The Most Overvalued Hands in Poker

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For a poker player, it’s crucial to know which hands are strong and which ones aren’t. There is always a choice between keeping cards which offer you good odds of getting a relatively weak hand and reaching for the top; i.e., aiming for the Royal Flush! To become an outstanding player, you don’t just need an excellent poker face; you should also know all about your odds, instead of naively falling for any of the attractive but risky temptations that beset all serious players. Let’s talk about some of the most overvalued poker hands according to offline and online poker rules!

Suited Connectors

A suited connector is two suited cards of consecutive value. Let’s take a hand like Six and Seven of Hearts, for instance. Several years ago, amateurs would rarely consider playing this kind of Hands before the flop; and never for a raise. But then televised poker took off; and the very same players who wouldn’t dream of playing these hands in their one and two dollar pot limit and no-limit home games actually started watching their favorite pros taking down big pots with them in $10,000 buying tournaments.

Let’s take Seven and Eight of Clubs. Nice flop! Just get Five, Six, and Nine, and we’re golden. Suddenly suited connectors became the hottest Hands in Poker. The thing is, though: suited connectors just aren’t what we want them to be! It’s not that they’re bad Hands. They can be extremely profitable under the right circumstances. The problem is simply that those circumstances are nowhere near as common as most players think.

Let’s say you’re holding the Eight Nine offsuit: Nine of Spades, and Eight of Clubs in the middle position at a fairly loose and aggressive table. Is this the right Hand to play in this pot? Of course not! So, why does a Hand suddenly become so much more attractive if it’s Nine and Eight of Hearts? You’re still only holding Nine high! The mere fact that it’s suited won’t help a lot. That’s going to increase your odds by 2%, or maybe 3%. The reason players love suited connectors is that they believe they’re going to get paid off for a big pot, if and when they finally hit their Hand. And it will happen! Occasionally. But let’s assume you flop your flush while you’re holding a Hand like the Five and Six of Clubs. Do you still fancy your chances of winning the pot if another Club falls on the turn? Of course not! So, another question appears:

When Should You Play Suited Connectors?

If you go first into the pot, you can certainly play suited connectors for a raise against your opponents and the blinds. Otherwise, please do remember that these are very speculative hands! But suited connectors can also be profitable in multi-way pots. They’re even more profitable if you can see the flop for a cheap price.

In these cases, you stand a very good chance of getting paid off while hitting your straighter flush, since it’s likely that some opponents will try to call you down with the Top Pair or Two Pair. Conversely, be prepared to throw that hand away if there’s any action, and you failed to hit the flop; or if you didn’t pick any draw at all; or if you flopped a bottom pair. Because chances are you’re drawing thin, and you cannot win the pot. So, with suited connectors, the lesson is this: be very careful with them. Any professional poker player can tell that they don’t win that often!

But even when your expectations pay off, it’s not always good. It’s always like that: you have the Nine, Ten of Spades and it comes Six, Seven, Eight, and you’ve called the race, and you’re like ‘Yeah baby, I’m counting up the chips already!’ But then comes a punch from the real life, everybody checks and you make a little bet they all fold. And then you go like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Even if you hit your suited connector perfectly, you may get zero action. So, suited connectors just are not all they’re cracked up to be.

Summary

Even though suited connectors look very handy if you’re aiming for strong hands like straights, flushes, or full houses, they aren’t worthy of raising with. Professional players usually play suited connectors to appear less predictable and confuse their opponents. It pays off handsomely during long and sweaty tournaments when everyone watches his opponents and tries to understand the pattern of their strategy. In home games, though, it’s not that effective. You have to understand that a TV screen cannot show you all the information and a thought process that resulted in a pro player’s decision to play a particular card. What we know for sure that it wasn’t just “Oh, suited connectors! Sweet! Let’s raise!” Keep that in mind when playing poker, so you can manage to successfully follow the strategies of the real pros!