When it’s time to lay it down

Ideally, when playing unsuited connector cards, you hope to flop the top straight, but your odds against doing that when holding connecting cards from J-10 down to 5-4 are 76-to-1.

More likely, you’re looking to flop two pair or better if you’re going to continue with the hand. But even then, the quality of your two pair, along with the texture of the board and the way the pot has been played, among other factors, might require the discipline to lay it down, something noted pro Vanessa Rousso had no trouble doing in this hand from the 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000-buy-in main event at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.

With blinds at $100-$200, a player in early position limped. Rousso looked down to find 10-9 offsuit in the cutoff seat and limped as well. Both blinds also played.

The flop came 9-A-10, two clubs, giving Rousso bottom two pair but creating a flush draw with an overcard. Both blinds checked. The early limper made it $800. Rousso called. The blinds folded.

“I put him on an ace,” said Rousso, who finished second in the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship in 2009. “One hundred percent I put him on an ace because he bet into three other players, and generally when they do that, they have at least top pair. I don’t think he’d lead with aces up, and I didn’t think he had the same hand as me.”

Rousso could have raised to further define her opponent’s holdings.

“I wanted to clear the turn before I raised, because bottom two pair is a hand that gets sucked out on a lot,” said Rousso, one of the pros from the PokerStars online site. “It’s a very vulnerable hand. I like to risk-minimize when I can, and in a big event like this, I don’t like to play big pots on the flop. I’ll play a big pot on the turn if I believe I have the best hand, because I know I have a lot lower odds of getting sucked out on.”

The turn came the ace of hearts, creating the possibility of trips, a full house or even quads. The early limper bet another $800, now a small amount compared with the size of the pot. Rousso folded her 9-10 face-up.

“He only had two aces left in the deck, so the odds of that ace coming were 4 percent on the turn,” Rousso said. “If it hadn’t come, I would’ve bet big on the turn and gotten him off a pair of aces.

“It was an insta-fold for me because I know now I’m drawing dead. I know he has three aces, and a 9 or a 10 would give him a better full house.

“It’s very difficult for people to get away from two pair because the guy doing the betting didn’t raise pre-flop. It’s hard to put him on an ace there, but it also comes down to experience and knowing when you’re beaten. He showed me the ace.”

Table talk

Sucked out on: To lose after holding the best hand.

Drawing dead: Holding a hand that will lose even if you hit the best possible card.

srosenbloom@latimes.com