Understanding and Playing Suited Connectors

Every player has a preferred style of play, favorite suit, favorite hand, and preferred strategy for how they play hands such as Ace King. If you play enough hands, you will almost always hear “ But…it was suited” , offered in response to accusations of a bad call. Many beginners make the mistake of playing any two cards that are suited, especially if one of the cards is an Ace. While Ace and any card of the same suit come together to form a decent pocket hand in a shorthanded game, or at the later stages in a tournament when very few players are entering the action, the best type of drawing hand is the suited connector.

Suited connectors are any two cards that are of the same suit and can both be used to connect or form a straight. For example, 10 J suited is a suited connector because it would form a straight in a hand such as 9 Q K 3 7 . Another example of the suited connector is sometimes referred to as the gapped suited connector, such as Ace J of the same suit. These two cards can be played to form a straight in a hand such as 10 Q K 3 5. K 5 suited is not considered to be a suited connector because these two cards can not combine to form a straight, although they may play into a straight, if the hand revealed a board of 2 3 4 6 Q.

In hand ranking charts, suited hands are ranked higher than non suited hands because of the additional opportunity to win the hand on a flush draw. Because of the added value of hitting a straight, suited connectors are considered to be better hands compared to their non-connected counterparts. The approximate statistical difference in value is about 2 to 4% in favor of holding suited connectors vs non-suited connectors over a long history of simulated hands.

By examining the following hand, you will probably determine that the statistics don’t seem to do much justice to the value of holding suited connectors. If you are dealt A-10 offsuit, and enter the pot , calling a small raise, you will be a little concerned with a flop such as K 9 Q. Now, assume that the K and Q were both spades, and one person raises, followed by a caller and a reraise. You must decide to remain in the hand based on the size of the pot and the likelihood of catching a Jack to make the straight, and even then, you would be dealing with possibility that someone might make a flush. If you had started the hand with A-10 suited spades, and received the same flop, K 9 Q, (the king and queen are both spades). You would be tripping over yourself as you reached for your chips while trying to conceal your excitement. First, you now have a royal straight flush possibility, which is always great cause for excitement. Second, you now have more “outs” than you can even count ( 9 spades left, 4 jacks left, and possibly 3 aces left, all of which might give you a chance to win the hand).

As the example shows, suited connectors can have a much bigger advantage than non-suited connectors, but, what you must also understand is that the advantage of a suited connector is quickly neutralized on a flop that does not match your suited cards, or that does not connect with your straight draw. Because of this factor, it is very common for people to overplay the suited connectors, only to find themselves committed in a pot that totally misses their hand. The unfortunate owner of Ace King suited usually cries the loudest in these situations because this hand is often overplayed in terms of value. When it doesn’t hit a
flush flop or straight flop, it slowly begins to lose it’s value, but by then, the owner is usually over committed.

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