Quite often when I am playing no-limit hold’em poker ring games I will raise and call raises with suited connectors like 5-3, 10-8, 6-5, 7-6 etc. I like playing these types of hands for numerous reasons. My poker hand is disguised and I can represent hands on the flop. I can win money in numerous ways and one of the best ways is when I check raise all in with a draw.

For example, I call a raise with the 8s-6s in a $25-$50 cash game. The raise is to $150 and my call makes the pot $325 as I am in the big blind. I feel that my opponent is raising with a big unpaired hand like AK,AQ,AJ etc. The flop comes something like 9-7-2 and I am fairly certain that they have missed.

In this scenario, my lone opponent has the initiative in their mind and are expecting me to check to them and I will not disappoint them. So I check and nine times out of ten my opponent will bet an unimproved hand because they fear giving a free card. So they fire $220 into the $325 pot and I re-raise ALL IN as long as the stacks are not too deep.

Most of the time they will simply fold their unpaired hand and I will take $395 profit from this pot. The really tight players will even fold big overpairs like AA KK or QQ fearing that they are up against something massive like trips. Even if they call, my straight draw will come in about a third of the time anyway with two cards to come.

I gain whenever my opponent folds and this gives me what is called “Fold Equity” as they are going to be folding a fair proportion of the time. But when they call then I am still in good shape. Let us say that both me and my opponent have $2000 each before the hand starts and they turn out to have AA and call my all in raise. This would make the pot $4025 in total. My straight draw will come in about a third of the time (33%) so my equity in this pot on the flop is 33% of $4025 which is $1328.

This is the amount of money that I would AVERAGE winning if we were to repeat the situation over and over again. So my all in raise on the flop may appear to be risking $1850 but my expectation even if I get called is $1328 so I am not risking $1850 at all but only $522.

Of course I could lose the entire $1850 by raising all in and getting called and failing to improve but that is only one hand and you cannot look at a poker hand in isolation….that is what losers do. Poker is all one long game and the long term result is that I am only risking $522 because of the equity that my hand has in the pot.

Being able to make plays like this is a major reason for just WHY I raise and call raises with suited connectors or even just connectors. In fact they don’t even have to connect at all as a hand like 9-6 can make a beautifully concealed straight when you flop 10-7-2 and an eight comes on the turn.

Of course this is not the only reason why I play these hands but it is just one of the reasons. You cannot make plays like this simply because you may flop a draw because you simply will not flop a draw often enough to make the play viable.

Another reason why I make the check raise all-in move is because of the story that it tells my opponents. If I bet out on a semi-bluff then many opponents will not believe that I have a strong hand otherwise I “would have slow played it” because this is what they do.

Plus if they re-raise all in then they deny me the fold equity that I get when I raise all in. Once they are all in then they cannot fold so the only way that I can win the pot is to call and then hit my hand. But a check raise signals a very powerful hand to your opponents as it ties in with what they think about poker.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson