[Sunny Mehta]

Excellent questions Binions. FYI, we'll be discussing this topic at length in Volume Two, but here are a few things to think about.

You absolutely hit the nail on the head with the inherent differences of small pairs to suited connectors. Even though most people tend to categorize them both simply as "drawing hands", huge differences arise in how the two hands play out from the flop on. Namely, with a small pair the main "inflection point" occurs between preflop and flop, whereas with sc's often you need all the way from preflop to river.

So it is our opinion that "implied odds" with regards to sc's - that is, the simple looking at "I should call x amount preflop to win y" - are very often misrepresentative, and in fact "effective odds" are much more important. (Actually, that sentence applies to MUCH of nl hold 'em in general.) And that's essentially what SPR is - a numerical "gauge" of your effective odds.

So, as to your specific game scenarios, you're absolutely right that if you don't face pf rr's often, you LIKE those multiway pots of SPR 4 with a small pair. And you're right that that same situation is often suboptimal with sc's - you're better off either just playing them less frequently, or perhaps playing them more with the purpose of stealing and range-masking in mind (you'll have to determine for yourself how viable that is in your games).