How to Play 89, 23 in Poker

Texas Holdem – How to Play Small Suited Connectors

Suited Connectors are cards like 9-8 of spades, 4-5 of clubs, 6-7 of diamonds etc. These poker hands can be played as major drawing hands as they have a huge vulnerability to them. They are small connectors but if you get the right flop, they can be very good. Suited connectors are best to played in volume pots where 5-6 people call and see the flop. The implied odds increase here making these small cards playable in Texas hold’em. But what really is a good poker strategy to play them? Read on to find out.

Position is important and so are pot odds

The most important poker tip to be kept in mind when playing small suited connectors is always play them from late position especially button or cutoff in an unraised pot. Calling a raise is never a good idea with small cards. If there are more than 5-6 players playing to see the flop then your odds increase and thus it means you’ve made a good decision to see the flop in this game.

The best thing to happen to suited connectors is to either flop a straight or get a flush draw and the worst thing is hitting small pair. If the former happens, then you can play on and decide till the turn before you take the call on raising. But if you flop a small pair then its best to muck as there are 5-6 people in the table who all will hold over-cards and chance are over-pairs. Getting stuck to a small pair with small kicker is the worst thing to do in the game of poker. So always value your suited connectors to flop a straight or flush and then play. If this doesn’t happen then don’t wait too long and muck them.

When Played at Adda52

A daring online poker game was displayed by player jyojyo when he played the Sunday finals on 8^th April at adda52. He was raised 4 times big blinds to 32 by Sumit35891 who had Kh and Ah. jyojyo with small stack called with 6d 7d. suraj18588 also called with 10s Jc and saw the flop 5c 2s 9c. jyojyo had hit a gutshot and raised to 16. Both called and the turn was 8d. jyojyo had hit his straight but danger still loomed with suraj18588 with a higher open ended straight draw. He did the right thing by going all in at this stage and Sumit35891 folded while suraj18588 took his chance. River was another 9 and jyojyo prevailed with his small suited connectors.

Player ram2010 was dealt just marginally better hands on 31^st March 2012 as he saw 8c 9c from the big blind position. arpit_shah with pocket sixes raised and ram2010 along with two more players called the small raise. The flop was Jc 10c Jd which gave ram2010 an open ended straight as well as a flush draw thus a very good chance at the developing pot. Player mohit with pocket kings raised to 16 seeing no overcards and was called by arpit_shah and ram2010. The river was 3c and ram2010’s perseverance had paid up and he struck his flush. He decided to slow play and mohit took the charge again and made a small raise. ram2010 called and the river was Ah. It was mohit again who took charge and raised. ram2010 called again and thus won the pot.