One hand type that can be incredibly profitable – when played correctly – is suited connectors. That is, two cards of the same suit of adjacent values, e.g. 7-6 hearts or T-9 clubs. It is difficult for an opponent to put you on these hands and if the flop, turn and/or river cooperate, a healthy pot can be won. An equally powerful hand is one-gapped suited connectors; again, cards of the same suit but with a gap of one card value. The conditions must be right and as with suited connectors the flop, turn or river must be friendly to your holding for everything to fall into place.
The conditions required for these two hands to have success potential are two-fold. First, you must be in late position; seeing what the competition has done before you decide what to do is crucial. These two hands play best against multiple opponents because let’s face it, at best you’ve nothing but a drawing hand, you must hit the flop to continue the hand. The second important consideration is, they work best in an unraised pot. If many players have limped in with no raises ahead of you (and you are in late position) then this is an ideal time to enter the pot with suited connectors or one-gappers. Keep in mind you have a drawing hand looking for a favorable flop. You need many players and you want to see the flop cheaply.
Presented here is the first of two examples I played during a tournament. I was enjoying an extra day in Black Hawk and entered the Monday night $100 tournament at the Golden Gates poker room. A decent turnout of four full tables made for good competition and a respectable payout – $1,450 for first, 14 times the buy-in, and four places paid – the top 10 percent. Anything less than 10x to 12x the buy-in as first prize makes for a thin tournament, in my opinion. Here’s my first use of, in this case, one-gapped suited connectors.
The blinds had moved up four times and I was fortunate to double-up against a player who over-bet hands often. I just waited for a good hand and popped for the max and won. I was in the cut-off position (one to the right of the button), when the action came to me I discovered 6-8 of clubs, so I called the blind bet. The button did not raise, the blinds both rapped the table and six of us saw an unraised flop. It came 7-5-5 rainbow; I had flopped an open-ended straight draw with no flush possibilities. Granted, the pair of fives concerned me but no-one reacted in a way I could read them having a five (You DO watch other players when the flop comes, don’t you?). It was checked around to me so I made a bet of half the pot, getting called by the button and one other player. The turn brought an eight – I had made my straight! It did not appear that card helped anyone else.
The first player checked; I began considering how to maximize profit from this hand. Since no one had raised preflop, I felt there were no big pairs out there. Nor did I believe someone was slow-playing a set or even a full house, nothing I intuited about the table strength made more sense than what I held – the nut straight. I decided to check to see what the button did with the intent of check-raising him immediately after. He obliged by betting roughly half the pot; I felt he was still trying to define his opponents’ hands and wanted to see where he was. The other player folded, I sat for a moment and then said “All in.” The button player visibly reacted when I spoke so I inferred a couple of things. First, he was not expecting to hear that after his bet, which told me he held a hand he thought was good (I then put him on a medium pair higher than anything on the board). Second, he did not put me on anything that connected to the flop. And third, he was now in a bind, as he did not know what to do.
He began to talk out loud so I was able to follow his thoughts; He allowed as he didn’t think I had hit the flop (which reinforces the deception inherent in my hand), I had gone all-in when the eight hit – could I have Ace-eight? Could I have pocket eights? What could I have? He was confused; it took him a good two minutes to decide, he then made a crying call, turning over pocket tens. There were just four cards out of the 44 remaining unknown cards which could help him, the two tens and the two fives. Well, you KNOW what happened…a five hit the river (11:1 against him and he caught it!) and he cut my stack in half. I thought about how I played that hand and could not find any fault. The flop brought a possible hand and the turn made it. I read him correctly and played correctly – he just got lucky. That’s poker – but this hand shows how suited connectors, or even gapped connectors, can be a powerful hand when played correctly.
In the next article I will present how I played gapped suited connectors and won the hand, propelling me on into the money.
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Drew Chitiea is a semi-pro poker player living in Colorado. His tournament wins amount to over $500,000 with fourth place at a World Poker Tour event and a second place at Binion’s World Poker Classic in Las Vegas, NV.
