Small Stakes Hold em and small profits

[spurgeon]

Stellarwind on another thread made and intersting post. He thinks that WLLHE is the best way to learn to play. You fit or fold on the flop. However, as you become more experienced SSH becomes a better book because you will be able to get small profits from marginal hands such as second or middle pair. I guess the question becomes what are SMALL PROFITS? How much extra money will you make playing the SSH style in a low limit game? If you are only making a very small extra amount of money playing the SSH way, could WLLHE be better because you have less fluctuations?

[Rudbaeck]

I think Stellarwind is overestimating what you'll make playing WLLH. I'd guesstimate that you get 1.5BB/100 playing 'perfect' WLLH, and 3BB/100 playing 'perfect' SSH at 3/6 on PartyPoker.

And I don't think the majority of the difference comes from better play in marginal situations, I think the majority of the difference comes from the SIGNIFICANTLY better hand defense. (While a fair portion comes from the marginal plays off course.)

WLLH has you calling and (even worse) folding in many situations you should raise. This is the major difference imho.

[Gabe]

I agree. If you only want to make a little money, against weak opponents, WLLHE is the way to go. Only read SSH if you want to make more money.

As to you last question, if you like more fluctions, you should follow WLLHE's advice, and only consider SSH if you prefer less.

[Ed Miller]

As to you last question, if you like more fluctions, you should follow WLLHE's advice, and only consider SSH if you prefer less.

Gabe is right, and this is a key point that many here really don't understand. At least if by "fluctuations" you mean "how big a losing streak will I experience"?

The magnitude of your losing streaks is determined both by your winrate and by your standard deviation. The higher your winrate, the faster you will pull out of bad runs. Even though aggressive play increases your standard deviation, it also increases your winrate significantly, and on balance it should give you SMALLER losing streaks.

Again, this is even more true in tougher, more aggressive games. Weak-tight play performs so poorly under these conditions that you might not even be able to win at all. That gives you "infinite" fluctuations. /images/graemlins/smile.gif