Suited connectors in tournaments

Suited connectors are generally regarded as great implied odds hands and most players play them whenever they happen over such a pocket hand. Given that it is indeed a starting hand which carries good implied odds, most people limp to the flop with this hand to see what they hit.
Suited connectors are indeed worth to play in deep-stacked cash games, no doubt about it. Whether you should limp to the flop with them or put in a preflop raise on them is something that the circumstances will dictate. The optimal preflop action on such a hand is largely dependent on the type of players you’re faced with and the general table mood. The bottom line is, suited connectors alongside suited one-gappers and small pocket pairs are indeed excellent implied odds hands and you should definitely play them in deep stacked cash game situations.

I suppose I needn’t tell though that there are significant differences between cash and tournament play. Most people are well aware of this fact, though it’s quite surprising that so few of them actually consider it when making strategically important decisions. This is the reason why you’ll often see people play suited connectors in tournaments, the same way they play them in cash games.
Due to the difference in nature between poker tournament and poker cash play (differences caused mainly by the finite tournament stacks and the ever escalating blinds) suited connectors lose a lot of value in tournaments.
In tournaments in general and in SNGs in particular, you are never actually deep-stacked. Well, maybe close to deep stacked at the beginning of a massive MTT. What this means is that you’ll lose value playing your suited connectors on several fronts. First of all, in a cash game, you need to have a deep stack all the time in order to be able to fully exploit the edge given to you by the implied odds on suited connectors and other such hands. You stack is a tool there: the bigger it is, the more money you can get into the pot, which means your opponents will have to match it if they want to see a showdown. If you’re playing on a short-stack (like you always are in a STT), the weapon which is your stack falls seriously short: it will not allow you to exploit your implied odds to the maximum.
The short stacks of your opponents represent another limitation: they can’t call more than they have so you can’t really make a lot of chips off them regardless what you do. In a cash game, the two variables which ultimately determine the profitability of your implied odds are the losses you incur on your missed hands and the winnings you take down on the made hands. The losses can be limited with the proper tools both in a cash game and in a tournament, however the winnings cannot be maximized in tourneys, which means that ultimately, your implied odds may not come through for you.
Does that mean that you should never play these babies in a SNG? Not by a longshot. Just stop granting them more value than they actually have and you’ll be OK. You should still limp to the flop on your suited connectors if a cheap flop is in the works, and you should even attempt to steal some blinds with them. The key factor here is position. You can only achieve any of the above moves when you’re in late position (on the button or in the cut-off). Never attempt to limp from early position as it’s almost like offering your chips as a gift to your opponents.
Your suited connectors will retain bigger value in the beginning of the tournament when you are still relatively deep-stacked. That’s when you should limp along from late position to possibly hit a hand which could send one of your opponents to the rail.
As the blinds escalate, blinds-stealing gradually comes into the picture. As your suited connectors lose their implied odds value, they’ll gain a blinds-stealing edge. That’s because as the stacks become shorter and shorter compared to the size of the blinds, the implied odds value dies off completely.

Suited Connectors

Suited connectors are generally considered excellent implied odds hands, though some players hate them while others like them. It’s easy to see why they carry such excellent implied odds though. They can make both flushes and straights, and those are some of the best big pot hands. Sure, you stand to lose several smaller pots when playing your suited connectors, but the few times that you hit your flush or straight will more than make up for it. Big pocket pairs are considered some of the best starting hands, and they will indeed win you many smaller pots. Suited connectors won’t win you nearly as many pots, but the ones they do win tend to be huge ones.

Now then, the problem with your suited connects is that while they do offer you good implied odds, the chances of them filling up a straight or a flush are rather meager. That means your whole implied odds setup turns into a rather marginal one, especially so if you’re playing against aggressive players at a 6-max Texas Hold’em table. If you limp along a lot on your suited connectors under these circumstances, you stand to bleed too much money away, and eventually you won’t be able to make up for those losses through the big pots that you take down.

This is why you shouldn’t limp on your suited connectors at aggressive short handed tables.
The course of action which gives you the most possibilities to win the pot on your suited connectors is to be aggressive. You may be wondering why I recommend being aggressive when your goal should be to limit your losses in order to maximize your implied odds. Limping along is an obvious enough way to limit your losses, right? Well, yes and no. At a 10-handed table full of rocks, limping is indeed a good way to see many cheap flops on your suited connectors. At a 6-handed aggressive table though, you won’t be able to see any cheap flops, and by limping you’ll pay a lot anyway without the benefit of showing any kind of preflop strength.
If you start out aggressively, you’ll show strength and that will offer you the following opportunities to take the pot down: you may take it right there on your preflop bet (which won’t be a big pot but it’s one hell of a good way to limit your losses), you’ll get called and you’ll get the chance to fire a second bullet on the flop taking the pot down then, through a bluff or a semi-bluff. You’ll also have the opportunity to make your hand and take the pot down at showdown.
Now then, this all sounds dandy and all but in practice it’s much more difficult to achieve than in theory. Keeping an eye on your position will offer you an excellent clue as to how you should play your suited connectors. The fact that being aggressive on them offers you better chances to win doesn’t mean you should shove a lot of money in on them every time.

If you are in early position, your opponent will have control over the hand and the pot. In such situations it is not profitable for you to play your suited connectors. They are after all drawing hands, and playing drawing hands is a pain in the rear end when your opponent has control of the pot.

You may want to raise some of your bigger suited connectors from early position every now and then, just to keep your opponents guessing, but generally there’s not much value in playing them from early position.

Late position is a different matter altogether. Almost all your suited connectors are worth raising from the cut-off or the button, especially so if the other players fold around to you. Most of the time, your raise will earn you the pot right there.

The post flop part of the action is the trickiest. This is why you need the initiative provided by your preflop raise. From there on, standard C-betting (take the board texture into consideration) is the way to go.