Exclusive Netbettor Texas Hold'em Article:

Pocket Pairs vs. Suited Connectors
THE FIGHT IS ON!

This week we’re going to compare suited connectors to pocket pairs, and put together an analysis that shows which type of hand is superior to the other. As many of you may know these hands are often lumped together under the murky heading of ‘hands that play well multi-way’. Some theorists have gone a step further, and argued that suited connectors are preferable to pocket pairs in passive games (since you can usually try to complete a draw cheaply), while pocket pairs are better in aggressive games (by virtue of the fact that when you flop a set you can drag a pile of chips that rivals the size of Mt. McKinley). While this argument isn’t without merit, it’s our contention that pocket pairs play better than suited connectors in almost every kind of game.

Now some experienced players may object to our reasoning. They argue that the odds of catching a good flop with a suited connector (i.e., a hand where the two cards are of the same suit, and are separated by only one rank) are around 18%, whereas the odds of catching a good flop with a small pocket pair is only about 11%. Also weighing in in favor of the suited connector is that you have a very high chance of at least flopping something—a gutshot draw, say, or mid pair with a backdoor flush draw—that can turn into a monster hand provided that you can see the turn cheaply. These are good points, to be sure. But let’s take a look at what the pocket pair has going for it, and see if these benefits outweigh those belonging to the suited connector.

1) You will often already have the best hand. Compare this to flopping a flush draw or open-ended straight draw, where you still only have about a 2:1 chance of improving.

2) If you flop three of a kind, and have been ‘outflopped’, you’ll usually have the best draw to improve to the best hand. For example, let’s say you have pocket 5’s, and the flop comes 965. Note that someone holding a seven and an eight has you beat right now, since they have a straight. However, you have about a one in two chance of improving to either a full house of four of a kind on either the turn or the river, which will beat that straight.

3) You can ‘lock out’ your opponents. This happens when you have improved to a hand which is impossible for your opponents to beat. For instance, say you start with pocket 7’s and the flop comes 67J with two clubs. If you catch a six, a seven or a jack on the turn, all of your opponents who are drawing to either a straight or a flush are ‘drawing dead’. They will continue to put money in the pot, hoping they improve on the river, yet they cannot win. This is great spot to be in, since your equity in the money they are putting in the pot is usually 100% (the reason it isn’t always 100% is because sometimes someone will be drawing to a hand that will beat you if he completes it. For example, if in the above example someone has pocket aces, he can catch an ace on the river to win if the turn card was anything but a seven).

4) The cards that help your hand will often help your opponents as well, yet they will still not win. In the above example, where you have pocket 7’s, imagine what happens if the turn brings a six and one of your opponents has a hand like ace-six. He’ll probably think all you have is a pair of jacks, and will pump money into the pot, even though his only win is a six on the river.

And there is a fifth reason as well—namely, that pocket pairs are much, much easier to play than suited connectors. A lot of hold ‘em hands are tough to play, but let’s face it—any of us could teach a brain damaged lemur how to play pocket 3’s; either you hit the flop with a two-by-four, or you check and fold. Compare this to a hand like 7 8 suited, which will often catch a little of the flop. Hands like this often have a bunch of outs to a good hand after the flop, but probably only a couple outs to the nuts. When a guy has 8 7, and the flop comes off K 8 6, he has flopped a hand which needs to be played delicately. Noted poker theorist Abdul Jalib once said that perhaps the hardest hand to play well in hold ‘em is J 9 suited, since you usually flop something with this hand, but it’s often not enough to give you a clear idea of where you’ll stand if you improve.

I’m not the first person to think that suited connectors are overrated. David Sklansky’s hand rankings came out almost thirty years ago, and to this day the strongest complaint levied against these rankings is that they rank suited connectors too high. I, for one, agree with this complaint, but with one caveat—that a player of Sklansky’s caliber probably finds more profitably post-flop situations with suited connectors than with pocket pairs, since a player with excellent hand reading skills can often find a legitimate reason to continue on after the flop with a marginal-but-not-hopeless hand. For the rest of us mere mortals, however, who aren’t quite sure where we stand in a hand when we hold 8 9 and the flop comes J 9 6, the pocket pair is where the money’s at.

Download the Poker Podcast of this article

Return to Exclusive Netbettor Poker Articles

Other Poker Strategy Articles:
Pot Odds 101
AK in Late Position
Some River Considerations