Getting The Most Out Of Suited Connectors

When I watch YouTube videos of the pros playing it never ceases to amaze me how many players will open or raise with nothing more than a couple of suited connectors.  Statistics have shown that suited cards only increase your chances at showdown by about 3%, so I could never understand the fascination.

But just because suited connectors aren’t as powerful as some players believe, it doesn’t make them unplayable.  While suited connectors only provide a slight edge over non-suited cards at showdown, there are some advantages they provide earlier in the hand.  First and foremost is the power of the semi-bluff.  Suited cards open up the opportunity for you to semi-bluff at hands you wouldn’t normally bet if they were non- suited.  For example, if you are holding the J and 10 of spades and the board falls Qh, 8s and 6s, you have a great opportunity here to semi-bluff for a flush draw.  A semi-bluff will always give you the opportunity to win a pot with nothing more than a draw. And anytime you can pick up chips with a weak or drawing hand is a good thing!  Picking up small pots on a continuous basis will eventually turn your short stack into a large stack, especially in tournament settings when you are in it for the long haul.

Another advantage suited connectors can provide is when they give you the opportunity to win a big pot, when you do make your draw.  When you’re holding a straight and/or flush draw,  you can call a decent sized bet and complete your hand.  With only a straight draw, more often than not you are usually forced to fold.

The following guidelines will help you play your suited hands based on stack size considerations:

If you have 15 big blinds or less, which is considered short-stacked, especially in tournament play, the more aggressive move is to move all-in with two suited cards provided that you are the first player to act, you are in late position and you still have fold equity.  Some players may disagree that this play is too aggressive, but the new poker mathematics show that this is the right move.

When you are in the 50 big blind range you shouldn’t be looking to play a big hand if you flopped a flush draw.  Your primary goal in this case should be to manuever the betting so you can give yourself a couple of ways to win, either by hitting your hand or by getting your opponent to fold.  In other words, you should try to be the one who gets the last bet in.  A good aggressive player will be the one who is doing the betting or the raising, because you really don’t want to find yourself in a spot where you’re calling off your stack with nothing but a draw.

If you find yourself playing with a stack size of 100 big blinds or more, you should be very careful about playing a huge pot with a medium flush draw or even a “made” medium size flush.  Be cautious if your opponent is willing to go ‘all-in’ because if you are not holding the big hand, the odds are that he probably is. Play smaller flushes as calling hands rather than betting them more aggressively like you would if you are sitting in front of a smaller stack.  This gives you a couple of advantages.  One, you keep the pot size small in case you aren’t holding the nuts and two, you end up trapping your opponent who may hit top pair on the river because he doesn’t think you have the flush.

The Powerful Semi-Bluff

While bluffing can sometimes be one of the most thrilling plays in poker, it can also be one of the scariest.  Especially for cash game players who are risking real money when they put their chips into the middle with nothing but air.  Semi-bluffing can provide many of the same rewards that bluffing can, but with the added benefit that you still may be able to make a winning hand even if you get called.  Semi-bluffing means that you are betting with a hand that would currently lose at showdown, but the hand also has the potential to improve.

For example let’s say you are holding the 10H and JH and the flop falls 7H, 8H and A-D. Even though you are technically behind if you bet, your hand still has a chance of winning at showdown if you catch a heart or a 9. Even better, you could win the pot immediately if your opponents aren’t carrying an Ace.

You can semi-bluff your hand either in or out of position, and each option offers different risks and benefits.  The first benefit of semi-bluffing from out of position is that sometimes by leading out, you can take the pot right away by forcing your opponents to fold.  In cases where your opponent does not fold, a semi-bluff can work as a defensive bet. You take control of the game by enticing your opponent to call for a smaller amount that he would have eventually bet on his own.  Also, semi-bluffing from out of position can be very deceptive since your opponents will often give you credit for having a made hand rather than some kind of draw.  If your opponent raises your semi-bluff on the flop, you may want to call and reevaluate your hand on the turn, but occasionally you can continue your semi-bluff and put in a big re-raise.  You can do this either when your draw is very unlikely to hit or when you suspect your opponent does not have a huge hand.  If you think your opponent is very strong, you can check-call hoping to make your hand on the turn.  If you think he’s weak, you can lead out with another semi-bluff on the turn.

Your semi-bluffing options are slightly different when you are in position.  In this case, betting your hand when your opponents check to you can often be enough to just take the pot down right away.  Remember though that by doing so you are re-opening the betting and giving a tricky opponent the chance to check-raise you into folding a hand that could have improved with a free card.  With this in mind, take careful note of who you are up against in the hand.  If you are up against a weak or predictable opponent you can semi-bluff without much fear.  Against a tricky or more aggressive opponent, then you need to think about whether or not your hand can stand up to a check-raise before you bet.

What To Do When You Reach The Final Table

Even though tournaments tend to get “loose” once the money bubble bursts, things tend to tighten up again as players approach the final table.  A lot of the pros will say that you should consider the late stages of the tournament as a “new and smaller” tournament and adjust your play accordingly.

Just as making the money is overvalued by many players, so is reaching the final table.  This means that players will tend to tighten up their games and become more susceptible to pressure applied by more aggressive opponents.  The best time to really step up the pressure on your opponents is when the multi-tabled tournament reaches about 15 players.  This is when the final table is fast approaching and is so tantalizing close!  Think about it!  There are just six players left that have to be eliminated before the remaining players take center stage.  And even more importantly, with just 15 or fewer players left, the remaining tables are short-handed, and this can be important for two reasons.  First, when the play becomes short-handed, you will start to see the blinds come around much faster and you can’t afford to sit back and wait for premium hands.  You need to play a wider range of starting hands to maintain your stack. Secondly, it is a fact that many of your opponents will naturally be tightening up their game at this point, so you need to begin to re-establish your ‘maniac’ table image which will help you when you do actually reach the final table.

Once the final table bursts, be prepared to tighten up your game again.  Just as many players loosen up their game after making the money, those players whose goal it was to make the final table will start to gamble again, especially if they are short-stacked.  This means you are going to want stronger hands when you decide to get involved in a pot.  You also need to remember that once you reach the final table, you are no longer short-handed, and the blinds will be coming around at a much slower pace, so you can afford to sit back and wait for those stronger hands, or even the speculative hands, if you are in position.

Remember that the loose aggressive image that you developed during the time of short-handed play just before the final table, will be working in your favor once you are playing a tighter game.  Because you were playing so aggressive just a short time earlier, your opponents will tend to over-play weaker hands against you because they won’t give you credit for having a good hand.



Play the Player!

There are professional poker players that have claimed that you do not need to be a math magician to be extremely good at poker. Sure, playing the percentages certainly works to your advantage, but what good is that if there is always another player trying to knock you off your hand when you actually have the better percentages; you just do not know it. That’s when being able to read your opponents and not the cards come into play.

Being great at poker means being more than just the type of player who only plays the best of cards.  The crushers are great, but they usually don’t come as often as we’d like.  The best of players know how to play with terrible cards.  You have to learn to prey on the weak and take advantage of the strong.  You have to learn how to bluff someone off a decent hand and hone your skills at tricking your opponents into thinking that you have the worse hand.  Playing your opponent is just as important, if not more than learning the math.

Not only do you have to think about the strength of your hand and your table position, but you have to realize that any poker player with experience is probably thinking the same way you are. Whittle your way down to the facts you do know about your opponent since you can’t see their hand.

What is their table position?  Did they call, bet or raise pre-flop?  Are they confident when they bet or are they making a show of it?  How did they react when they looked at their cards?  How big is their stack or bankroll?  Learn to notice when a player is on tilt and cannot control their emotions.  Keeping alert, focusing and remembering things that go on around you on the felt and even online, will help you to learn more about the player you are facing off with.

Bluffing is very hard to master and if you are not confident you are better off trying to spot signs of weakness from your opponents.  If you’re playing online poker, being able to spot calling stations is an important trait to have.  It’s sometimes easier to bluff a good player than a bad one because a good one will fold two pair when a bad one will call you down with a pair of Queens with a five kicker.

There is really no point in bluffing a terrible poker player who is a calling station because he is going to call you down all the way to the river.  In a lot of cases you need to have the ability to categorize the type of players your opponents are very quickly, then use their strengths and their weaknesses against them

Doyle Brunson’s Tournament Tips

Doyle Brunson’s Poker Strategy Tips

Doyle Brunson, poker legend and fearsome opponent in all forms of the game has a reputation built on aggression – he wins pot after pot because his opponents know he is happy to get all his chips in without so much as a draw!  It may then come as a surprise to some that, for tournaments, Doyle Brunson’s poker strategy advice is to play very tight, at least in the beginning levels. For the first couple of blind levels Doyle is happy to sit back and be content with the pots that the cards allow him to win.

This type of survivalist poker tournament strategy allows professional players to survive the ‘minefield’ of amateur players found at the start of tournaments. The strategy involves raising with medium strength cards (mid-pairs / unsuited high cards etc) but never calling with them. Taking small stabs at pots, but backing off when resistance is encountered.

When you are entering mid-stage of the poker tournament, Doyle’s strategy involves careful assessment of many situational factors. These include the tendencies of opponents, but more importantly their stack sizes. Small and Large stacks are far more likely to call your big bets (though for different reasons) so caution should be exercised with them.

Aggressive and positive poker, which is Doyle Brunson’s trademark, kicks in later in the middle stages. This takes the form of gradually increasing aggression levels in order to put pressure on your opponents who will be afraid of busting out. According to Brunson, the key tournament strategy here is to keep accumulating chips – staying ahead of the blinds and antes will enable you to choose when to bet big rather than be forced to play without solid values.

Doyle’s poker tournament strategy for the final table involves careful evaluation of your opponents and their chip stacks. While Brunson advises always playing to win, there are times when a number of short stacked opponents mean that tight play would guarantee you one of the higher playing places. If your goal is to win and you are second in chips, Doyle advises that you target the chip leader, play aggressively and try to overtake him.