1/3 NLHE

My local game plays pretty loose passive with the occaisional 3-bet being AQ+ QQ+, I'll use last night as an example. One guy was overlimping (as in limping behind, but also limping too many hands) with TT and another guy with JJ. I was dealt a lot of SCs and played them all almost except for a few from UTG-MP. I think I lost every hand I played with SCs and I'm not sure if that's just my bias or if I'm getting the wrong odds or if its just results thinking. Stacks are all between 150$ and 700$ with most being 300-500$.

An awful hand:

Folds to me in CO who's having a good night running it up, open 4 5 from CO, BB loose passive that's getting tilted 3-bets me to 40$ off a 150$ stack, I defend IP ???, HU IP J 9 2 he rams 110 into 80, I fold.

Another dumb hand:

Hero with 9 8 in CO calls, 4 ways to a 40$ flop IP, Q 8 7, opener bets 25, one call, one fold, I call wanting to see a turn, Turn 115 in pot: 5, opener bets small again, 25 and guy in middle calls I call, River 190 in pot: brick like a 2, opener bets 25 again and we both fold and shows a weak Q.

So I have a few questions - I'm aware of the 15/25/35 rule for PPs/SCs/S1Gs but:

1. Presumably you want the hand to be MORE multiway as in you would rather someone open 10, you're in BTN and four others have called as opposed to HU? What kind of direct odds are you guys looking for?

2. Presumably you only play SCs in position? Like CO and BTN? I see no reason to balance 3-betting ranges although I know some people that do that, at my game it's not worth doing - maybe at the 2/5 game.

3. How lenient are you with the 25:1 implied odds rule? If someone opens for 10 off a 250$ stack and it may go heads up are you okay calling? Seems too shallow. How deep would I want to be at 1/3 before I could really consider playing these?

4. And to go along with number 3, what if one or two of the players involved are short-stacked on 100-200$ but the opener and I are deep? Ex. UTG opens 10$ off 800$ two fish call MP with 200$ each and you're BTN and cover everyone with 45s?

5. Is there any real difference between QJs and 98s and 43s? I just ran a sim and QJs has the same 23% equity against 3 30% ranges as 43s if it sees all 5 cards with only 23s and AKs having less and more equity respectively. Should I have a high card cutoff?

Well, one big thing is that sometimes you have to bluff. In the second hand you turn straight draw, flush draw and a pair. The PFR makes a weak bet, call in the middle. Granted, there are times you don't want to get jammed on with so much equity. But this isn't the time to worry about that. Especially at low stakes, a player with a real hand is not going to make this puny bet with so many draws very often. Yeah we have showdown value and blah blah blah, but the bottom line is you can just take this pot most of the time, and if you're ever wrong, you have 74 outs.

A lot of the value of SCs comes from these situations.

Especially live, there is not a univocal quantitative answer to any of your questions, imo.
In general though, you want to play SC in position, when fairly deep, and you have to be ready to semi-bluff with those.

Therefore, your first hand is an obvious fold to the 3bet (way to shallow to call), and the second one is a fairly obvious turn raise, or shove, depending on the stacks depth.

Hand 1 fold pre. Hand 2 vs this putrid tiny bet where we are often behind something like A8, TT, bad Qx I would often raise as a semi bluff here. Plenty of equity if called by those hands.

Your first hand is just a fold pre facing the 3bet — you need to be away deeper, at least 2k effective to justify a call. Hand 2 is fine. Agree about limiting SCs to late position.

Curious about the claim that QJs and 43s have roughly the same equity versus 3 30% ranges? Might be true but if so that just blows my mind.

I don’t open hands worse than T9s before the LJ/HJ in tough games.

Hand 1 I would open sparingly there like maybe 10% of the time and particularly if the players behind don't defend too often and aren't sticky/aggro.

As played yeah definitely a fold as stacks are too shallow.

2nd hand I raise the turn and bomb rivers unless the villain is a huge station and I have a bad image.

But mostly play them in Button/CO vs weak players. They often make terrible pairs and draws that miss often so they operate best HU IP with adequate stacks where you can realize your equity and take down boards that are good for you.

If you play them strictly for just trying to make a hand against someone you will lose money and the flushes they make multiway aren't very valuable because you can never play a big pot and will get coolered often.

Experts can obviously do whatever they want, but my guess is that suited connectors are big money losers for most players in most positions due to having such severe RIO against the world (as a big percentage of LLSNL pots are very multiway) when any big money goes in postflop (as they often run into better two pear, trips with better kicker, better straights, better flushes, etc.). I basically only play them in position in high SPR pots where I can get handle on what is going on postflop and play them appropriately.

As for the hands...


HH1: 54cc

I'm not going to hate on a LP open when it's folded to us with any hand that we're going to play, although we may have to be a little more selective if there are a lot of shortstacks still left to play.

"Defending" the 3bet for a hugenormous 27% of the effective stack with 5 high is torching money, imo.


HH2: 98hh

I'm assuming someone must have raised preflop? I would very rarely play a suited connector in a raised pot.

Calling with middle pear in a multiway pot (especially when it is unlikely we'll have FE on future streets) is also torching money. We can easily already be drawing dead. Our "outs" could easily complete better hands (our 9 completes the JT gutshot, an 8 can give someone else trips with a better kicker, etc.). Someone could squeeze behind us.

Thanks to picking up the flush draw and facing an extremely small turn bet, I'm fine with the turn call.


FWIW, the 15/25/35 rule is often moot. If we're up against a solid player who has position on us, it pretty much doesn't matter how big effective stacks are because no speculative hand is going to be profitable against a solid player OOP. What, do we think if we flop a set OOP against a solid player getting 40x that we're ever going to get that 40x to go into the pot postflop ahead? Of course not. Against the most terrible player in the room, ok, sure.

And again multiwayness really depends on our opponents. If we go very multiway to a flop, make our hand postflop, and then get in huge chunks of money with it postflop, then we'd better hope our opponent is one of the weakest players in the room, cuz otherwise we're often behind. This is why I require position and high SPR with suited connectors (and most speculative hands really), as it helps me figure out how much money (if any at all) I should be putting in postflop when I hit my hand.

If things are likely going to go HU to the flop for relatively cheap, then I'm ok with calling a small raise in position. But I'm doing so with plans of often attempting to steal the pot postflop. But the stars really have to align for the chances of a small raise not going multiway (like someone raises to lol $10, it somehow folds to me on the Button and I have two tight nits in the blind, which obviously doesn't happen too often).

And imo, there's a hugenormous difference between QJs vs 98s vs 43s. If we "make" whatever hand we're attempting to make with 43s and a crapload of money goes in postflop, we mostly lose against all but the most droolerish; but with QJs there is much more chance of us being the ones that coolers someone else. In most games in multiway pots, you want to have the hand that has a much better chance of coolering someone than vice-versa.

But again, a key point is that experts can do whatever they want as they perhaps have an ok chance at making a wide variety of hands profitable. The two HHs you've shown here (and others) have indicated, at least at this point in your development, that you should probably never play a speculative hand ever (not hatin', just sayin', for realz).

Ggoodluck!G

I

Suited connectors and one gappers are situational. That said, the usual problem is getting good enough odds preflop.
Hand 1 opening 54s from the cut off is fine but it's a trivial fold when raised.
Hand 2 you can go anyplace with on turn. You should mix it up here and take advantage of what you know about the other players.

1: Yes, multiway helps. Do keep in mind it changes your strategy also, heads up you can call some hands just to steal but multiway you almost always need a made hand and the quality needed goes up the more people in the hand.
2: I mostly play 2/5. With SC I generally only play with position but if I can limp in I will go wider and earlier and rarely I will open them.
3: Depends on a lot of things. If my opponent is bad and is going to lose a lot of money when I do hit then I call wider. If opponent is reasonably good then I require a bit more. You also have to guesswork how many people after you call and consider how good/bad they are. How aggressive/passive people are make a difference also, passive people are more likely to let me chase a draw cheaply but aggressive ones often more likely to lose money if I do hit the flop well.
4: How aggressive are your short stacks? If they are looking for chances to move in then stay out of pots with drawing hands. If they are passive fish they are more donating money to the pot and only slightly put me off the weaker drawing hands.
5: The QJs is better. Absolute equity may be roughly the same but hero's ability to realize that equity is better with high cards and they hold up better in real play. With a Q74 rainbow board QJs is more likely to be the best hand vs 54s and more likely to stay the best hand to the river. Plus when you do make a straight with QJ it's more likely your opponent made a pair then when you have 54 and less likely your opponent will show up with a better straight.
Do you need an absolute cut off? No. You should be looking for better odds and better position with the low hands because you will need a better flop to continue.

Not looking at direct odds really. I'm looking at stack sizes and position first, then player profiles, then the number of players in the hand. It's all about implied odds, cheap draws, and hidden hands with SCs.

You don't even need to balance in most 2/5 games, if we're being honest. Just throw them away from early-mid spots, especially when there's a very good chance you're going to get 3-bet. If you really want to see a flop, you could always limp-call and hope there's only one raise pre to try and peel cheaply. You may need to mix your limps with big hands if people catch on that you're trying to bink gin cheaply.

There's no hard and fast rule here. If the opponent's stack behind is something like 15:1 to his raise, but he just can't let go of big overpairs, then those odds are fine, because you're going to get paid off far more frequently. Player tendencies greatly matter.

With loose-passive shorter stacks between you and villain, you can easily consider them dead money and should welcome the chance at making your hand with more players in, which would increase the chances of someone else connecting fairly well and you getting paid off.

Of course, there are real differences. You're blocking a portion of your opponents' raising ranges with QJs as opposed to 43s. On a flop of something like K-10-4ss, you'll have AK/AQ/AJ and TT+ hands in there easily and it can greatly affect the way the hand plays on multiple streets. I'd keep the cut-off at 76s, because you can get value out of A2 on that rare 3-4-5 flop. Lower SCs don't connect well with many flops where you can be nutted against the opponent.

This isn't even close to right -- versus versus 3 top 30% ranges, QJs has 27.0% equity, 98s has 22.5% equity, and 43s has 20% equity. Actually 65s and 76s perform much better than 98s with each having around 24.5% equity -- probably has to do with the fact that the top 30% ranges contain a lot of 8x and 9x hands, but not many 7x6x/5x hands, so 76s/65s have more pair value than 98s.

I don't know what size you are open raising in hand 1, but it's probably just a fold to 3bet when he only has that much behind.

Hand 2 very likely a fold pre but played fine postflop.

1. No, you always want the hand to be less multiway. Because yeah, every once in a while you hit a miracle straight, but generally your hands are more like hand 2. You whiff flop or flop some draw or marginal made hand. Turn you might pick up equity, or maybe your top pair gets downgraded, etc. You would rather be heads up vs someone who might just have 2 high cards and whiff. And being multiway, you are more likely to run into something, flush over flush, better 2 pair, set, etc. Your odds are always better heads up.

2. Generally yeah, position is important. Look at preflop charts. GTO Wizard preflop charts are free. It can be okay to mix 3bets with suited connectors, but they are way lower priority than adding things like A5s. They are doubtful profitable cold calling anywhere but BB, maybe CO or button with no cold callers in between and tight passive behind. Probably not ever worth calling facing 5x sizing pre though. Even in BB it can be dubious if it's not going to be heads up and you face an open from a tighter player or one with a limping range who open raised and didn't just limp in.

Whether or not you should mix in 3bets with suited connectors depends on a few things. How tight is the open raiser? Tighter open raise is bad. How much do they call 3bets? Folding more is better. Are there a lot of passive left to act who are likely to cold call 3bets? Bad. Cold callers between you and initial raiser who are likely to overcall? Bad. But If you are facing a tighter player who folds to 3bets at decent frequency and who is going to make mistakes postflop, then it can be good. Having a good image helps too.

And honestly part of 3betting suited connectors is for board coverage and deception, part of it is by having those hands in your range, you are more likely to get called when you have premiums. If people are already calling too many 3bets, don't do it. People should be folding, maybe 4betting AQo when they get 3bet from early position. If they are always calling with AQo, you probably shouldn't 3bet suited connectors. Then there are guys that would cold call a 3bet and overcall a 4bet with QJo. Or cold call 3bets with 53o. If there are those guys left to act, especially if they have position on you, you probably don't want to 3bet suited connectors. Just 3bet more linearly.

3. On BB, sure. On button, maybe CO with tight passives left to act, maybe. Especially if open raiser does not have a limp range, isn't too tight pre, and is fit or fold postflop.

4. Easy fold.

5. There are huge differences. 65s is probably the best suited connector. 76s is also good. All the others not as much. Think about a hand like 43s. It only makes 3 2 card straights and one one card straight. 5 high, 6 high, 7 high, 8 high. It also gets straight over straights more often. 65s makes 4 two card straights and 1 one card straight. 6 high, 7 high, 8 high, 9 high, T high. You are more likely to hit a straight or have an open ended straight draw with 65s.

Then QJs only makes 3 two card straights, A high, K high, Q high. The nice thing about QJ however is that if your hand is a two card straight, you always have the nut straight. This is true of JT+. JTs makes a few more straights and flops a few more open enders. But QJs and JTs, and especially 98s (probably the worst suited connectors besides 43s, 32s). Whenever villains see a flop, the most common hole card they will have is an ace, followed by a king, and so on. In certain positions, every suited ace and many of the offsuit aces are playable, especially those containing broadway cards. In later positions, many offsuit boradway combinations are available. What cards do you need to make straights and straight draws with QJ, JT, 98? A lot of the times it is broadway cards. Meaning, the cards you need to make a straight are in your opponent's hands and are less likely to come on the board to give you draws. When you do flop draws, the cards you need to make you a straight are in your opponent's hands more likely (you have JT, board is A98, villain had AQ or QQ), or you have a straight draw while your opponent has a made hand (you have JT, board is KQ5, villain has AK, not only a good made hand, but is blocking one of your outs). Or specifically with 98, you make a straight, but your opponent makes a higher straight.

Lastly, QJs and JTs are very frequently dominated, especially when many offsuit hands could be in villain's range. QQ, JJ, AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, KT. Those hands block straights, out kick you, have strong made hands when you have draws, etc.

Compare that to 65s. Yeah, there could be A6s, A5s, 76s, but there are only going to be 3 combos of each of those that dominate you, vs potentially 3 suited and 9 off suit combos of AQ, AJ, AT, KQ. KJ, KT and 3 combos of QQ, JJ. That's 78 combos that can dominate QJ and JT and 9 combos dominating 65s. The cards that give you straights and draws are less likely to be blocked by villain's hand, and when you have draws, they are less likely to have strong made hands. Even if they have a pair when you have a draw, it is less likely to be top pair, so you are more likely to be able to bluff them off of a hand. Lastly, the boards that give you two pair, trips, and boats with 65s are less likely to be blocked by villain's hole cards, and they are less likely to appear threatening to villain. A66, A65. A55, K66, K65, K55, Q66, Q65, Q55, etc. If villain has top pair or an overpair on those boards, they are probably putting quite a bit of money in the pot, especially if there is a flush draw or something out there.

Compare that to a board like KQx, turn is a Q giving you trips, villain will slow down with AK. Or any board with QQ or JJ where villain has an over pair. IE, if I have KK, and board is QQX, and I get two callers, I check and face a half pot bet and a caller, I call one street. I face a 75% pot bet on a blank turn followed by a call, and I fold. Someone has a Q. But if the board is Q high and there are two 6s or two 5s, I am more likely to put more money in thinking I could be up against a hand like AQ.

So yeah, with suited connectors, bigger is not always better.

As CiE said, this #5 is just wrong ... and that leads into #3 being confusing. Yes, I 100% want it to be over 25x if I'm calling 43s in position ... even 50x can be meh because you can get over straighted. But AKs are two cards next to each other that are suited but it should be obvious you don't need 25x implied odds to call opens with it.


Generally I'd consider 65,76,87,98 to be "the SC" with JTs on the borderline and 54,43 on the other borderline. For S-1-G it's more complicated as even 75-J9 shouldn't really be lumped together.

I think I understand what you are trying to say, but I think this will be confusing to a lot of people.

65s is not a better hand than QJs.

Maybe in certain spots 65s intersects with ranges in a better way, and is more deceptive ... but robots certainly prefer QJs over 65s and you should have very good reasons for not doing so as well.

One of the most perpetuated myths in poker: suited connectors are good/better multiway.

They are absolute garbage overcalling unless you're in the BB (and the open raise isn't something like 5x or more).


You either want to be raising them, or at minimum calling in late portion (CO and BTN) when you're likely to go heads up. Multiway.....you're not going to flop or run out big enough hands to overcome the RIO as well as all the check/folding you'll have to do.



Start folding those suited connectors instead of overcalling them multiway, and your win rate will thank you later.

Can you elaborate as to why you wouldn't want better direct odds (say 4:1 multiway vs 1:1) and greater implied odds (more people to stack) when you hit your straight? You simply don't hit your straight or flush often enough and so it's better to just reem them as semi-bluffs HU?

My own take:

Obviously if we hit our nut straight then we want to have it as multiway as possible for the reasons you give. The problem is that every other "good" hand we hit (mediocre flush, trips terrible kicker, middling two pear, etc.) can easily be in terrible trouble against a world of players (especially when someone else in that world wants to shovel in a bunch of money with us postflop).

So they probably behave better if we raise, get things HU, where we can then rep high boards or make a hand on low boards. The problem with this idea is that it is often very difficult to get things HU in a lotta LLSNL games (especially for a reasonable price), as raising will often create very multiway small SPR pots (which this hand hates).

So personally I still find it ~ok to overlimp in LP to create a multiway limped high SPR pot. And then hopefully we have enough skillz postflop to navigate and put in the appropriate amount of money against the appropriate opponents with various hands.

But honestly, if we're at all struggling with the game / noobish / don't have a great handle on things postflop against our opponents / etc., then eliminating suited connectors from all positions will likely vastly improve our winrate. I know a large part of me personally somewhat righting my poker results ship was simply not playing a lot of hands in various positions that I was playing (and likely losing with) before.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think part of the problem is that people think of SCs very similarly to Med PPs (this is what I did a few years ago), e.g. they tend to do the same thing Pre with 89s as with 77, but two things stand out for me as big differences,

1. With 77, your decisions are often going to be much easier post, than with 89s when you are much more likely to catch some part, but still not have great equity compared to say hitting a set. They're much more difficult to navigate, and so your post skills have to be very very good, e.g. you're going to need to be much better at judging when you can semi-bluff with 89s, than with 77 which you will rarely have a semi-bluff opp,
2. Given 1, they're also much more difficult to play OOP. I'd much rather be playing 77 from the BB 4 ways, than 89s from the BB 4 ways.

Playing any hand multiway gives you better direct and implied odds, but also worse fold equity and worse reverse implied odds. For suited connectors in particular, as others pointed out above, more opponents bring a greater risk of being coolered by higher flushes and higher straights. Suited connectors also have poor equity realization when they only hit something mediocre, like middle pair middle kicker, which gets worse when against more opponents.

It's not that suited connectors are good to play multiway. It is that they suffer less from playing multiway than other hands do.

Ok so just skimming the first two hands you arent losing money playing SC's, you're losing money being a gigantic station. Calling off 1/3rd of effective stack with 5 high, peeling mid pair hoping to go runner runner. Just staaaaahp already. Play them in position to a single raise or as a 3bet yourself, and only call 3bets with them if it's multiway and you're getting 20:1 implied odds. Consider raising them from EP maybe 20% of the time for balance but fold to any 3bets if you'll be out of position.

I have another bloodbath SC hand to post from last night.

1/3 NLHE, Just sat down, V1 is semi-unknown I know he plays higher stakes but never seen him play, V2 is loose passive player that loses money.

400$ eff.

UTG+1 limp, V1 limps MP, V2 opens to 25$ from HJ, Hero calls on BTN with Q J, folds back to V1 who limp/raises to 70, V2 thinks and calls, I call on BTN.

Flop 210 - J 8 6

V1 bets 65, V2 folds, I call.

Turn 340 (265 back) - K

x, x

River 340 (265 back) - A

x, x

Result:

I fold preflop to the first raise. It's a huge 8x raise (admittedly for only 6% of our stack, but that is still getting towards the larger side) after a couple of limpers from non-LP, so we're in domination trouble a lot. Calling the limp/reraise for a hugenormous almost ~20% of our stack with a dominated hand seems like setting money on fire, imo.

And even though the flop bet is lol small, it's a somewhat dicey flop call. Although I guess getting 5:1 chasing a 5 outer and also possibly repping the flush it is probably fine.

I'm also checking back the turn/river. And even though I'm expecting to win exactly never, I still check back because he could easily be tarping and hope we go nutso with a busted flush draw.

I mean, obviously I'm a huge nit, but I think we're playing way too loosey gooesy preflop. If that's going really well for you, then fine; otherwise, it's probably the number one place we can really shore up things.

GcluelessNLnoobG

V1 plays higher and open limps UTG and then V2 "Loose passive" opens to 8x over that limp?

I just fold the first time around, with just that first raise it'll be less than 5 SPR on flop three ways. After it goes to 70 you are looking at less than 2 SPR and you are praying for a miracle to not go broke with bad one pair hands.

Sometimes it can be okay to call when V1 is limping only small pairs that are always going to overcall or fold and V2 opens a tight but not just pair range way too big.

How did you get the "least 2k effective" number? Thought at most 1K here. Not?

43s has 35% and QJs has 48%.

The first time around when V2 opens to $25 calling is OK from the button. You didn't mention who has what stacks but at $400 effective it isn't great odds. It will be multiway and you have the button, either you hit the flop well or your done. When V1 limp/raises just fold unless you have some reason to think V1 is playing games. At that point odds are bad and V1 should be committed to getting his money in.

As played, fold the flop. When this hand gets bloated by the limp/raised hero should not playing to catch one pair + back door draws.

I suspect this sort of situation is a leak for a lot of players. They end up in a bloated pot where every bet is a good chunk of their stack. They flop one pair + some back door draws and then feel like they can't give up to a bet. The problem is that they are not getting the implied odds to chase and their pair isn't good often enough.