[SUITED CONNECTORS] 33.81% of Flops Have Drawing Potential
The Legend of Suited Connectors
How to play suited connectors?
Call? 3Bet? or even Fold?
Suited connectors are truly legendary hands in poker. These hands leave no one indifferent, and everyone includes them in their poker ranges. A bit of doubt, lots of hope - suited connectors are hands that make you want to see the flop. Hitting your flush or straight with these connected hands is the perfect spot to stack your villains.
To hit your dream hand, you'll often need to see both the turn and river. To draw to these 2 additional cards, you'll have to sacrifice chips to call bets and raises from your opponents.
Often, after floating the flop and turn, the brick on the river doesn't help us either. We end up with no hand and bluffing hoping not to get called...
Instead of stacking our opponent, we end up losing half our stack.
Top 4 Questions to Ask About Suited Connectors
What are the probabilities of hitting a made hand on the flop?
Only 7.84% of the time will you hit two pair or better directly on the flop. More than 9 out of 10 times, the flop won't be enough to make a strong hand.
What are the different types of draws possible on the flop?
With a suited connector, you're trying to hit a flush or straight. There are "backdoor" draws where you need 2 cards to complete your hand, and standard draws simply called "draws" where you only need one card to complete your hand.
You can have a flush draw while simultaneously having a backdoor straight draw.
For example: 8♥7♥ on a flop of A♥K♥6♣.Why play medium/low suited connectors?
To create a stack-breaking scenario and win all the opponent's chips or multiple opponents' chips in a multi-way pot when you're deep enough to play your draws. The goal is to hit your hand (straight or flush) while calling or potentially raising the turn and river bets. If your opponent has a relatively strong hand (two pair or trips) and is a calling station, someone who struggles to fold, you can accumulate a lot of chips.
What are the risks of playing suited connectors?
By committing too many chips preflop, in case of a draw on the flop, you might find yourself having to go all-in to realize your equity. This is particularly problematic in poker tournaments where the most important thing is not getting eliminated, in other words, not busting out.
The Truth About Suited Connectors
We'll study a specific hand: 87s. In the following table, you'll find the hand's value on the flop and the draws that compose them.
| Result on the flop | Number of combinations | Probability |
|---|---|---|
| High Card | 10143 | 51.75% |
| Pair | 7920 | 40.41% |
| Two Pair | 792 | 4.04% |
| Three of a Kind | 308 | 1.57% |
| Straight | 252 | 1.29% |
| Flush | 161 | 0.82% |
| Full House | 18 | 0.09% |
| Four of a Kind | 2 | 0.01% |
| Straight Flush | 4 | 0.02% |
| Total | 19600 | 100.00% |
And now the draw probabilities only for the 99.06% of combinations where we have less than a flush.
| No flush draw | Backdoor flush draw | Flush draw | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No straight draw | 1253 combos 6.39% | 1215 combos 6.20% | 228 combos 1.16% | 2696 combos 13.76% |
| Backdoor straight draw | 4950 combos 25.26% | 5370 combos 27.40% | 1260 combos 6.43% | 11580 combos 59.08% |
| Straight draw | 2058 combos 10.50% | 2424 combos 12.37% | 657 combos 3.35% | 5139 combos 26.22% |
| Total | 8261 combos 42.15% | 9009 combos 45.96% | 2145 combos 10.94% | 19415 combos 99.06% |
The Double Straight and Flush Draw
We hit a double straight and flush draw only 3.35% of the time. This double draw gives us 15 outs and therefore 54.1% chance to hit on the next 2 streets (turn and river).
Knowing that we'll hit a flop like this only 3.35% of the time, to ultimately get a 54.1% chance of hitting our flush/straight.
The Straight or Flush Draw
30.46% of the time, a straight draw or a flush draw is present (independent of backdoor draws). These draws offer either 8 or 9 outs and therefore 31.5% and 35.0% chance respectively to hit your hand on the turn and river.
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No Draw or Only Backdoor Draws
We'll hit nothing or at best simultaneous backdoor straight and flush draws 65.24% of the time.
The Broken Dream of Suited Connectors
The probability of hitting your flush or straight is low, even when going to the river.
0.94% of the time, we have a hand better than a straight on the flop.
On flops with a double draw which we hit 3.35% of the time, we only complete our hand 54.1% of the time. Rounding up, we can say we'll hit our straight or flush 2% of the time through this type of flop.
On flops with a standard draw which we hit 30.46% of the time, we'll only complete our hand 35% of the time at best. Rounding once again, we get 11% chance of hitting our hand.
On other flops, the probability of hitting a flush is very marginal.
Adding all these values and rounding up, when playing 87s, we have a 15% chance of having a straight or better by the river. That's very low considering all the bets that must be called to reach that famous river. For beginning players whose only goal is to hit their "best hand" to win the pot, they will be losing the majority of the time. Additionally, some players get scared when the draw comes in, and it's no longer possible to get them to call more bets, to extract value.
How to Play Suited Connectors?
Suited connectors remain very good hands when the goal isn't solely to hit specific cards. Good players will easily find good spots to bluff their opponents while maintaining equity through various draws if called.
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