SSHE... Here's the deal (Long Post)

This post is long, I am looking for constructive feedback /images/graemlins/smile.gif

About 2 years ago I purchased Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones after getting sick of emptying my entire bankroll into the hands of other players at the table. I have probably read through that book about 15 times and I started to memorize what sentence was after the one I was reading. I was very successfull playing the WLLH "tight passive" type of poker and was satisfied with my win rate at the local 3/6 tables.

(By tight passive I mean not as aggressive as sshe advocates. WLLH 3e is notably more aggressive than the 2nd edition and I have noticed alot more aggressive play due to the revisions made with draws/ Big but middle pairs)

Fast forward to about 1 month ago. I began reading small stakes hold'em and was pretty excited about implementing this aggressive style into my game. I have read through the book 2 times now, and besides the quiz answers I have memorized, I get about 80% of the answers right in the back of the book. But here is the deal...

When i get to the table I seem to go ass-retarded. I know the concepts and I think i understand them for the most part, it's just that I have a major hard time implementing them in the correct situation.

Is this due to the (seems like) millions of hours of reading and playing a weak-tight game?

To make a long story short, every time I have tried to implement SSHE concepts I fail miserably and go home broke. My questions...

1. At what point did you "get" the play style of SSHE and actually turn a profit from its concepts? Did you also start out playing a weak-tight game?

2. Were the concepts at first difficult for you to grasp or did it come naturally?

3. Is it at all reasonable to play a WLLH style game and continue to win at small (3/6) or medium stakes (6/12, 10/20) ? I know books like Middle Limit Holdem teach a weak-tight style and are held in pretty good regards.

[Depalma]

If you were a winning player, then you just need to implement some of the concepts into your game. Don't try to grasp too much all at once. Trying to do it all at once is basically taking your game, tearing it down, and starting from scratch. You don't need a total reconstruction, just a remodeling.

Take it one concept at a time. Read about it, think about it, and when you feel you understand it, put it into your game. Look for situations where you can use the new concept. You may end up overusing it at first, but this is OK because this is how you are going to be able to determine in the future situations where these plays will and won't work. Once you have are comfortable with this new tool and have made it part of your game, reach back into your SSHE toolbox and grab another one, study it, think about it, put it into practice. Before you know it you will have implemented all the new concepts into your game without a the shock of drastic change. Let your game evolve.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Let your game evolve.

[/ QUOTE ]


yup.

think about your game.
think about the hands you played (and are playing).
think about the different ways you could have played EACH hand. You ALWAYS have options. Think about whether a different approach for that hand might have been better.

Continue to read. continue to analyze. continue to improve.

Become a THINKING and ANALYTICAL poker-player.
Get out of ABC-straight-forward ALL the time play and really THINK about what you're doing.

[MyTurn2Raise]

Think Tiger Woods...he completely reconstructed his swing and backtracked for a few years to return better.

I'm still learning SSHE everyday though I've read through it ten plus times. Also, think concepts, concepts, concepts. You can get by knowing just what to do at the lower limits, but the why will have you adjusting properly and crushing games.

I find the best way to study is similar to the way Roy Cooke's 7card stud book suggests. Take one lesson and read through it a few times. Then spend a day implementing that lesson. Notice hands were it came up. Post confusing hands on the small stakes forum. In addition, search the small stakes forum and read the hands. There are quite a few SSHE disciples on the page.

WLLH will beat most 10/20 games, but it's not optimal. SSHE will have people shaking their heads. Many people at the local card room refer to me as "King Raise" in a disparaging manner never figuring out how I routinely cash out as one of the biggest winners.

Middle limit Holdem is great for the practice hands and reading the board, but it's suggestions are just to weak-tight IMO.

[Steve00007]

You stated that you read through the book twice. It's hard to see how one could implement the concepts into their game after only reading it twice. You probably just haven't studied the book enough.

[Hellmouth]

[ QUOTE ]
This post is long, I am looking for constructive feedback /images/graemlins/smile.gif

About 2 years ago I purchased Winning Low Limit Hold'em by Lee Jones after getting sick of emptying my entire bankroll into the hands of other players at the table. I have probably read through that book about 15 times and I started to memorize what sentence was after the one I was reading. I was very successfull playing the WLLH "tight passive" type of poker and was satisfied with my win rate at the local 3/6 tables.

(By tight passive I mean not as aggressive as sshe advocates. WLLH 3e is notably more aggressive than the 2nd edition and I have noticed alot more aggressive play due to the revisions made with draws/ Big but middle pairs)

Fast forward to about 1 month ago. I began reading small stakes hold'em and was pretty excited about implementing this aggressive style into my game. I have read through the book 2 times now, and besides the quiz answers I have memorized, I get about 80% of the answers right in the back of the book. But here is the deal...

When i get to the table I seem to go ass-retarded. I know the concepts and I think i understand them for the most part, it's just that I have a major hard time implementing them in the correct situation.

Is this due to the (seems like) millions of hours of reading and playing a weak-tight game?

To make a long story short, every time I have tried to implement SSHE concepts I fail miserably and go home broke. My questions...

1. At what point did you "get" the play style of SSHE and actually turn a profit from its concepts? Did you also start out playing a weak-tight game?

2. Were the concepts at first difficult for you to grasp or did it come naturally?

3. Is it at all reasonable to play a WLLH style game and continue to win at small (3/6) or medium stakes (6/12, 10/20) ? I know books like Middle Limit Holdem teach a weak-tight style and are held in pretty good regards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I once had a teacher who said that if you do something repeatedly until it is a habit, to unlearn the habit you need to ...

Do that thing differently as many times as it took to form the habit then do that thing the same number of times correctly to form a new habit. It takes time.

Also you may be looking at a swing in varience where you are making the correct play but just getting the worst of it.

Try to absorb and implement one strategy at a time. Dont go crazy and do the whole book at once.

Also until you really know what you are doing, I suggest using a tighter starting hand requirement so that you have less marginal decisions to make.

Good Luck,
Greg

[amulet]

The above response are terrific, therefore, i will not reiterate their responses. Howeveer, one additional point, SSH is NOT for beginers. It is very advanced. Make certain you completely understand the concepts, and slowly add them to your game. Slowly.

[flair1239]

The problem is you have all these new toys and you can't wait to use them.

Think of it this way. Out of every 100 hands in a full game, you will fold about 80-85% of them automatically.

Depending on the game texture, of the 25% of the pots that you are involved in you will probably fold about 30-40% of those relatively painlessly on the flop.

Of the remaining 15 hands or so, most of them will be pretty straight forward, lets say 75% of them (depending on game texture. So realistically, you get a chance to think about making an "expert" play about 5-7% of the time. Factor in some of these plays will be "expert" folds, and you see that it is a pretty small percentage of your hands where things get reaaly complicated.

Which is not to say that SSH only applies to a small percentage of hands, concepts like hand protection, and calling liberally in large pots are important. But my point is that a large percentage of the time, solid straightforward, fundamental play is what you will be using.

Like others have said, don't adopt it all at once.

Winning big pots is one I'd look at first. Go aggro when the pot is really large, protecting your hand.

[MyTurn2Raise]

ooohhhh....that's interesting....we should have a favorite part of the book debate

My guess is "it depends" LOL

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
Think of it this way. Out of every 100 hands in a full game, you will fold about 80-85% of them automatically.

Depending on the game texture, of the 25% of the pots that you are involved in you will probably fold about 30-40% of those relatively painlessly on the flop.

Of the remaining 15 hands or so, most of them will be pretty straight forward, lets say 75% of them (depending on game texture. So realistically, you get a chance to think about making an "expert" play about 5-7% of the time. Factor in some of these plays will be "expert" folds, and you see that it is a pretty small percentage of your hands where things get reaaly complicated.

Which is not to say that SSH only applies to a small percentage of hands, concepts like hand protection, and calling liberally in large pots are important. But my point is that a large percentage of the time, solid straightforward, fundamental play is what you will be using.

[/ QUOTE ]


Something about this post bothered me.
Basically, I think many players underestimate the frequency at which one is departing from 'normal straight-forward' play to apply something that is possibly better EV.


Many of the 'straight-forward' players make tons of mistakes...in fact, sometimes on EVERY round.


Lots of players who don't get TOO out of line would both the following simple situation:
UTG raises,
You are UTG+1 with ATo or AJo and cold-call (generally a mistake)


Here's another situation that I was just reading through (and it reminded me of this post)...

semi-typical game (maybe 15/30)
UTG raises, you have KhQh and cold-call....SB also calls.

3 players see a flop of 852 with 2 hearts.

SB checks, UTG bets, your correct play is probably to raise.

How many 'generally straight-forward' players 3-bet this pre-flop? (a handful I would say...although probably not many).
How many of them fail to raise this flop? (many many of them I believe).

I think that a good TAG player is deviating from straight-forward or weak-tight play more often than many players think.

There are just so many opportunities out there for deeper-level thinking of the SSHE or Weighing The Odds variety where you going beyond straight-forward play and thinking in terms of 'is betting for value or going for a check-raise better EV?' or 'do i just check-fold this crappy river....or is there value in attempting a bluff here?'.

Stuff like that happens ALL the time as I am learning more and more (especially from my time at the 6-max tables).

And once you start to get the hang of some of that +EV stuff from SSHE and it becomes kind of routine...then it can go even deeper than that.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Think of it this way. Out of every 100 hands in a full game, you will fold about 80-85% of them automatically.

Depending on the game texture, of the 25% of the pots that you are involved in you will probably fold about 30-40% of those relatively painlessly on the flop.

Of the remaining 15 hands or so, most of them will be pretty straight forward, lets say 75% of them (depending on game texture. So realistically, you get a chance to think about making an "expert" play about 5-7% of the time. Factor in some of these plays will be "expert" folds, and you see that it is a pretty small percentage of your hands where things get reaaly complicated.

Which is not to say that SSH only applies to a small percentage of hands, concepts like hand protection, and calling liberally in large pots are important. But my point is that a large percentage of the time, solid straightforward, fundamental play is what you will be using.

[/ QUOTE ]


Something about this post bothered me.
Basically, I think many players underestimate the frequency at which one is departing from 'normal straight-forward' play to apply something that is possibly better EV.


Many of the 'straight-forward' players make tons of mistakes...in fact, sometimes on EVERY round.


Lots of players who don't get TOO out of line would both the following simple situation:
UTG raises,
You are UTG+1 with ATo or AJo and cold-call (generally a mistake)


Here's another situation that I was just reading through (and it reminded me of this post)...

semi-typical game (maybe 15/30)
UTG raises, you have KhQh and cold-call....SB also calls.

3 players see a flop of 852 with 2 hearts.

SB checks, UTG bets, your correct play is probably to raise.

How many 'generally straight-forward' players 3-bet this pre-flop? (a handful I would say...although probably not many).
How many of them fail to raise this flop? (many many of them I believe).

I think that a good TAG player is deviating from straight-forward or weak-tight play more often than many players think.

There are just so many opportunities out there for deeper-level thinking of the SSHE or Weighing The Odds variety where you going beyond straight-forward play and thinking in terms of 'is betting for value or going for a check-raise better EV?' or 'do i just check-fold this crappy river....or is there value in attempting a bluff here?'.

Stuff like that happens ALL the time as I am learning more and more (especially from my time at the 6-max tables).

And once you start to get the hang of some of that +EV stuff from SSHE and it becomes kind of routine...then it can go even deeper than that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bob,

Your first example is an obvious error that a player with a grasp of solid fundamentals would never make. It would never occur to me to CC a UTG raise with ATo or AJo. If I really had zero respect for the PFR I would three-bet.

Your second example, while pre-flop is open to discussion, I have a hard time believing that a player with a solid grasp of fundamental concepts, would not raise this flop... unless there were some sort of specfic reads on the players involved.

Maybe it is the use of the term "straight forward" that bothered you. Maybe your mind would be soothed more if you noted in my OP I said "Solid straightforward, fundamental play". In my opinion folding the first hand, and raising the 2nd flop are examples of good straightforward fundamental play.