Playing Suited Connectors or Weak Aces

When you are playing online poker, suited connectors and weak aces will definitely come into play. You probably will either love them or hate them. First off, let’s define suited connectors and the weak ace as it applies to Texas Holdem Poker. Suited connectors are any two cards together of the same suit. Cards like 8-9 of diamonds, 4-5 of clubs, 7-8 of hearts, etc. Technically, when people refer to suited connectors, they are only talking about cards in value of less than 10.

When it comes to 10-Jack, Jack-Queen, Queen-King, and King-Ace, these are considered playable hands and are not typically referred to as suited connectors. The weak ace refers to having an Ace in your hand with a weak second card, or kicker. Examples would be A-2 through A-9. You can sometimes even put A-10 into that category. Obviously if your weak ace and kicker are suited, that is better, but not by a whole lot. In Texas Holdem limit poker games, suited connectors are definitely worth playing. They are hands that you can get in with cheaply and could pay off well. Hands like 7-8 suited or 9-10 suited are good hands to see the flop with in limit games.

They can also be good hands to see in no-limit games, but you can’t sit around waiting for a straight if it costs you too much money. Flushes are nice, but with weak cards like 7-8, or 9-10, you will always worry someone was playing to a higher flush than you have. Suited connectors are nice to play, but don’t fall in love with them. Remember that in reality all you have is an 8 high or a 10 high to start the hand.

The weak ace can really be an interesting hand to play in poker. It can win you a lot or lose you a lot. We all seem to fall in love with the suited ace especially. We seem to think that we can draw to the nut flush. Well, it usually doesn’t happen. We end up throwing money chasing a flush we never get. We might be better off thinking of the weak ace suited as a non-suited hand. How many times would you play an ace-6 unsuited? Not very often. You don’t want to go chasing flushes unless you have the pot odds to do it. Many times players will chase the three-flush if they have the suited weak ace. Don’t do it. It is just not worth it when your odds of actually catching the flush are poor.

Always keep in mind when playing suited connectors and weak aces that you need pot odds to continue. You just can’t chase down pots without the proper odds with these hands, because if you don’t make the nuts you are probably done. You just aren’t going to win many suited connectors or weak aces without hitting something. Be careful of these hands because they are very often enticing, but often end up costing you a lot of money.