what is suited and connected?

I know (or at least i think i do) what suited connectors are, but my thinking they have to be both suited AND connected! by connected I mean 89 or 10J but i am hearing on the televised poker recently they are calling any 2 suited cards that can make a 3 card straight "suited connectors" so are suited connectors suited cards that can make any 3 cards straight or actual connecting cards

Good question and one that I wanted to ask also. I always thought they had to be connected but I've seen the same thing on T.V as you, someone with 8/10 suited and they are calling it suited connecting cards.
I'm sure we will both find out soon............

a suited connector is something like JTs or AKd. There is no gap between the cards. 8T suited would be called a suited one-gapper. That's my take on it at least.

I found this from an article Mike Caro wrote:

"...the name means you begin with two cards of the same suit, usually adjacent in rank and not particularly high or low in value. Examples of suited connectors would be 10-9 of diamonds and 8-7 of clubs."

From everything I've ever heard, read, or seen, Chuck and jQ are correct. I too have heard this on TV a few times now and I can only attribute that to the lack of quality in the annoucers they are getting. After all, they have Mark Seif co-hosting the PPT shows. Guess he wasn't good enough to get a PPT card.

On page 71 of "Small Stakes Hold 'em" by Sklansky/Miller/Malmuth, "Suited Connectors" are described as cards that have the ability to make both flushes and straights. On that page and in a quiz on page 318, they are listed as "T9s-54s, J9s-64s, Q9s-96s, Q8s, and J7s" (43s and 32s are sometimes referred to as "junk"). There is no mention of the word "gap" in the name of the hand. "Gap" is only used in 1 sentence: "Keep in mind that the bigger the gap, the fewer straights you can make." They use the word "connectedness" to refer to the cards' ability to still make a straight, not to describe if the cards are consecutive or not.

So when you hear the announcer describe 97s as "suited connectors" and doesn't utter the word "gap", he still is correct (according to Sklansky, et al).

So does that mean if I am holding 73 suited or 10 6 suited, then I have suited connectors? As far as I'm concerned, I don't call those suited connectors, I call them junk or garbage and muck them. Wow, if that's what they are saying, then that is the most assinine definition I've ever heard a professional author(s) put to it. But that's my opinion.

Geez, JD. I can't recite the whole book. It says, in effect, to only play the further-spread connectors in certain position and in certain types of games. Sklansky wouldn't want you to donk off your stack on every 96-suited that comes along.

If you challenge Sklansky and beat him, you could make him change his definition. Make it "paper-view' (like my kid says). I'd pay to see it. (or maybe a bottle of that extra-special expensive aged JD would be a better prize)

Time to start memorizing.

Okay, to some extent I can accept this. It puts it little more into context at least. Maybe it was the missing context that spurred my response. I don't know, it's late and I should go to bed. Maybe i'm just tired and being nit picky, but the first definition of "connector" is "To join or fasten together." Origin: Middle English connecten, from Latin cnectere, connectere : c-, com-, com- + nectere, to bind; Maybe it is just me, but having even one gap fails to meet this def.

I guess this is why I don't agree that any gapped connector (whether in his list or not) is fairly referred to as a suited connector. Just seems mis-leading to me, is all.

You mean Single Barrel. Dude, that stuff is some good shit.

It's just semantics at the end of the day whether you call 9-7 suited a "suited connector" hand or not. In my opinion 9 and 7 are connectors so I think it's fair to call this a suited connector hand. I think HoH used it this way too.

There's some interesting stuff in Super System which I'm reading at the moment, about suited connectors. (They don't use the term "suited connectors" though, maybe it wasn't invented yet.) JT is the best suited connector hand because they're the only 2 cards in the deck that will make 4 straights and they'll all be the nuts. Other connectors will also make 4 straights but only 3 of them will be the nuts. One gappers make only 3 straights and only 2 of them are the nuts (except QT where all 3 are)... similarly down to 3-gappers like 7-3 where they only make 1 straight and it's not the nuts.

I call J-10d suited connectors. I have seen Phil Helmuth call stuff like Q-10d suited connectors. While he has called those connectors I have never seen him call something like 9-7d a suited connector. It's always been high cards.

I've seen it more the other way round, where high cards are "high cards" and connectors are lower.

Not to rain on everyone's parade here, but does it really matter?

If I remember rightly (it`s a while since I read it) doesn`t Doyle Brunson say that JTs is his favourite hand and he`d rather have that than AA ? Struck me as a bit eccentric, although he does present some convincing arguments.

There`s a very good discussion of this whole topic in Roy Rounder`s "No Limit Holdem Secrets". He discusses suited connectors (JTs etc.) and goes on to describe what he calls "semi-connectors" - suited cards with one gap (J9s etc.), which he feels may be worth playing with position if one can see a cheap flop. Anything with a gap of 2 or more is simply trash, in his view. This seemed to me a good common-sense way of looking at these types of hands, and I`ve thought of them that way ever since reading it.

No, actually it probably doesn't. But what fun would it be if we just let it go?

He actually says (page 340) he prefers 98 to JT because it makes more money. He gives the example where the board comes A-8-8 you're in a lot better shape than if the board comes J-J-4 with JT. He also says (page 424) that he'd rather have 76 than 98, because if you flop a straight with 98, someone is more likely to have a better one. In the section on "How to play small connecting cards" (page 487) he says "this is the hand I'm looking for when I play No Limit Hold'em... it's my favorite. And when I get it I want my opponent to have two Aces or two Kings."

I'd take the Aces myself but it looks like DB's favourite hand is 76 suited.

Thanks for straightening me out. I knew he favoured some odd hand.

To be fair, I suspect that DB`s experience of poker is mostly high stakes and strong players, rather different from the online fishponds most of us play in.

In a game like that, I can see how an oddball hand could be a bigger earner, because it`s tough for even the best players to get a read on you when you`re playing a hand like that, whereas they`d probably put you on your AAs and fold right away.

The sort of games I play in, you can raise 5x the Big Blind with your AA and some fool will call with any two cards, and carry on calling when you get your third Ace on the flop.

You're right... in fact it's been experimentally proven that in tight games, 87 and 76 are the best suited connector hands. In loose games, the higher suited connectors become better (see the section half way down "The Expert 24 and the Medium Suited Connector Myth").

Nice link, m8. That`s a really interesting article. Parts of it are slightly counter-intuitive, but one can`t deny that the writers have been thorough in their analysis.

I would of thought that connected cards would have to be connected to be connected?

That's the logic I tend to use when applying definitions of words. But I'm not a published author, so my logic doesn't apply to what they've chosen to write. If the authors in question are trying to represent a name for cards that can be used to make straights, they would be less misleading to call them suited gapped cards, or suited gapped and non-gapped cards, or suited cards that can both be used to make a straight. Those are what they are by logical definition. Connected is connected.

Think of it like the mob. Tony Soprano is connected to the mob. The non mobsters that he does mob business with are connected to the mob. The friends of the non-mobsters are not by default connected to the mob, they are one gapped. At least that is how I see it, so at least for my purposes, you won't see me write like that.

Yep but they're not called "suited connecteds" are they? They're connectors because they connect other cards together to make straights. It has nothing to do with whether they're connected themselves. It just so happens that the ones that are connected are also the best at connecting other cards, because they can make a straight most ways.

....Quote for emphasis

Awww, Dad. But we are still having a friendly debate. Can't we play just a little longer?


I still say that this is author commentator specific. Lou Krieger specifically talks about suited connectors and one gappers. Sounds like an author making a distinction to me.

Besides, cards are called what they are based on what they are before the flop not on what they can potentially do when additional cards come out. Calling K9 suited a suited connector because it can potentially make a straight later on would be the same as saying that A5 offsuit can be called a pair of aces because it could possibly be paired and ace if one comes out later. How about 72o? Could we call that a full houser hand? it could turn out to be a full house if the right cards come out. But alas, 72o is garbage and should be discarded. And AQ suited are simply large suited cards.

I like that... someone needs to add it to the hand nicknames thread.

Sklansky couldn't have said it better himself. I surely wouldn't argue with a top respected poker theorist and million selling author. But y'all can knock yourselves out.

I havn't read thru all theses posts yet, but I've been hearing this lately as well. Any 2 suited cards that stretch are being called Suited Connectors. I thought it was a mistake until I read the new Sklankey Miller Book "No Limit Hold'em Theory and Practice". They seem to be refering to anything that stretches. They distinguish between them by the size of the gaps. No gap, 1 gap etc. Who am I to argue with David Sklansky?