blinds were 75/150. Big stack on the button with around 10000, raised into my BB. I reshoved my stack in here. Why? Well, first, I was shortstacked, if I am going to go out, Id rather do it before the break. That might now be the best way to look at it, but id rather double up or go out before the break if possible. Also, I figured that the big stack could have a very wide range of hands in this spot stealing on the button. So I had what i thought was about 3 in 5 fold equity in this spot or about 60% that he would fold. If I got called, I knew my odds. I put this player on a wide range of top 40% or so of hands, again this range, my 89suited is about 40.1%.so all in all, I have about 5 out of 10 chance that I will win this hand either by a pf fold, or a showdown win. In this case, he was on the high side of his range with AK and called, but, I flopped and 8 and no more help and I won the hand. I don't suggest this kind of recklessness with a medium or average stack, you re looking for better chances to get your money in, but when you re short in this spot its a good enough hand to shove light.

2nd hand I saw was another player at my table but I like how he played the hand.
guy had about 10000 chips, and sitting on the BB, for 200 chips, with 89clubs, late position shortstack with 1400 shoves it all in. This is another spot i don't mind a call. You're not getting the best of odds in this spot but you got to open up and take some chances here and the range on this late position all in was wide. Again, we will say top 40% of hands. With the odds that I plugged in, he had about a 39% equity in this hand, and figure he has 200 in the pot already, now he is calling 1200 to win a pot worth about 3100 in this spot that's about 38.7%. Right on the number but.. when you re talking about 12% of your chips for to pickup 31% I am ok with that move. Anyway, the hand came down AJ8 with 2 clubs. So automatically thought the 89 was going to win here even though he might be a little behind still, he was 41% after the flop, but the turn was an 8spades and now he was 90.9%.

Lastly, this didn't happen today, but I wanted to talk about open shoving with 89suited. Now, no reason to ever do this unless the Blinds are decent, prob antes kicked in as well. I also wouldn't do this if your "M" =((your stack)/(sb,bb,+ante))is more than 5, unless its more than 15-20 and the BB is less than 5.

Example, blinds are 200/400 and ante is 400, in this case that equals 1000 chips in the blinds and antes. So you divide your stac by 1000, if you have 5000 or less and your M is 5 or less, than youre in danger zone. Its not a bad move to move in, and try to pickup 20% of your chip stack. In this case vs a Random hand, your pot equity is 51.4%, now if you get called, your equity is going to be alot lower, he will put you on top 30-40% of hands so could call you pretty wide. I would say top 20%. So now, your equity is going to be more like 36.5. All in all, I like your chances, 51% over random, only getting called with top 20% of hands and still winning that 35.5%. So the final # would be 1 in 5 call you, and about 3 of 5 win at showdown if called. So your edge here is 6 of 10 (60%) chance of a fold or a showdown win.

note.. as mentioned above if you have over 15 or so M and the BB has less than 5, so if you have 15+ and Bb has less than 5000, you can make this move profitably in this spot as well. More on "M" zones in another article.


Thanks for reading, hope to hear your opinions here

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