[TrivialPiper]

ok, you're playing on a p* 9 person $5 +.50 tourney....you';re about 45 minutes in, the blinds are at $75 & $150....you have about $2300, 5 people left at the table, you are in 3rd place at this point.....you are dealt 3h 4h UTG.....what do you do?

Here's what I did....FOLD.....
here comes the flop...
2h 10d 5h....

the turn....
Ah....

the river....
Kd

Yes, you read that correctly....I pre-emptively folded a STRAIGHT FLUSH

I know in retrospect it was a horrible fold.....what would everyone else have done?

[99%evil]

I would have bet half my stack preflop, expecting a straight flush to come.


Folded like you did, of course, maybe see a cheap flop if your a loose player. There's too many would a' should a' hands in poker to lament over every possible winning hand you folded.

[TrivialPiper]

Originally Posted by 99%evil

I would have bet half my stack preflop, expecting a straight flush to come.

I KNEW IT!!! I SUCK AT POKER!!!!

Originally Posted by 99%evil

Folded like you did, of course, maybe see a cheap flop if your a loose player. There's too many would a' should a' hands in poker to lament over every possible winning hand you folded.

Oh, ok. Thanks. That's what I was telling myself all night (I wound up coming in 2nd anyway), but when I went to bed that night I kept picturing posting the BB instead of folding, seeing 2 of my straight flush cards come on the flop, calling a bet, and seeing my final straight flush card come on the turn, slow playing it, then pushing it all in after the river to give someone with a pair of Ks (maybe even 2 pair) a bad beat!!!! Then I tried to picture all the other times that night I had suited pocket cards, chasing the flush, only to be disappointed every time.....it didn't help. I still think about it.......

[imthatguy]

Did you really need us to tell you that you made a good fold? That's an easy laydown, without question. Now try to convince me to lay down bullets!

[TrivialPiper]

Originally Posted by imthatguy

Did you really need us to tell you that you made a good fold? That's an easy laydown, without question. Now try to convince me to lay down bullets!

I tend to play tight in the bigger blinds on-line and I just wanted to see if anyone here plays suited connectors a little more aggressively than I do. Just trying to maybe open my game up a little bit, but i want to do it in the right situations.

[w16227]

Originally Posted by TrivialPiper

ok, you're playing on a p* 9 person $5 +.50 tourney....you';re about 45 minutes in, the blinds are at $75 & $150....you have about $2300, 5 people left at the table, you are in 3rd place at this point.....you are dealt 3h 4h UTG.....what do you do?

I know in retrospect it was a horrible fold.....what would everyone else have done?

NOPE - in retrospect, you folded baby suited connectors. This is the correct play.

I am an aggressive player - so I have the highest % chance of playing a hand like this - BUT, it has to be player dependant. I never play these hands for strength, I would play it to pick up the blinds.

IF the table was tight-weak, I would put in a raise to 450 to pick up the chips right there. If called, I would hope that I was playing against the blinds because there are very few flops that I would want to see with this hand out of position.

Now - this flop was good - but not great. You would have had 8 outs to the nuts - and another 7 to the non nuts. With a baby flop like that, all kind of bad things can happen. No matter what - you need to improve to win if the hand goes to showdown. If you cbet - you pot commit yourself to a reraise. If you opt to check and try to get a free card, you may end up married to a small non-nut flush. If you hit the st8 with the 6, then you will most likely not get any real action to payoff the hand. An offsuit ace would be the dream card as you might be able to get someone committed with Ax who would be drawing dead. Think about if the flop came A29 with the A2 hearts. You check and the button pushes allin. Now what?

The moral - do not let the fact that a SF would have hit your hand cloud your judgement the next time you look down and see 56suited out of position. 95%+ of the time, the fold is the correct move. It takes the right table conditions to play this hand.

[99%evil]

I'd play small suited connectors in a late position if I had a good number of chips, other than that, it's not worth making the blind call chancing a raise behind you. If you're top chipstack (by a wide margin), some folks may think twice of raises behind you, but with that postion and stack, I'd throw them away nine times out of ten.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by TrivialPiper

I know in retrospect it was a horrible fold.....

WTF are you talking about? This is results-oriented thinking at it's finest. Of course you're gonna fold 34s UTG here, man. Don't be silly.

Even as far as "suited connectors" are concerned 34s doesn't really fall into the category of connectors you want to play...many consider the cut-off for these types of hands to be 56s or 67s. Not to mention in most cases limping any connectors UTG (even 5 handed) is a pretty weak play to begin with.

Did the entire table go all-in on this hand or what? I don't understand why you would be beating yourself up over this. This kind of stuff happens all the time.

[yeltzen]

What the heck is wrong with you?
Haven't you bought POKERPROFACY yet so you can see what cards will come on the flop? Goodness. Get with the program here.

[TheDuke]

Wow, such a horrid laydown. I always expect to get straight flushes when I play small suited cards.