I've had like three situations recently at NL 1/2 wherein I lost to bigger flushes with hands like 810 to Jack3, and 910 to a J7 flush. The same is true with Jack to Q on a four spade board which included AK. Luckily none of them involved me getting stacked, but the Jack hand i was min-raised on the river and called with the second nuts. I called for 20 but I felt I was beat.

Does that happen to you as well at 1/2 with middling flushes? Are they inherently dangerous to play? Should I only be drawing to nut flushes at 1/2? There are 4 suits so I always think it's "not likely" that someone else is drawing to a flush at the same time I am. I don't know what the percentage is when others are drawing at the same time you are but I know it happens. I'm not just sure sure if it's unusual or not.

I feel like I'm too tight already, but it does make me want to not play these suited connectors. Generally i only play them in late position, and I fold just about everything below 6/7 before the flop. I never play 2/3, 3/4, 5/6.

are you losing big pots with these hands in limped pots? if you play them passively the % chance of someone sticking with 1 high card suited trash is just that much higher, it matters a lot long term.

beside that i dont know, sounds like youre running bad but thats hard to guess.

If you don't want to play them, don't play them. It's a continuous learning process with various principles and elements. Realize that these types of hands rarely make the nuts and require much more skill than e.g. 22.

If you want to focus on the problem, then watch hands play out when you are not involved and think about how you would play one of these hands if you were involved.

excellent advice my friend thank you, i feel like i learn a great deal by watching others play hands

no, luckily they weren't big pots but I was surprised each time that the player had me beat, they often have lower flushes than what I had, i just wondered how common it was to be behind

It happens A LOT to some players in my player pool and they ALL think it's variance.

it rarely happens to me.

obviously the only explanation is it must be variance.

They will open limp 47s or raise very small compare to their normalsize, chase the flush or bet small giving getting good odds in 3-4way pots and then the money goes in and they get flush over flush, over, and over, and over again.

do you feel the same way about calling with 10/9 or J/10 suited? 47s is already off limits to me. That's the nature of my question. Is it only worthwhile to call with suited aces in your opinion?

Three and four to a flush boards are massively underbluffed in 1/2 games. I think we adjust by not overvaluing middle flushes and bluffing these types of boards, especially when we have the ace blocker to the nuts. Also, I know smaller suited connectors look pretty but they aren't manadatory hands to play depending on your position and table dynamics.

This is pretty well spot on. No real reason to play those type of hands if they are getting you in trouble. Doesn't necessarily mean you can't play suited gapped or connectors just make sure they are of the higher variety. You aren't drawing to the nuts, but still more likely to beat any non ace flush. And in my experience KQ or KJ suited is going to win a lot of money because of how many people play small suited hand like 78

I think T9s+ is top tier hand... I dunno what you mean about suited aces, it depends, for example on the BU tbh I don't think they are that profitable if you just hope to call all day and get paid even in multiway pot. it depends

I agree completely. I see 4 to the flush board check around all the time and at showdown someone will have a 7 and not bet it quite often.

drawing to a non nut fd in a multiway limped pot tends to go poorly. Axs is basically 100% of my limping range specifically to stack everyone limping their SCs.

hands llike 98s are meant to be played with a raise because they make for good bluffing hands in single raised pots. flush over flush still happens in raised pots but less often, and far less often against J3s type hands.

I think I'm going to be practicing this in the future but try just raising the smaller stuff on the button

I am an advocate of the "only raise or fold" preflop strategy, for the vast majority of players and encourage you to try it. I wont rehash my reasons here again. One thing to remember is that its sometimes more valuable to choose your opponents and position than your cards. Id rather play IP vs a fish with T6s than OOP vs a decent player w AQo, which is why i find myself sometimes raising the button with the former when a fish is the only limper, and find myself sometimes folding the AQo. For that reason I also dont find myself playing a whole lot of SCs from EP unless the table is particularly weak.

Also, I had another thought as far as playing non nut draws. Unless you have direct odds to the draw its not really that exciting to call a bet with a draw. You should put very little implied odds on hitting a non nut draw, bith because you could get outdrawn and get stacked, and also because you cant hit the gas pedal as hard.

For example if you have 65 on a 7h8hXdXd board and villan bets half pot in position, youre really only looking at great implied odds if an offsuit 4 hits. If the 4c hits and he has 88, youre stacking him, if 9h hits, it might go check/check, and maybe he will call a half pot bet.

If you had 9T on a rainbow board your hand has great implied odds, and you can call that bet despite not having direct odds, because you can likely stack his big hands if you hit, amd get some value out of his medium strength hands.

Non nut draw hands are still ok to bet with, although sometimes it puts you in a wonky bluff 3 streets situation where you bet flop and turn with a flush draw and he called down. and now youre thinking he is on the same draw so you gotta ship if you miss and check/call or even c/f if you miss, which destroys your own equity, so try not to fold out everything but his drawing range with non nut draws.

i read the book by Doug Hull and want to do more "never call" but i don't seem to be able to. I start out strong and then end up calling like the others as the session goes on. I have to improve.

You have JTs, so V has to have AX, KX, QX.
There are 27 combos & with 50 unseen cards = 1225 possible holdings, or 2.2% but then you have 9 Vs that could have been dealt a higher suited hand than yours.

For a complete answer, you should present that question in the probability forum. But do a search 1st & you will most likely find it.

Are you losing with J3?
The tourists in Vegas play any two suited cards. Just last night a villain got real unlucky when he try to crack my AA with his J3 for a shove preflop. He call my shove pre and proudly open his hand. He missed his flush. Actually he asked the floor if we can run it twice and he was ready to put another 300bb stack if I agree. I did agree but the goddamned floor turn us down. I want to run the entire deck all the way to the last card. Like 6 times for 42 cards. (LOL)

OK will do, great suggestion

I refuse to play J3 unless i'm in the big blind, i fold all gappers too, 8/10 hand above, is about my lowest limit for them at this point if it's a gapper. 6/7 is my lowest with no gap generally but i'll probably tighten that up now too

I don't like it at low limits. Your raises aren't going to fold the type of hands at higher stakes. Most 2p2 players who have researched the game should have too big of an advantage in post flop analysis to never call.

One thing to keep in mind if you are getting hurt with these type of hands. You will very rarely flop a straight or flush. More often you will flop a draw. Frequently that draw won't get there. In my head I often repeat go to war with good cards. If you aren't viewing those type of hands as good cards toss them.

+1 to the raise limped pots with SC in LP. Going 5 ways with these hands is not as enticing as many people think it is. Everyone can see when the flush comes in, so if they're putting money in the middle, that's usually a bad sign.

And S1G don't always make the nut straight. Smdh at the S2G wizards in this forum. Again, in a limped pot that went nineteen ways to a flop, our RIO are vastly underrated, and our IO/"ability to outplay 'em" is overrated.

I think we could even add baby PP to this category.

I probably don't need all the coffees I buy, just wasting $3 each as I go through my day, so limping buttons can't be all that much different. But fml when I spill that scalding hot $3 coffee onto my lap as I'm driving. That's what it feels like to lose $200 with 85s that I limped in with.

i agree a lot of what i play is no fold em hold em still

it's funny because this morning i got J2 of hearts in the BB, saw the flop, 2 hearts and chucked it to a 15$ bet but thought of this post before doing so

Couple nights ago I had 86hh otb, tightish player EP makes it $10 with is lol small in my 1/3 game. Half the world calls, so ofc I call as well. 8 ways to the flop! Flop AKJhh, OR fires big, and another tight player next to act very quickly calls, in that "quick call=on a draw, never raising, never folding" sorta way. I feel forced to shrug-fold. Inexpensive reminder to myself that boring and uncreative play at 1/3 is boring and uncreative but usually best.