Suited Connectors: 5 Strategic Mistakes Poker Players Should Avoid

It can be tough to know when (and how) to play a suited connector in Texas Hold’em.

If you neglect to consider important factors — such as stack sizes and your opponent’s tendencies — you will likely make a costly mistake with these hands.

You’re about to read 5 tips that will help you understand the mistakes you need to avoid making with suited connectors — and how to maximize your winnings with them. 

What is a suited connector?

Suited connectors are hands made by two consecutive, same-suited cards. For example:

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Similarly, suited hands with a gap — T8, J9, etc. — are called suited gappers.

Now, time for the tips.

Tip #1. Avoid 3-betting against stacks of 60 big blinds or shallower

When the preflop raiser has fewer than 60 big blinds in their stack, you should be less inclined to 3-bet suited connectors, particularly low ones like 65s or 76s.

With deeper stacks, hands like these function well against as 3-bet bluffs for three main reasons:

1. You make a lot of better hands fold preflop.
2. You have great postflop playability that will provide many profitable bluffing opportunities.
3. You will occasionally win a very big pot when you hit two-pair, trips, straights and flushes (implied odds).

Against short stacks, however, the stack-to-pot ratio gives you less room to maneuver postflop — there goes reason #2 — and decreases your implied odds — goodbye reason #3. This change makes them less effective and rarely profitable 3-bet bluffs.

Tip #2. Avoid 3-betting against calling stations

You can probably imagine why 3-bet bluffing with a suited connector is less effective against a player who doesn’t like to fold. When there’s little chance your opponent will fold, you lose a major incentive to 3-bet the hand.

But there’s also a much less obvious reason why 3-betting suited connectors is a perilous mistake vs calling stations.

These loosey goosey players will call 3-bets with way more hands that dominate you — hands other players would fold. We’re talking hands like A6s, K7s, and J8s, which dominate your 65s and 87s. This will result in more nasty coolers when you both hit trips or a flush.

By the way, you can get tips for playing against calling stations here.

Tip #3. Rarely 4-bet suited connectors 

When thinking about which hands make the best 4-bet bluffs, there are three attributes to look for:

• Blocker effect 
• Postflop playability
• Implied odds

Of these three, by the most important is your hand’s blocker effects. This is because the ranges involved in 4-bet situations are very tight and being able to rule out a few strong hands from your opponents range makes a significant difference.

Suited connectors actually possess negative blocking effects. They block hands that your opponent will likely fold — such as A5s or A6s — and don’t block any strong hands that will continue.

Suited connectors do have both solid playability and decent implied odds, but even these are stinted with the low stack-to-pot ratios in 4-bet pots. 

Tip #4. Avoid “overcalling” too often

Overcalling is when you call a raise that one or more players have already called.

While it might be tempting to overcall with suited connectors, it’s a losing play that should generally be avoided (unless you’re on the Button or in the Big Blind).

I am going to show you why with an example.

Suppose you are playing a 6-max game where every player is 100bb effective. The UTG player raises to 2.5bb, the next player calls, and you are in the Cutoff position with 6d 5d.

First, let’s calculate see how much equity we would need to call profitably (based on the pot odds). Then, let’s see how much equity your hand has against these two ranges.

Starting with the pot odds (learn how to calculate pot odds here).

If you call, there will be 9bb in the pot. You’re risking 2.5bb to play for that 9bb pot.

2.5 / 9 = 0.27 or 27% raw equity needed to call profitably.

Note: This assumes we’re in a rakeless game. We’d need 29% if there was a 5% rake.

The initial raiser’s range might look something like this:

The caller’s range will likely contain a lot of pairs and strong suited hands. Let’s just say it looks something like this:

 

Here is an equity calculation showing how Six-Five suited performs against those two ranges:

There is something working in your favor, though: you’re in-position with a very playable hand. This means you will likely over-realize your hand’s equity postflop.

However, you also have to account for the threat of a squeeze behind. With 3 players behind, there is a decent chance someone will 3-bet and force you to fold your equity. This should happen roughly 20% of the time IF your opponents have a good preflop strategy.

The players behind will also call a high percentage of the time, which lowers your hand’s equity.

With all of these considerations combined with the fact that you simply don’t have the 27% required equity, it becomes clear that calling will be a -EV (expected value) strategy.

Pro tip: If you know the players behind are weak and unlikely to 3-bet, and/or if the players who have already entered the pot are worth targeting, overcalling can be reasonable. Just be careful not to make this play too much, and never do it when the players behind are aggressive.

Tip #5. Don’t cold-call 3-bets

Cold-calling is when you enter the pot for the first time by calling.

Suppose a player raises, another player 3-bets, and you’re next to act. You should never call in this situation with a suited connector.

Suited connectors can be profitable hands to call against 3-bets when you were the initial raiser. But that situation has two key differences from cold-calling a 3-bet:

• Difference #1: When you open-raise and face a 3-bet, you have much better pot odds to call
• Difference #2: When you open-raise and face a 3-bet, you are typically closing the action (so nobody behind can squeeze you out of the pot with another raise)

The same cannot be said about cold-calling a 3-bet. You’ll always have at least one player still to act who can 4-bet you out of the pot.

Avoid putting in money when there’s already been two raises in front of you. Suited connectors just aren’t worth it.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, playing suited connectors is not so difficult when you understand which scenarios to avoid and why. Often times, the difficult part is having the discipline to get out of the way — suited connectors look too pretty to fold.

Avoiding the 5 plays I’ve shared with you today is a good place to start. Just because suited connectors look great doesn’t mean they’ll always play great!

Here’s what I recommend reading next: When Should You Set Mine with a Pocket Pair?

That’s all for today! I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and found it useful. As usual, leave questions or feedback in the comment section below.

And good luck out there, grinders!