I was checking my "Marginal Hands" statistics today, and 'marginal' for me is anything below AJo/ATs, pairs under 5's and the suited connectors.

Well I decided to sort them according to highest BB/hand and lo and behold, these are the highest scorers:

JTs: 6.44bb
44: 2.83bb
T9s: 2.81bb
98s: 2.48bb

Now those are some nice profits! Hell, I only make more than 6bb on AA and KK, meaning that JTs beats both QQ and AKs in pure profitability for me. And to my surprise, I have a vpip of over 95 with those SC's. Obviously I have *not* been folding them as often as I should(?) have...

Interestingly, none of the profits come from showing down a flush. The big pots that have been won at showdown has all been either by straights (most common) or trips.One of the reasons JT is so successful is that when you hit your nut straight, someone will often have hit at least TP, but more often top two or even a set, if they raised preflop. My biggest pot with JTs is against AA and Q5(!) on the board Q5KA4. I've always prefered straights over flushes because they are less obvious and thus easier to get paid off, this seems to be very true in these cases.

Oddly enough, I don't make near as much profit from the *unsuited* versions of these hands (and I don't see anywhere near as many flops with tyem), now I am wondering if that is because of the semi-bluff possibility of flushdraws, or simply because I never call a raise with unsuited connectors...

I read an article in CardPlayer that discussed J10 at length and extoled the virtues of this undervalued hand. I can't find the article on the CardPlayer web site. I'd love to read it again.
J10s is a big loser for me and I'd like to see if I'm doing something wrong.

Out of 10,000 hands, I got it just 32 times. VP$IP on J10s is 66% for a net loss of (.88)BB/hand.

The sample is so small, it's hard to make much of it. I know that there are many losers and few winners.

I did notice that J10o has a VP$IP of 61%, 101 times dealt for a net loss of (.50)BB/hand. I think I found a $30 leak...

In the way way back, some people theorized that JTs was the best hold'em hand. Math geeks fixed that error with statistical data. It is still a really good hand that has the virture of all my favorite hands, it is easy to get away from when things go sour.

I first noticed that it was worth a button raise playing limit when there are 4 or 5 limpers. NL I don't auto-call a raise with it or raise it myself, but definitely take a flop in unraised pots or raised pots with reason.

Well, I love 98s (as well as 54s-87s), but I've really gotten away from JTs and T9s.

A lot of the aspects have been discussed, but, if they're doing well, then I think the key has to be realizing that if you hit something like TP with these hands, you have absolutely nothing. I'd be willing to believe that you can play them for a profit if you can avoid any temptation to get involved with them for TP (or at least only to extreme weakness and never getting in at all deep), just play them for straights like any other suited connector.