I'm having some confusion as I am studying nlhe cash game strategy and playing 2NL cash games online:

In a lot of the material I'm coming across advice that face cards are "bad" in general. I'm not quite understanding how KQ or QJ, etc is "bad" unless played in early position without knowing whether it will be a multiway pot in the end or not. I've really tried to wrap my brain around some of these concepts but for some reason it just eludes me.

Can someone explain why playing low pocket pairs and suited connectors is better than playing QJo, KQo, etc? Is it entirely position dependent? It seems that this is basically "modern poker theory" that we're talking about and it's contrary to a lot of the other material I'm coming across in general.

Much appreciated...

QJ or KQ type of hands are easily dominated. When you call a raise in position against a nit who opens early, you're not very likely to be ahead.

These kind of hands are fine to play, but know when you're beat, and be able to fold if you have top pair but getting played back at. My advice is; don't get married to these kind of hands and recognize when youre beat

They are not "bad" as such. The reason you need to be careful with such cards is because most hands that get bet on in NLHE are one pair-type hands. Therefore kickers are very important. KT, KQ, QJ type hands are easily dominated by cards like AK, AQ, AJ. The danger is you get your top pair hand and then call 3 streets from a villain with a better kicker. But you can't just go around throwing away top pair hands either, so you will usually have to call at least one street.

Conversely suited connectors and low pairs, if they don't hit the flop hard, you can just dump them.

So broadways, you tend to win small to medium pots and lose medium to big ones. SCs and small pairs, you lose a lot of little pots and win a few big ones.

I'm following you guys. Thanks for taking the time.

So these broadways are better played in heads up pots and the suited connectors and small-mid pairs are better played in late position multiway?

Yes

Thanks again!

To put it simply, face card connectors, as well as single gappers, are more likely to be misplayed when you run into opposition ( eg. raises) due to the greater number of possible unique hands in the opponents range that have you dominated if you hit top pair.

Basically reflecting what everyone else is saying, but yeah don't get too attached to your top-pair bad kicker. There is nothing wrong with playing them, but know when to fold.

Took me a while to realize how people could hate AQ and QK, until I realized how often I was beat.

Once again, all input is appreciated.

As you can obviously tell I'm still new and right where I belong at 2NL. I'm working hard though in hopes of progressing sometime soon.

These are actually referred to as "trouble hands", not bad hands! Beginners can often play them badly. Better players know when to drop or push, but still can get in "trouble" with these holdings. Keep playing, keep asking questions, keep learning. You are on the right track here.