The life of a poker player is not populated by American Airlines, filled with Anna Kournikova being chased by a King Kong. I really need to do an article on poker hand nicknames. Americian Airlines is a pair of AS. The beautiful Anna Kournikova is a preflop hand, Ace-King and surprisingly, a cursed hand for yours truly, and the King Kong is a pair of Kings. Well, that’s a far cry from our original topic, connectors. You may watch videos of pro players and you will see that sometimes they start with a 6 and a 7. This can be confusing for a beginner who will tend to throw them away at the first raise. However, connectors are hands that should not be overlooked and we will show you that a small connector can have a greater impact than, for example, a hand with a king of hearts and an eight of clubs.
Types of connectors in poker
As with all preflop hands you have a kind: connectors and a power. Here we’ll talk about matching connectors that give you the opportunity to go for the big one. The flush or straight. For example, a 7 of hearts and an 8 of diamonds are not matching connectors. They are single connectors, which are more difficult to play since you lose the possibility of a flush in your mailbox unless of course the flop is particularly generous to you and no one else. A matching connector allows you to chase strong hands. A 9 of hearts and an 8 of hearts are what we call matching connectors. In preflop, your stats are low, but the flop can put you on the strongest hand in the game. A suited connector has one very important quality, which is that it is harder for other players to read. If you play it wisely, it can pay off in a big way, especially if there is a strong card on the flop.
The purpose of the connector assortment
This is the kind of moment where you have to stay focused on the straight and flush. A pair or a double pair can come and mess with your mind. The other danger is that the flop does offer a straight, but it is also possible with a higher hand than yours. You have a 4 and 5 of hearts and a 6 and 7 come out on the flop. This means that a player can beat you with a 9. As always, it’s important to read your opponents well, especially when playing these hands.
A matching connector is a preflop hand. Beginners should be especially careful when making this move, which is fraught with all kinds of traps and requires experience. A small suited connector can be a bomb if you run into a player who has some game and hasn’t sniffed it out. Why? Imagine you have a 2 and a 3 and the flop shows a: AS – Jack – 4. Your opponent has a pair of Jacks and hits three of a kind. If he folds when the 5 comes up, is he reading you like an open book, and should give less information, and is he an excellent poker player? I’ve never seen anyone throw away a set of AS. Send me an email if you have seen it with your own eyes or done it yourself. Now we’ll see how to play these matching connectors.
Matching connectors for beginners
Playing matching connectors in beginner and humble mode. It’s true that humility is rarely used in the poker player’s vocabulary. “You have to be aggressive in your play” is probably the most common advice given to beginners. The problem with this advice is that aggressiveness can often turn into recklessness when it is not well controlled. Yet humility is a cardinal value in most human actions. In poker, it allows you to always learn, to never underestimate your opponent and to never think you’ve arrived. And to think you’ve arrived with a matching connector is to dig your own grave. At the beginning, only play your connectors if you are in position, i.e. in the last to speak. You must tell yourself that leaving on a 7-8 diamond when the pot is big and the bet to explode is much more risky than paying just to see the flop. If you can’t call more than 2 or 3 times the Bing blind, you can check, but it’s expensive enough.