Yeah, whatever....

I would highly advise against your strategy. Never cap yourself to play or not play certain hands. The hands you choose to play should be dependent on many factors including but not limited to position, Villian, pot odds, etc.

Also raising any two cards on the button is pretty dumb when you think about it in retrospect, its not 100nl online.

But yea in general based on what I've read, you should probably just muck 76s if you get it UTG+1 where I'm just gunna pop it

Yes, when you played low suited connectors you risk being dominated by some other hands, which is true in a lot more cases, but big part of winning poker is navigating these types of situations, knowing when to fold, but also be able to maximize value when you do flop fat equity

Again, completely eliminating low suited connectors from your range will have a huge detrimental effect on you're overall win rate

^ this

I rarely payoff in FR with SC. I think it takes a versatile player to use them well. The typical garden variety "fold-pre" player usually can't see what he's missing and I like that because it makes me money.

Good luck navigating yourself around RIO...more players in a hand, the larger the RIO.

Which has direct impact on profitability of SC.

You generally are not losing a small pot when you get flush over flush. If you are. Then you likely aren't maximizing profits when you do have best hand.

I am not being mubsy, I live suited connectors. But their value obviously goes down 10 handed vs 6 handed. Whether online or live.

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I think that is too general of statement to make. There are many hands that reverse their value in FR against SC and one can make a lot of money with them in a single hand in an 8 hr. session at FR deep. The RIO of everyone else's hands go up when a hand of SC enters a pot. I can't remember the last time I paid someone off with them in FR, but admittedly I've had soft competition.

I just think you guys play with a certain mentality and then act like the ways that your hands play out create some objective truth and it just isn't the way that it is a lot of the time. Certainly there are many objective mathematical truths, however, I think this situation is less invariable and more subject to player skill and attitude than you may see on the surface.

It would be interesting to see some broad statistical averages, along with some individual statistical averages.

I just don't like SC in 6max games as much.

Here's the good news though! Since many of you play the same exact "standard" type of poker (which is exploitable by the way) I get to have revenge. Poker is one of the only places where I actually get to directly take advantage of people that don't think for themselves and I love it.

Z


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Really disagree with this. In live lowstakes FR (which this forum is all about) you could pretty much muck low suited connectors from almost all positions and still be perfectly fine. Obviously the more expert you are (and the less expert your opponents) you can add points to your winrate by playing them in the correct circumstances; but they are absolutely not necessary at all to still win at a good clip.

Basically "huge detrimental affect of not playing them" is a *big* overstatement.

GimoG

I may have exaggerated a little bit but if you plan to move up to bigger stakes, or play in my regular 2/5 game and blindly fold all suited connectors then its not really a big overstatement at all

Some of the biggest pots I've won was with 3B low suited connectors and suited aces in position

edit: you are making a big mistake, and certainly not doing any players any favors by advocating for anyone to muck all suited connectors from all positions

My point is if you are a player that is using this strategy its because you are lacking in some other parts of your game that you should face head on, which will ultimately make you a better winning player

Lose is improve

How can 9Ts and 89s become more valuable when you add people whose ranges include KXs, QXs, JXs? Who has reverse implied odds when the flush hits and 65-75% of your opponents' flush range beats you? Not to mention, that in multiway pots most people's stack off range gets narrower and everyone can see when a flush comes.

If Suited Connectors value comes from their suitedness and suddenly their suitedness isn't so hot anymore how valuable are they?

From my experience, I have found myself in a great deal of bad spots in multiway pots in which I either had to pay off my made hand, or fold it against what was likely a better hand.

OTOH, if it's a 2-3 way pot, SCs are great hands, as they provide balance, you can hit strong disguised hands and barring that give enough equity to bluff profitably (which is also something that isn't as easy to do in a multiway pot).

Folks seem to not understand that equity comes in many forms.

1) There is real/implied equity of your hand. This is more important in high showdown games.

2) There is the equity of your range. This is important when considering balance.

3) There is fold equity. This is important when non-showdown winnings make up a portion of your win rate, and again of course for balance.

1 is most relevant to live poker, and 2/3 are most relevant to shorter/tougher games where we count on fold equity and need balance.

When people 6x utg with QQ+ and then pot all flops 200bb deep into 6 people, (live poker on a standard tuesday), sc's have tremendous implied value.

For implied odds, the suitedness isnt as important as the connectedness. The suitedness however allows us to continue in the hand.

If you are stacking off your 8 high flushes in 7 way pots you are doing it wrong.

If you are playing your draws aggressively in 7 way pots you are also doing it wrong.

If you are always raising your straights/trips on bone dry flops you are also doing it wrong.

seems like this thread has gone off the rails a bit. This is live low stakes (3/5 or lower). Whether you should play SC at higher stakes or online is irrelevant to this discussion

This guy (and the guy saying people are undervaluing position) are spot on. If you raise pre and show down K3s from the btn, every 1/3 player will put you on a wide range from every position, you can play a crazy tight utg range still. Read thru people's reads on these forums. It is extremely rare for someone to say "he is very loose in LP, but is quite tight from EP". even good players generally have reads that someone is either "tight" or "loose", and do not have the granular view of your game that poeple are giving their villans credit for. You can entirely balance your range in position and no one will really notice, ESPECIALlY at 1/3.

The suitedness adds crucial equity. That's why suited connectors are considered far better than unsuited connectors. But, we agree that in live games, winning at showdown is far more improtant. Which leads me to this.

I mostly don't stack off 8 high flushes in 7 way pots. But I am driven bananas when I make flushes after paying money to draw to flushes only to have to fold them against too much pressure.

And this is the incoherence in the logic. The argument is that we should play SCs because the suitedness adds crucial equity that makes the hand playable. But in a multiway pot environment where showdown is king and thus made hands are king, the flush bestowing equity of suitedness becomes a hollow gift when you face people whose ranges are filled with hands that dominate our SCs. While there are some situations when we win big pots with them, I argue that in the vast majority of cases, we at best have to proceed with caution, as we are facing ranges with very good equity against us. Btw, that's especially true of limped pots, which is one the many reasons they are the AIDS IMO.

Lest I am misunderstood. i still believe in playing SCs, especially in position, especially because I think that even in live poker balance is important as people are not as dumb as portrayed in these forums and a great deal of your opponents are bad regs who don't make newbie mistakes and have a fold button in great deal many spots. I still raise and will continue raising SCs from UTG.

But the idea that SCs play better in multiway flops than 2way-3way flops is wrong IMO.

No. Again you are thinking in absolutes instead of understanding context.

The debate is that value from a hand like 89 either comes from its implied odds or from its fold equity / balance.

On one end of the spectrum we flop 76T in a 7 way raised pot (10 handed) and on the other end of the spectrum we cbet J72 in a heads up pot (6 handed)

If asked a year ago i would have snap taken the J72 scenario bc its one we face often, one where our cbetting range is strong, and one where we have alot of fold equity. But since then ive gotten better multiway live and would clearly wait for option 1, though it does take a bit longer to realize and has many missed flops in between.

In short handed aggressive games implied value goes down and pair value / fold equity goes up. We know this to be true bc we often arent getting stacks in when we flop sets/straights. Non showdown winnings are important and making pairs is huge.

In 10 handed no fold equity games implied value goes way way up and as stated fold equity goes down.

The losses from sc's shouldnt be from getting overflushed, they are from your misses for ~4bbs a piece, which can accumulate quickly. They are still made up for though with the direct pot equity you usually have facing 5-6 other vpips and from your enormous implied odds in live poker.

So the context is that you patiently wait to flop straights? I don't get it. Do you do that better than other people do?

I'm not saying you're right or wrong about the issue of multi-way, but you haven't begun to produce a logical fact-based argument.

I just find it strange that you always try to counterpoint against that which is optimal and justify it with saying that you can still win at a good clip. We should really be focused on making the correct decisions, not doing the bare minimum to have a positive winrate. I don't think you've played enough games across the country/world to know if doing the bare minimum will still allow you to win at a good clip. Your own winrate has had periods of highs and periods of lows which on the surface make no logical sense and yet you still continue to be winrate focused rather than focused on decisions and self-improvement which is what you should really do if you want to be a winning player.

As an example, advocating folding suited connectors on the button is really bad regardless of your winrate. I could fold Aces pre everytime in live low stakes and still win at a good clip. That wouldn't justify my decision.

The reality is that I'd like to see the raw statistics on them FR vs. 6max. I get why some players believe they are more profitable at 6max, but I like the way that they play FR very much. Clearly they are the most versatile hands in poker. The overflush is a problem, but a problem that is compensated for all those times when high card hands pay off with a single flush card. A lot of the time card removal is going to be in your favor. I like them because they can create more tilt value for me in following hands (and I mean a lot of value) and that value increases in a FR game where players are continuing more often.

I like the extra action with them. I like not having to bluff with them so often.

Anyway, I'd like to know if they are statistically more profitable at 6max. It would be interesting, but I am contesting that idea, obviously. Some of their FR value would be hidden though (as would some of their 6max value) since they increase the value of other hands. I'm able to run better multi-hand plays with them at FR.

The absolute being repeated is that sc's benefit from being less multiway.

The context that is relevant to such an argument is how much fold equity you have in a game, how important implied odds are, and how multiway the field is on average.

So it isnt an absolute argument. As the context needs to be considered.

In a game where people stack off with 56 or AA on 569 in singly raised pots 7 ways, we want as many people in the hand as cards allow.

No, although i do think im really good at flopping sets.

However, I'm much, much better than most people at playing sets/straights/trips/draws postflop. Mostly from playing plo i believe.


The facts are that there is little fold equity and huge implied odds in live poker. These cannot be disputed.

The logic is that the counter to this dynamic is to make hands. And straights, while hard to make, are good hands.

The online database would be slightly interesting. I would guess they would be "less" losing at 6max vs FR.

But they are in the black in late position in live FR. No question. That is one of the many neat intricacies to be realized about live poker.

This is where so many players make mistakes. They parrot these absolutes and miss all of the nuances. Poker is a game of both the relative and absolute, but it is the relative that most players cannot see.

I'm really only addressing the statement that folding these would have a "huge detrimental affect" on your winrate. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take "huge detrimental affect", but to me that reads like a massive unrecoverable error, and it clearly isn't. They are speculative hands. Good players will likely show a profit with them. Poor players will definitely be losers with them (even on the Button, as they are with the overwhelming vast majority of hands they play).

I'm currently getting back into playing golf regularly after not playing regularly for 25+ years. I don't carry a wood in my bag (the lowest club I have is a 3 iron). That's because I'm not ready for a wood (I guess they have hybrids now, but you get my point). When I get down to consistently shooting a bogey-a-hole and keeping the ball down the center with my irons, then I'll think about re-introducing the woods to my game (and start dealing with all the good and bad that can have). But for now, I'm happy enough with slowly getting better and slowly improving and working towards my goal. Every single one of my buddies I've played with this year constantly use their woods, and I crush them score-wise every round, mainly because they can't control their woods consistently off the tee. I suck at golf, but I suck a lot less than my friends, which is why I score better than they do (sound a lot like poker?). For someone to say that not having a wood in bag is having a huge detrimental affect on my game would be laughable, and most players with my lol golf skillz (like my buddies) would *clearly* be better off without it. But obviously things change *a lot* when you start dealing with lower handicapped players, which I'm not remotely close too (hopefully *yet*, although doubtful I'll ever get there). We're all moving and improving at our own pace, and what can work for one person with their skillset might not work (yet) for someone else where they currently sit (and may never work for them, and yet they could still do fine). It's a pretty accurate analogy, imo.

GcluelessanalogynoobG

I only removed words gg

AnttiawwtA

I dont think thats really the debate. I think that which it does "more" of isnt really the point, This is like arguing whether poker is skill based or luck based. They are not mutually exclusive.

However, the reason SCs play so well, as explained by others is that SCs flop well. They retain a robust equity heads up that allows for you to bluff big and if you get called you still have outs to win big pots. Suited connectors do not really have robust equity in multiway pots, and I think thats what people on the forum arent understanding. When you are 7 way facing reasonable action with a flush draw, its quite likely someone has your flush draw dead. Heads up, you can confidently play your draw because flush over flush is a bad beat and pretty rare.

See, this is where you just completely whiff on poker theory. Hitting the nuts is always gonna be better multiway. Hitting air is always gonna be better HU. SCs dont really flop the nuts a hell of a lot more than many other playable hands (in that flopping the nuts is very rare), and SCs dont really hit air a hell of a lot more often either.

The latter example, you could play 83o just as effectively as a SC, it is irrelevant for a range discussion, except to mention that getting HU gets you FE when you whiff, and multiway you forfeit your FE,

The type of flop you should be discussing to decide how SCs play would be 8 9 on a J62 board. or on a Q88r board. or on a 589r board. or on a J82r board. I think anyone knows youd much much much rather e HU in every single one of these situations.

So what we are looking at is that 89 plays basically universally better HU, except when you flop the nuts.

I simpky think youre underestimating FE at FR 1/2 and 1/3. Flop C Bets are suggested to be around 60% vs thinking aggressive opponents, and i bet the flop prolly 95%+ HU IP at 1/2 and 1-3 because the move is so laughably profitible. Fish play too many hands preflop, and then continue with too many hands to small, medium, and large pots by calling with too wide of a range, however because the range started so big, theystill manage to fold too often as well, which gives you tons if FE. Beyond that, they dont raise you off your equity. This is of paramount importance when playing with robust equity. You can bluff the turn HU with nearly no fear you get raised off your draw, and you will get plenty of FE to boot.

there are losses from getting overflushed, PERIOD. fold or call, you lose money when you get overflushed, and SCs get overflushed as a matter of fact. Again, you are discussing things which are not mutually exclusive as if they are, which creates a situation which confuses everyone into choosing between two somewhat unrelated options. Its like saying "you shouldnt be riding the bus to school, you should be carrying your lunch"

Especially preflop, there isnt a correct decision. Imagine a situation where nine 7 year olds were given $100,000 as was Phil Ivey, and they mist play 200 hands of $100/$200 and leave with their winnings. You would tell your child do not even look at your cards, fold 200 times, you will lose $6k in blinds, we come home with $94k. I dont know that a 7 year old could really increase their equity any further than that. Phil Ivey on the other hand would be paying a near 100% range.

Poker is a negative sum game, and many players on these forums are not particularly good, thats why they are here trying to learn. They may not be skilled enough to play SCs even from the button, and considering that for many here, this is a hobby that theyd like to make a few bucks at but have no expectation of a profession, just breaking even is pretty cool, its a hobby that costs nothing. For a player like this, playing SCs from the button may well be EV-, and folding is the correct decision. When i taught my sister how to play, I gave her the range if 22-AA, AK from every position. Its easy to learn, and setmining is the easiest possible setup in the game. SCs are some of the most skill based hands to play in the game, which is why I didnt suggest them at all for a new player.

I lol'ed.

Ginthemarketforaneweditor,applywithinG

Stick to trolling, you got a sick future!!!

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