Value of SSH if already playing past small stakes?

[slavic]

Warik -

I regularly find SSH advice relevant in the local 30/60 and the party 15/30. It likely also applies to the party 30/60 at points but I've never bothered to wait the 6 hours to play at a table. The book forces you to look at those multiway postflop decisions and to make the best play at the time.

It also makes you think about your game as most of Ed's posts tend to do. So as long as your not tide to my way is the right way there is always a nugget or two to find.


-slavic

Note to Typist: Send buy Ed's book letter one. Also make sure the kickback check clears this time. -s

[edrugtrader]

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ill let astroglide eloborate, more his territory.

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whats that territory again? arguing when he is wrong?

[Nate tha' Great]

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hpfap has virtually no application in mid-limit online games

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Not true.

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and ssh is perfect for them.

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True.

[astroglide]

they aren't the tightest games around

[astroglide]

the concepts presented in ssh are not exclusively applicable to loose games either. i would recommend somebody playing in completely tight games to read it as well just because of the great concepts that it clearly presents. i guess i'd tell them to play somewhere else first though. i'd also recommend brier and ciaffone's mid-limit book over hpfap for tight games (to define the type of thinking that goes on against decent players). hpfap is not at all a midlimit online kind of book, ssh is.

[astroglide]

what are multiple specific concepts from hpfap that you can think of that apply to today's games? try to answer without looking, but it's ok to look too. i think there's very very little in there. preflop stuff is mediocre and unenlightening, handling of multiway pots is generally wrong. shorthanded section?

there certainly was huge value in the book before. it's incredible what they were able to produce with just experience and thought at the time it was written. i think it has value now like any poker book has value in that it can point out a minor thing or two or cause you to think more deeply about your game, but i cannot imagine a singular circumstance where i would recommend it over ssh. i also don't know of any games that i would describe as "an hpfap game".

[Lawrence Ng]

Like Astroglide, HPFAP is highly overrated for most of the games nowadays. It's good, but not THAT good.

[Lawrence Ng]

HPFAP assumes that players are good and somewhat aware of what is going on. Most live games I play in don't have players that are that "aware." Thus that book is detrimental to most mid and even some high limit games I play in.

I have a good friend who swears by that book and he dropped over 900 big bets this year.

[chesspain]

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i'd also recommend brier and ciaffone's mid-limit book over hpfap for tight games (to define the type of thinking that goes on against decent players). hpfap is not at all a midlimit online kind of book, ssh is.

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So you don't think HEFAP's section on short-handed games is helpful for the tight and/or short-handed games online where there is a lot of blind stealing?

[MicroBob]

Agree completely with Astro's analysis.

1 - 5/10 and 10/20 are hardly the tightest games around. Do you have opponents routinely going too far with their hands? Do you have opponents making questionable (or just plain bad) cold-calls PF?
I've played some of the 5/10 full and found it to be reasonably tight especially compared to 3/6....but certainly not excessively so.


2 - Even in tighter games (which 10/20 may be, not sure) there are concepts in SSH that are important to either learn, review or think about again.

The fact is, some of the example in SSH aren't entirely appropriate for party 2/4 or 3/6 either.
I've never had a table that was 7-9 players to the flop online....but this happens at B&M's all the time so it is what Ed focuses on.
You also just don't see THAT many unimproved 62o call you down all the way or cap each street with you or whatever. It DOES happed, but probably not as much as B&M.

But SSH is still extremely important for Party 2/4 and 3/6 (just as it should be for 5/10 and 10/20) in many aspects such as pot-odds, couting outs, playing overcards, protecting your hand, jamming the pot, river-play, etc etc.

A lot of players THINK they know these concepts and that they already know these concepts (or at least think they are doing decently with them) and come to some interesting revelation via SSH.


There are some mentions of how your opponents could be playing anything that are slightly more appropriate for B&M games....but the general advice it gives is extremely important if you just have a couple players at your table playing less than ideally.
I know the party 5/10 and 10/20 players are better than 2/4 and 3/6.....but the SSH concepts are still extremely important on these tables.