Lee Jones has warped my brain

[k_squared]

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That deep understanding that I got today when I finally understood why you have to pack the pot on the flop with a four to a flush.

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I'd hope what SSH has taught you is to evaluate each hand and make the appropriate play. To always jam a flush draw regardless of the number of players, the tone of the flop, or other situational considerations would be just as bad as always check-calling.

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now that is a good point! Poker is complicated and if you always do something when you have a particular kind of draw then you are going to be doing something wrong some of the time. Your play needs to be informed by the factors that re involved in the game, i.e. your opponents, the texture of the flop etc.

That being said, there are certainly times to jam pots with flush draws! and there are times to play them passively... and knowing the difference is where the really good players make money.

-K_squared

[droolie]

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Start saying to yourself, "How can I get my competitors to fold their hands?" and you'll be cured. That's SSH.

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Nah, I think it's more like "How can I win more big pots and get my competitors to pay me off the most?"

Why would you want them to fold when they'll be more than happy to pay you off with 2nd best hands?

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The pots are usually big enough to start aggressively trying to win on the flop at micros. If you worry about building pots and getting paid off you'll start slowplaying and losing pots you should win. Attacking will build pots and assure wins.

[Rudbaeck]

Read hands. Post hands. Discuss hands. Read good books.

[frank_iii]

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The pots are usually big enough to start aggressively trying to win on the flop at micros. If you worry about building pots and getting paid off you'll start slowplaying and losing pots you should win. Attacking will build pots and assure wins.

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Who said anything about slowplaying?!?! They're not going to fold so you should be relentlessly betting/raising for value.

I suspect we're in complete agreement in the end.

But it remains that the central focus of an aggressive "SSH style" isn't to get your weak opponents to fold...it's to get them to pay you off when you have the best of it.

[David Steele]

You wrote:
The hand posts I've seen here with four to a flush on the flop have the poster jamming the pot like crazy. Coming from WLLH I considered that insane.


Lee Jones wrote:
WLLH P. 85 Playing When You flop ... Draw
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In fact you are often in a position where you can bet or raise your draws for value. .... Thus your goal is to get as many players as possible to put in as many bets as possible

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So what gives? You didn't read Lee Jones very carefully and I doubt you read the other more advanced books carefully.
I suggest you study a bit harder.

D.

[Kellon]

Thanks. Now I don't have to dig out my copy of WLLH and do the same. I don't recognize the book I studied initially from the OP. True, I'm working on SSHE now, but I certainly don't see the former as anything worse than learning the first couple sets of scales.

[bobbyi]

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Everytime I get a flush draw on the flop I bet. But if it is raised back to me, I don't reraise. Just this has cost me a fortune. And its all because of that fecking book.

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I don't see how this is Lee Jones's fault. His book does a good job of explaining why you should be jamming with draws. If you weren't doing it, it has nothing to do with how good the book is.

[waynethetrain]

I read the Jones book 3 times and often raise and re-raise the nut flush draw on the flop. It's often a good value with 2 or more players (some exceptions). I don't recall Jones saying you shouldn't raise and re-raise. That was your idea. WLLH is an excellent book. It is not as detailed as SSHM, but it's still exellent.

If anything I think most of the SSHM fans should go back and re-read the Jones book a few times because I think the aggression presented in SSHM has been taken to an unprofitable extreme by many that post here regularly. That's why your results are suffering. Mine did also when I first read SSHM a few times. Then I went back to the Jones book and my profits zoomed back up again.

At best some of that excess aggression is gaining extra pennies per hour at the cost of much greater variance and at worst it is costing money and adding greater variance.

There is a time for aggression, but the correct answer isn't always "raise".

[Derek in NYC]

It is the best beginner book out there, although I have not read my copy of ITH. SSH is a terrible beginner's book. Somebody else posted, and I agree, that the best progression should be WLLH, MLH, SSH, TOP.

[Moss Factor]

You think Jones has warped your mind? The first poker book I read was "Play Poker Like the Pros." Yeah, unlearning that 3-betting with 55 preflop is a bad idea didn't take long, but there are still some concepts that took me a long time to forget.