Just curious how you guys play suited connectors....middle range (67;78; 89) from early position preflop. Lets say it is a full table level III or IV.

Fold them every time.

Early on, stacks are still deep? I'll limp in. If raised, the stacks would have to be REALLY deep for me to continue onward.

Ya I'd have to say chuck em..

I'll play if I have a pretty good stack and the blinds are tiny. If raised, fold it.

IMO limping with suited connectors in EP is negative EV in all table situations, regardless of your stack size. These are the things that can happen when u limp with these hands:

1. Someone will raise it up in front of you. Then you need to either fold and you are always vulnerable to that raise if you are folding here, or call, and calling with suited connectors out of position into a raised pot is a bad spot.

2. There are some calls and no raises, we get to see a flop. Woohoo. Now the problem with this situation is that suited connectors are drawing hands. This is not limit. Pppl can bet the pot if they want. It is very difficult to correctly check call out of position on a flush /str8 draw. If we pair up one of our cards we can hardly ever be confident. The only bonus is if we hit the flop REALLY HARD like flopping a str8 or a big combo draw; this hardly ever happens, happens seldom enough to not compensate for all the weak calls you are making with this hand in EP. Position is HUGE when playing suited connectors. You get to see the kind of pot odds you are getting, and when you are in later position the players behind you are less sure about betting as you haven't acted yet so you get more free /cheap cards. When out of position your basically just making money when semibluffing and everyone folds (rare) or semibluffing and hitting, which is awesome and ul scoop a huge pot, but im sure that this just does not happen enough to compensate for the dead money ur calling with all the time.

3. The only way playing suited connectors in EP is profitable, is if you have a reasonably high skill level, and you raise it up. In NL tournies if you are good enough at reading boards and situations your cards can be to a certain extenbt irrelevant. Often u can use the authority that the raise gives u to just take that pot down by representing something / when they dont hit and assume u do. You can also be very deceptive / score some huge pots when you do this well. But it is only worth doing against opponents who are very good themselves. You create some deception there, good players are going to put you on big cards when u raise, and u can use this expectation to your advantage when the flop apparently doesn't hit u, they think this, see u bet into an apparently innocent board, and try to outplay u, when in fact u have 2 pair 6 7 on a 2 6 7 board hahahahahaha. But for the most part you are playing against POOR players who are just dumb calling stations, and the way to get their chips is to just bet solid values, trickery is lost on them.

Calling with anything but a pocket pair in EP is WEAK PLAY.

IMO limping with suited connectors in EP is negative EV in all table situations, regardless of your stack size.

Then you don't understand implied odds.

At the end of your post, you say that limping with small PP's is OK. How is that different? You either flop a monster, or you give it up. How come you can play your PP's that way, but I can't play my SC's that way?

1. You flop less monsters with connectors.

2. When you do hit your implied odds are less, i.e. a flopped flush is going to be on a board that is very scary for the rest in the pot, and it is also very vulnerable to getting beaten on later streets.

A flopped str8 is good against JJ +, but suffers when against A J+ (ppl wont put so much money in the pot with A high / when high cards come you cant hit ur str8....) . Pocket pairs do well in both situations.

3. It is very easy to get away from the flop after a missed pocket pair, not so easy when ur connectors hit bottom pair with a flush draw. You are going to put urself in more high variance situations; i guess this isn't necessarily bad in itself if you are playing well, but not everybody plays well, and many may find themselves tempted into - EV situations.

These differences are SIGNIFICANT.

But for the most part you are playing against POOR players who are just dumb calling stations, and the way to get their chips is to just bet solid values, trickery is lost on them.

Calling with anything but a pocket pair in EP is WEAK PLAY.

I have to agree with this in low buy-in SNG's.....thx.

Preflop

50% Limp in for the size of the big blind. Fold if raised!

50% Fold

Never raising or never calling with suited connectors in EP are both equally bad. You never want to get into a patter of never doing something. Personally when I'm playing a tourney, or cash game for that matter I never limp first in, if I'm playing a hand I'm raising first in. If you never raise with suited connectors or never even play them it makes you a lot easier to read. What you do with your cards should depend a lot more on your stack and table conditions rather than just doing a certain thing with certain cards in all situations. If I have a healthy stack and my table is playing tight I will raise suited connectors from any position. If the table is playing loose I will fold them from EP, because part of the reason I'm raising with them is to steal the blinds and if the chances of that happening are very little I won't risk the chips. The one exception is if I have run up a huge stack like a 100BB stack and losing 3BBs won't affect me at all. If I have medium stack I need a very tight table and a tight image to make a riase with them EP.

I would never limp in EP with them because I don't limp first in, but I may limp if there is a limp in front of me. But that also depends on the table conditions, if there are a couple of players abusing limpers, I'll just muck. However if limping with big hands is part of your game you should also mix in limping with suited connectors and small pairs alike. The reason is you don't want players knowing when you limp it means you have a big pair that you're trying to reraise with. So occasionally you'll want to limp in with other hands that you are trying to see a cheap flop with.

If I thought that my opponents were capable of recognising that my only plays in EP in a NL tourney with comfortable stack sizes are to limp with pocket pairs, and raise pretty much with K Q, A Q+, JJ+, and then use that recogition; i.e. to not call as many of my EP raises, and look for a spot to raise enough for me to fold pocket pair and take it every time; then I would play the game much differently.

I'm playing $10 and below tournies. I'm convinced beyond a doubt that mixing up your play like this at these levels will take away from your edge. Certainly at the $100 level what ur saying makes perfect sense check.