Suited connectors are one of the most misunderstood types of hand in poker. New players often overlook them, or worse still call down huge bets to chase draws. Even experienced players can slip up, often going the other way and overplaying suited connectors as if they were premium hands.

The balance is somewhere in the middle. Suited connectors are not super strong as value hands. They do make excellent semi-bluffs and when they hit big you’re in for a treat.

Here’s a guide to when you should strike with suited connectors.

How to play suited connectors – Overview

Given that suited connectors are not premium poker hands, one purpose of playing them is to balance your range. Particularly from late position. This allows you to steal blinds more often. And it disguises your stronger holdings, giving you decent equity postflop when called.

Essentially, suited connectors are bluffing hands preflop. Postflop, they can hit very strong hands such as straights and flushes. When you do hit, you can seek to get paid off from opponents with top pair hands.

However, you’ll rarely actually flop a flush or straight. It’s much more likely that you’ll pick up a playable draw, which you can continue betting as a semi-bluff.

Semi-bluffing with draws is a great way to balance your range and to pick up pots uncontested. When you do get called, there’s still a chance you can complete your draw on the next street.

As you can see, there are plenty of positives and negatives when it comes to suited connectors. So it’s important you play them in the right spot to avoid mistakes and turn them into profitable hands.

Playing suited connectors preflop

Suited connectors make great hands to raise with from late position. Doing so will allow you to steal blinds and mix up your range so that you become harder to play against. From early position, you should consider folding all but the strongest suited connectors.

In late position, you can even flat call bets or limp behind with suited connectors to see a cheap flop. Suited connectors have great implied odds, meaning there’s huge potential to win chips on the rare occasion that you hit your hand.

You can also use strong suited connectors as part of your three-betting range. Unfortunately, suited connectors rarely block big hands. They do nearly always have decent equity, even when up against premium pairs. Still, you’ll need to pick your spots when three-betting with suited connectors.

Most of the time, though, especially when blinds are low, you’ll be looking to enter the pot cheaply to see the flop.

Should you chase draws?

It’s much more likely that you’ll pick up a draw on the flop rather than actually flop a flush or straight with your suited connectors. The question is, should you chase draws? If so, how much should you be willing to pay to see the next card?

The decision of whether to call depends on your pot odds, along with other factors like implied odds, compared to your equity.

For example, a flush draw has around 36 percent equity on the flop, along with decent implied odds. This means you’ll often be able to call a small flop bet. Having said that, it’s vital that you don’t pay too much for draws. If you pay too much to chase, you’ll be bleeding off chips.

If you want to strike with your suited connectors, consider semi-bluffing.

Semi-bluffing with draws

Although you can call with draws when you have the right pot odds, there is another option. Draws make excellent semi-bluffing hands. So weigh up whether betting or raising is the stronger option compared to checking or calling.

Raising gives you two ways to win the pot. If your opponent folds, you take it down right there and then. If they call, there’s still a chance you’ll improve by completing your hand.

Semi-bluffing in these spots allows you to realize your equity more often with draws, forcing your opponent out of the pot. By taking the initiative with a bet or raise, you put your opponent to a tough decision. One that could turn out to be a costly mistake.

So why not always bet or raise with draws? Well, if opponents fire back with a reraise then the decision is back on you. Do you fold your draw or commit yet more chips to the hand?

One way to counter this is to semi-bluff with both your strongest and weakest draws. This allows you to commit to stronger draws and fold to a reraise with weaker draws. With medium strength draws, you can lean towards pot control by checking and calling bets.

Hitting your draw

Now for the fun part. Every now and then, you’ll actually hit your straight or flush, sometimes on the flop but more often on a later street. When this happens, your main focus should be extracting the most value.

How much value you can gain will depend on the strength of your opponent’s hand and the action so far. If they have a hand that they’ll struggle to fold, such as top pair with top kicker, you may be able to play for stacks.

If you semi-bluffed an earlier street before hitting your draw, you’ll have an even bigger advantage. The pot will already be inflated and your hand will be somewhat disguised.

Suited connectors – the goods

Now that you know how to play suited connectors, let’s highlight the strengths and weaknesses of these often misunderstood hands. For this part of the discussion, we’ll focus on middle of the road suited connectors like T9s and 98s.

Flop a monster – play for stacks – Every now and then, you’ll flop a monster with a suited connector. Hands like a flush, straight, straight flush or a huge combo draw. In these cases, suited connectors become value hands that you can play for stacks and you’ll often get paid by weaker hands.

Well disguised strength on draw-heavy boards – Suited connectors are somewhat well disguised. Opponents will be weary on the draw-heavy board. But they can’t assume you’ve got the flush or straight and will often be forced to call big bets with sets, two pair or even one pair hands.

Good Playability – It’s rare that you’ll flop a nutted hand. More often, you’ll pick up a draw or a pair-draw combo. This gives suited connectors good playability, as you can turn these draws into semi-bluff hands.

Easy to fold when you miss flop – It’s easy to get away from a suited connector when you miss the flop completely. You’ll have low cards and will usually be facing overcards on the board.

Good position with deep stacks – Suited connectors are great hands when you have position and stack sizes are deep. Having deep stacks gives better implied odds and more value when you hit. While being in position allows you to take free cards or semi-bluff draws.

Suited connectors – the bads

There are a lot of good things to say about suited connectors, but it’s important to keep a reasonable view. All in all, they are not actually very strong hands in terms of equity.

With a medium strength suited connector like T9s or 98s, you’re around a 60/40 underdog against broadways. You’re flipping against underpairs, crushed by overpairs, and occasionally dominated when opponents have hands like AT.

As you can see, you’re not looking to use suited connectors as pure value hands against strong ranges. Instead, you’ll be utilizing the playability of the hand to balance ranges and semi-bluff pots.

Keep the following in mind when playing suited connectors:

Don’t hit often – It’s not often that you’ll actually hit a flush or straight, especially not outright on the flop. Don’t rely on suited connectors as pure value hands.

Difficult to play out of position – Suited connectors don’t play as well when out of position. You won’t be able to take free cards and will find less spots to bluff.

Loses value with shallow or medium stacks – Although you can make positional shoves with suited connectors when stacks are short, they become unplayable at medium stack depths. You’ll lose the implied odds of hitting the hand and won’t be able to draw over the course of multiple streets.

Don’t block premium hands – Suited connectors don’t block strong calling or raising hands, as they contain low cards rather than broadways. This makes it more likely that opponents will be holding premium hands that include aces or kings.

Difficult to fold in tough spots – Although it can be avoided, you’ll occasionally get in tough spots with suited connectors when you hit a pair or mediocre draw. In these spots, it can be difficult to know when to fold.

As long as you’re aware of these bad points, suited connectors are fine to include in your starting hand selections. As long as you take care to play them in position when stacks are relatively deep.