Playing suited cards

The accepted card-room wisdon is that because flushes are rare, suited cards require good implied odds, and so the deeper stacked you are, the better you should like them. As with much card-room wisdom, while this is true at a ver y general level, in any specific pot it is so frequently wrong as to be close to useless. In this article, I’ ll dig a little deeper into the sources of value that suited cards give when both short-stacked and deep-stacked.

SHORT STACKED AND SUITED

There are two properties of suited cards that are of crucial importance to the short-stacked player. The first is that suitedness goes up in value the further behind you are. When your J-2 runs into J-J its value is almost doubled by being suited – rising from 6% to 11.5%. In contrast, when you’re A-K is called by A-Q, being suited only increases its value from 73.5 to 74.5%.

A casual observer of the game may conclude that since suitedness only assists rubbish hands, and only by a small amount, it’s a worthless feature to anyone looking to be at the right end of a wager. A polished turd is still a turd. Poker players know better however. They know that a hand’s value at showdown is only part of its overall value since the hand may win without a showdown. Plan A, after all, is that everyone folds. Plan B only kicks in when plan A fails and you need all the possible help you can get outdrawing your opponents. A superior back-up plan can make an unprofitable raise profitable.

The second important property of suited cards is that their chance of making a flush goes up markedly if you can get them past the flop. This is because the chance of a flush depends not on the number of cards on the board but on the number of combinations of those cards. If you hold a couple of spades, there’s only one way of three spades coming out of the flop, but there’s four ways for them on the turn and ten ways on the river. Accordingly your chances of a flush rise from 118/1 on the flop to 33/1 on the turn to 15/1 on the river.

Put together, these two properties of suited cards make them ideal for a short-stacked shove, when you have tight players behind you and a good chance of taking the pot uncontested. Most of your equity comes from opponents folding here. However, since you’ve pegged opponents as tight, if you are called you’ll be a long way behind, where suitedness counts most; and of course you are guaranteed to see all five board cards, which again maximises the value of your suited cards.

Suited steals are particularly attractive when you have recently shown down a number of mid to large Ace holdings.

Now opponents want to call you only with a good Ace, expecting to be behind with any other non-paired holding, and flipping for most pairs. With this kind of table image, your 6-5 has greater expectation than A-6 whether it’s suited or not, but in marginal situations (for example, anywhere earlier than the cut-off) suitedness should tip the balance.

Looking at it from the other side, it should hopefully be clear that suitedness should have relatively little effect on your decision to call a short-stacked shove (or equally when the raiser is deep but you are short-stacked). Unless you or the raiser is very short-stacked – say, less than five big blinds – the pot odds are sufficiently close to even money that you should only call if you think you are likely to be ahead. And, if you are ahead, suitedness adds very little to your hand.

KEY POINT

A flush becomes much more likely if you can get your suited hand past the flop, making it a good hand for a short-stacked shove

DEEP-STACKED AND SUITED

When short-stacked, making a flush is always part of plan B – plan A being that everyone folds. When you’re deep-stacked, plan A is to keep everyone in until you’ve made your flush and then fleece them. It’s all about implied odds.

This is well and good but a deep stack does not automatically confer implied odds on you. You have to work for them if you are going to avoid being just another mug punter chasing a long shot. Poker players are an optimistic bunch, as their choice of profession clearly shows. When it comes to implied odds they are much more likely to be thinking about the big pot they might win rather than all the obstacles that stand in their way.

But implied odds can quickly be decimated by a number of factors, including: not being able to get to the flush cheaply enough because the game is so aggressive; not getting paid off because your opponents put you on the flush; not being able to slowplay effectively because of the fear of a fourth suited card arriving; and getting all your opponents’ chips in and still losing the pot. What’s left after this lot is pretty slim pickings unless you are fortunate enough to play in a game where no-one folds and no-one raises. There’s value there, but you’re not going to get rich on it.

So much for hitting the flush and then looking for custom. In reality, suited cards are usually put to work when the flop brings a draw. Flopping a flush is lovely, but at 118/1 you never play suited cards with that outcome in mind. But your chance of flopping a draw is 8 /1. This is a reasonable prospect and once it has arrived you have an opportunity to semi-bluff. Now semi-bluffing has nothing to do with implied odds. Sometimes it works better deep-stacked and sometimes better short-stacked. When you are deep, players may fold marginal hands for fear of the second bullet, but will hurt you if they call you down or raise you out. Short-stacked you are more likely to get called but have limited liability and see two cards for the price of your original bluff.

The factors that dictate whether you run the semi-bluff is your opponents’ calling tendencies and your current table image. Unless these are in your favour you’d be unwise to play small suited cards pre-flop in the first place since you have no +EV play available to you on any flop that doesn’t smack you in the face.

KEY POINT

Suited cards are potentially most lucrative when the flop brings out a draw. Here you can semi-bluff and draw in weaker opponents

POSITION PAYS

A second important factor in rating suited holdings is position. There are two reasons for wishing to be last to act. The first is that since the first player to act on the flop often checks, you are more likely to get beyond the flop cheaply, which is key to making a flush without too much effort. The second reason why position is important is that if implied odds are all about getting paid, it is much easier to get paid when you are in the right position.

Opponents may bet into you. Opponents may decide that you are bluffing when you bet. If you make the flush out of position there is a danger opponents will check behind you if you check, or fold against a strong-looking out of position raise. Your opponent is unlikely to raise your bet when there is a flush on the board.

Finally, I should mention multi-way pots, which often act as a magnet for players with suited cards. They do increase your implied odds because you are more likely to find a caller when you bet your flush.

There are some downsides however. With a large field semi-bluffing usually goes from a profitable to an unprofitable play. You are much less likely to see the turn for free. The holding of your opponent will more often be strong enough to hold a draw against your flush, either to a singleton Ace of the flush suit, or a house. And finally, of course, there is a higher chance of his making a better flush at the same time as you. All in all, multi-way pots favour suited cards if the table is rather passive, but these are rare above low-stakes poker.

The moral then is that the value of suited cards depends on your circumstances. Sometimes they provide that extra bit of showdown value that allows you to profitably go for the all-in steal in a tight place. Sometimes they are ‘sleepers’ where you can expect to be handsomely paid if you pick up a flush just at the moment when the table wants to get busy. Again at other times they provide a spot of extra value on a plan yet to be formed, but which may involve you raising on the flop with five high. In any case, they have to be played intelligently. You will get back from them what you put in.