Yeah, this is what I was attempting to get at with my golf analogy.

GreallyintogolfrightnowG

I sort of wanted to do one of my "once per 5 years" give back to the community posts and write a big thing on this but forgot. Plenty of good stuff in here I think tho

Maybe I'll throw something together later. I think the answers are much different as across various stakes

But this ignores the importance of position, which is incredibly important and vastly underrated in this subforum. If someone can't figure out how to play suited connectors profitably on the button then I would suggest a new hobby.

To me, this is simply too harsh, and one of my pet peeves of the forum: this overriding attitude of quit-poker-if-you-do-this / everything is black-vs-white mentality which assumes people can't possibly be winners at this game if they aren't successful at certain subsets of it, which is totally false in most live lineups at these stakes.

G'Merica:firstornothingG

Seriously, you can be a big loser at poker and still play suited connectors profitably on the button. It isn't that hard. You are pretty much saying that the average reader in this subforum is someone that can't tie their own shoes. Mediocrity breeds mediocrity which is all too often what happens here.

This is not high level stuff. It's not RIO or Doug Polk content. This isn't even CLP content. We are talking about very basic poker concepts.

i dont entirely disagree if youre 6k posts in and hundreds of hours. I wouldnt "suggest new hobby" so much as just say the player is unlikely to improve beyond just winning entirely off of a nit style and a dominant preflop range, which i personally wouldnt find fun, but people have different opinions on fun.

I guess I basically feel the same way as you about the value of SCs and position, I just think you fail to have perspective. My zero position basic strategy has my sister winning about $3-5/hr over a small sample instead of losing her shirt while learning. Breaking even for a new or casual player is extremely good.

We are on the 1/2 forums, not the 5/10 forums. Many of the butchered hands posted, and opinions posted show that these are far from crushers. I think first level thinkers should play tight, and I also think the vast majority of players have a much tougher time not folding enough pre than folding too much (GG being a rare exception to this rule)

I would guess that most big losers at poker lose with almost anything they play from any position other than the super premiums (I could be wrong). But I know you're simply trying to state the importance of position, which is fair enough; I just think it can be stated differently than a quit-poker-otherwise way.

I'm honestly not sure who posts (and reads without posting, another step up) on this forum. Overall, poker has far more losers in it than winners, although I guess it would be unfair to assume those same percentages to those in the forum (since posting and reading in this and other forums is already probably a step or two ahead of most losing players).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Just because you are bad at shooting the 3 ball doesn't mean you shouldn't take the shot when you're open. Man up. Over time you will naturally become better at it by realizing the small nuances necessary to polish your shot. You will then be more confident at shooting 3s, which will lead to an average of more points per game, higher shooting percentage, etc etc etc which will ultimately make us better players. Isn't that the goal?

Live and learn!!! Believe me when I say you are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage over the long run by not dabbling in all facets of the game

Edit: which is why big guys who shoot 3s get paid more than the clown that just sits under the hoop waiting for rebounds

You've read past my posts, which is a shame, as you seem to be rather intelligent regarding llsnl.

Might get completely flamed here as it seems that most of the people in this discussion are much farther along than me but here goes. The value of the suitedness isn't necessarily just for the ability to draw to flushes but also in providing blockers to the same flush draws. In live FR, this is causing villains who already make horrible po/io decisions to make even worse ones because of an incredibly flawed expectation that their flushes are going to come in more often than they can.

Heads up you can get you bluff blown out of the water and be facing pretty shi*tty equity. Seven-way pots are also a somewhat ridiculous example. I think what you fail to perceive is that nature of the action at different table sizes. I can hide in the shadows at a FR table with 65s with not a ton of risk. Talking about RIO here is a bit ridiculous because it is generally me that has the RIO advantage over the rest of the table.

Yes, on occasion I'm going to eat an overflush in the face, but that happens at 6max, too.

I get it, they bluff well... but one can make a lot of money in mysterious ways with SC at a FR table and it is hard to reproduce that at a 6max table.

Truth is you can bluff ATC at 6max if your timing is right, but don't let the TAGs and GTO groupies know about it. They might not understand that you've used psychology and reads to your advantage. How dare you do such a thing!

One thing that's not been mentioned much in this thread is position.

I used to treat low pps the same way as SCs, but low pps you can play from any position (assuming you have the odds), but SCs play terribly OOP. I learned the hard way.

True.

Small PPs are spiking a big hand 1:8, what are the odds that D.C. spike 2p trips or a pair + flush draw, pair + fd flush/straight + bd flush straight, or oesd + flush draw? Seems that post flop skill would make a big difference in that assessment as I'm sure anyone can just fold the flop to a bet when their set doesn't hit. And sure, all those possible positive outcomes can be wrecked by the lineup if you have a hyper aggro or two behind you but at least at the 1/2 games I've seen you're going to get priced in either on straight pot odds (for all of the players that don't bet based on the pot size to shut down those odds) or frequently by io considering the frequency guys at this limit stack off with big PP or sets on soaked boards.

but that's the point, when you partially hit, it's a hecka of a lot more difficult to navigate post flop OOP than in position, and that's true however good you are.

OOP is infinitely easier to play when you have more players in the hand.

I just reread your post, and maybe I did. Almost never happens, and wasnt my example.


I do not fail to perceive the differences from table sizes. I would even go so far as to say that table sizes, blind sizes, and online vs live would be so different that there are entirely different subforums for each type of play. Hello, welcome to the LLSNL forum. Here we discuss full ring live poker. Discussion of 6 max or online belongs in a different forum.

Sometimes discussions take a detour and 6max is not synonymous with online. There are many times when a live table is short.

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Pretty nitpicky, but short live != 6max

And nobody was talking about 6max with the picture of playing live short-handed.

Actually I think the dialogue for myself started because there was some sort of comment to the effect that fewer players were in general better for suited connectors. Many of us play both live and online so there's an inevitable crossover that cannot be dealt with in one forum or another. I don't think it's that big of deal since the primary implication has been pretty much whether or not suited connectors benefit from more or fewer people. I was actually thinking often of live shorthanded during the discussion along with live tournament 6max and FTs although I didn't mention it.

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Bluffs get called and raised quite often.

It was your example. You spoke of SC getting involved in a 7-way pot.

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Okay. I had assumed people meant by 6max "online 6max". I've never seen live 6max tables personally.

It probably depends on your play style whether you prefer more or fewer opponents with suited connectors. I prefer fewer as I see them more as bluffing hands with excellent equity when called, but I'm still playing them in FR.

All this is of secondary importance to the main "theory" of the thread, which was that we should drop suited connectors completely from every position. I think this is ridiculous in online 6max, online FR, live FR, heads-up, whatever. Now I can't say with authority whether raising 65s UTG is +EV, but I'm pretty sure raising T9s OTB is.

Yeah, I think there are probably some stats that may show the average EV of SC over a broad and average population from which people may draw far too many conclusions. EV is one of those things that is ever-changing and elusive. We may say something is +EV but as soon as a great player sits to our left it becomes - EV.

I agree with you. I think that SC are elementary to poker. I think it is beneficial and highly educational to learn how to LAG well with them. A player can't possibly become very good without learning to play them. That is not to say learning to play a very conservative game isn't very important, too, as it'll come in useful. I just think a player should know how to do everything well, nit, LAG, TAG, or GTO it up.



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Thanks! Happy to contribute.

Mmm yum.