The Truth about Suited Connectors - No Limit Holdem

By Donovan Doust
4-22-06

Many players love to see flops with suited connectors. I’ve seen, otherwise strong players, call early position raises with unimpressive hands like 65s more times than I can believe. Now, I know there is a time and place to make such a call on Full Tilt. Maybe when the blinds are extremely small compared to the stacks and the raise came from a particularly weak player. I know a lot of top players will take flops with the medium suited connectors like 87s to see if they can flop a monster and bust someone. There is a time and there is a place for playing suited connectors. More over, however, the hands are overplayed by players who are unable to profit with them.

The first thing I want to note is the skill level that is required to effectively play these hands. I feel like beginner and intermediate players should leave them alone all together. Looking back on my first couple years of no limit hold ‘em play, I know I lost a lot of money messing with marginal hands like T9s. I think I’ve gone bust with QJs more than any other hand, and still find myself in really tricky spots playing it. The point I want to make here is that suited connectors are extremely difficult hands to play. You should leave them alone until you have a great handle on pot odds and counting outs. You also have to have a lot of table time under your belt to stay out of trouble with these hands. You should have a good read on the other players you’re up against and be comfortable playing flops with those players. Suited connectors get you into a lot of “murky water” that requires a lot of experience to effectively navigate.

There are two very important requirements that I look for before deciding to enter a pot with suited connectors. The first one is the size of the blinds in relation to my stack and the stacks of my opponents. The second is my position, both relative to the dealer, and relative to the raiser if the pot has been opened. If I’m playing in a cash game with blinds of say one and two dollars and all the players have around two hundred dollars in play, I will usually be willing to call a small raise if I’m on the dealer button or the cutt-off seat (one from the dealer.) with suited connectors JTs, T9s, and 98s only. I will limp in with these hands only from middle or late position. I’d play the hands similarly in the early stages of a tournament with, say, 1000 in tournament chips and blinds of maybe 10- 20. In the middle stages of 1000 chip tournaments, when the blinds are around the 50-100 stage, I will rarely play suited connectors except when I can limp in on the button or complete the blind from the small blind. Of course I will often open with suited connectors T9s, JTs, and QJs from late position if the players in the blinds are fairly tight, just trying to steal the blinds.