Poker News

Richard Burke

Fred sat next to me at our $4-8 Hold’Em table on a sweltering afternoon in summer. Did I remember when he played 5d-2d in the Small Blind and won a nice pot? I did. (Poker Player, Vol. 8, No. 25, p.14) Fred asked if he could also profitably play suited, 3-gap connectors.

That depends. What did Fred consider a good Flop? Fred thought for a bit. He thought a good Flop would be an open-ended Straight draw, a Straight, a Flush draw, a Flush, an open-ended Straight Flush draw, a Straight Flush, Two Pairs, Trips, or better. And, if it’s a Flush or Straight draw, then the Flop shouldn’t have a Pair. The table shows the probability of each of those Flops, depending on the size of the gaps. The bottom row shows the cards odds for each gap size.

In the Small Blind, without a pre- Flop raise, Fred’s pot odds are (4*N+4- 3-1-1)/2 for 1, where N is the number of opponents, minus the rake, toke and bad beat drop, or (2*N-.5) for 1. The nearby table shows how Fred’s pot odds depend on the number of his opponents. Fred’s pot odds are larger than his cards odds in all cases when there are four or more opponents. For suited, 0-, 1-, and 2-gap connectors his pot odds are larger than the cards odds for three or more opponents. Fred can profitably play suited, 3-gap connectors, with four or more opponents.

With three opponents, the smallest suited connectors he can play are 3d-2d, 4d-2d, and 5d-2d. With four opponents, the smallest, suited, 3-gap connector is 6d-2d, and/or any suited Ace-and-a-Wheel-card. Fred beamed at that news because he likes to play lots of hands. Fred wondered what the pot odds would be if the Big Blind were to raise. They’d be better, I told him. His pot odds would be (8*N+8-3-1-1)/4, or (2*N+.75) for 1. Fred knew what to do if he flopped a made hand, but what should he do when he flopped a draw to a made hand, he asked. That’s discussed thoroughly in my book, so I told him to re-read that chapter.

Fred wondered about suited unconnected and unsuited connected small cards in the Small Blind. Skipping all the details, with any suited hand he needs only four opponents. With unsuited, 0-gap connectors he needs four opponents. With 1-gap connectors he needs five, and 2-gappers he needs eight. Unsuited 3-gap connectors aren’t playable even in the Small Blind.

Position doesn’t matter all that much when you hit these little hands, I told Fred. Your opponents won’t suspect Two Pairs or Trips or better, a Straight, or a Flush. When you use both your cards, the 3rd-nut Straight wins 71% of the time that the nut Straight would win, and the smallest Flush wins 75% of the time that the nut Flush would win. You can lie low and then check-raise when the bets double, or you can just fire away from the get-go.

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