Analysis of JT suited

This article was published in this months edition of cardplayer magazine. Since there was recently a thread about suited connectors I figured this would be a worthwhile post. The article was written by Michael Cappalletti. Pay particular attention to the charts listing how JT fairs against other types of hands.

I have heard that in the early days of hold’em (the 1960s and 1970s), many good players considered J-10 suited one of the best starting hands. That was probably because J-10 suited often wins a big pot in limit hold’em by hitting a draw against several opponents who are playing typical high-card holdings. Note that J-10 is the only two-card holding that can make four different straights in which all of them are “nut straights” (no higher straight possible). For example, one of the straights that can be made with a 10-9 is with K-Q-J on the board, which would lose to an A-10.

In more recent times, most big-money players who play a tight, aggressive style strongly prefer to play high-card starting hands (with aces, kings, and queens), especially from early positions. If they do play what they consider a marginal starting hand such as J-10 suited or Q-J suited, it is mainly to vary their style and disguise their otherwise tight strategy. Most experts do not expect to make money in the long run by playing hands like J-10 suited from an early position in a sophisticated high-stakes hold’em game in which there are seldom enough players seeing the flop to make drawing hands profitable. These lower “royal drawing hands” (such as J-10 suited and Q-J suited) lose much more money by being outkicked than they win by hitting their draws.

But now in 2005, a new day has dawned and the face of poker has been substantially made over by the emergence of no-limit hold’em on television and in online tournaments. No-limit hold’em strategy is considerably less straightforward than limit hold’em strategy, and it is sound to occasionally play marginal and even lesser hands, especially in the early stages of no-limit hold’em tournaments. And no starting hand in hold’em has better drawing potential than J-10 suited. So, nowadays, in the early stages of no-limit hold’em tournaments, most players routinely play J-10 suited even from an early position.

Just recently, another interesting advantage of J-10 suited came to my attention. Suppose that in a heads-up all-in confrontation, your opponent turns over a low pocket pair — say, two red threes. You do not have a pocket pair. Of all the possible hands without a pocket pair, which would win most frequently here? A-K suited? No. J-10 suited in either black suit.

The following chart gives the results of simulating the indicated suited holdings (one million times using Caro’s Poker Probe) against two fives and two threes. Of all non-pocket-pair holdings, J-10 suited has the greatest advantage over small pocket pairs; 10-9 suited is a close second. Also note that big slick, A-K suited, is a slight underdog to small pocket pairs (because A-K makes fewer straights). So, maybe J-10 suited is a better holding than many of us thought.


Suited Win% vs Win % vsHolding 3-3 5-5

AK 48.14 49.4
KQ 49.61 50.72
QJ 50.99 52.11
JT 52.5 53.35
T9 52.41 53.19
98 51.22 53.12
87 50.41 53.05
76 49.47 51.82
65 39.73 51.01



The downside of going all in with J-10 suited is indicated in the following chart, which gives the percentage of J-10 suited wins against some typical unsuited starting hands. If you find yourself all in with J-10 suited, you are most likely to lose when your opponent has pocket queens.

JT Suited vs Win %
Unsuited Hands

AK 41.2
AQ 40.9
KQ 39.7
KJ 32.13
KT 32.38
K9 46.84
K8 48.19
87 83.09
AA 21.77
QQ 18.86

__________________
Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.

okay..those charts did not come out right.....The Top one is giving the win % of the listed hands ( 1st column) vs 55 ( the second Column) and then vs 33 ( the 3rd column)


One the second chart the first column should say " JT suited vs Unsuited hands" and the second column should be the win % of those usuited hands vs JT suited.


also here is the link to the article:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_maga...647&m_id=65559

__________________
Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.

Nice post Franky...we need more posts like that!

Yeah, that was sweet. I have always been the kind of player who looks at J10s and decided it isn't worth playing ESPECIALLY in early position. I may have to rethink that strategery.

I wonder how J10s would compare to hands 45s through 910s. Any thoughts?

Jogolf...although I dont have the numbers handy, those lower suited connectors would not do very well against JT because JT would have the high end of the straight against hands like 56 and would outkick all those hands in a flush situation. Plus, with hands like 89 or 78 you may make 2 pair ( say a board of 7,8,2,9,A) but it would give the JT the nut straight....so, based on that I would give the insightfull and statistically backed answer of " Probably not Good"....haha......and crapshoot, thank you.

__________________
Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.

i find myself slightly torn in two about this one
First thanks for sharing this with us - excellent. this kind of post is good for the forum like Crapshoot says.
second - I feel we shouldn't be posting stuff written by others without their permission. Whilst I am confident that no harm is done in this case - if you had just kept your intro and the link that would be perfect. Even though the information is available freely it comes on the cardplayer site with ads etc and they maintain the copyright to it. It could get Fonz into a bit of trouble if they decided they were not too happy with it being posted elsewhere without ads etc. So please unless Fonz or other leaders feel differently from me just post your comments and the link next time you see something worth telling the forum about.

I hear ya....it makes no difference to me as I obviously already read the article.....I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that I was not trying to pass the info off as my own....I will be the first to tell you to listen to a pro over me any day....but I will keep that in mind but I would be interested in hearing what fonz has to say....I just think that because the article was posted for free on the net, there is no problem posting it if I give proper credit, but obviously if it is going to cause problems then I wont do it anymore. No big deal.

__________________
Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.

but from now on I will just post the link....its easier for me anyway..haha

__________________
Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.

I just want to add my 2 cents and thank FrankyDaPit for posting an insightful article like this. It's people like you and information like this that keeps me coming back for more at THF. I appreciate everyone's posts and look forward to many more.