Bitter No More? (problems with SSHE starting hand charts)

BitterChris · #1 07-18-2005, 11:17 PM

There is no chart, I just stopped using the one in SSHE. Everything else in the book is great advice, though - it vastly improved my postflop play. I can't give too much away, but if you use everything else you know about poker, you'll do swimmingly. When I bank my first million (not including living expenses and any luxury items I may buy), I'll let everyone else in on what exactly is wrong with it.

That strategy set me back a full year (and I had only been playing seriously for 9 months at the time). I was a 1.5-2 BB winner before I read SSHE, and I'm doing much better now (more than 4BB/hr at 2/4), and I my win rate is much more stable. Ed Miller owes me $384 (which is what I lost from when I started using that preflop strategy, from my StatKing data).

It got to a point where I couldn't even EAT fish for almost three months - I thought it was mocking me (doing the "You can't touch this" dance, like in Shark Tale). I even dropped all the way back down to .25/.50 to try to find my game, and maybe even just play for fun and give up my dream of going pro. Then I noticed that I had to clear a $100 bonus in a week that I had been sitting on for a while, and the only way I could do it was by playing at least 25-30 hours of 2/4 or higher. I coudn't keep doing what I had been so I just decided to try a different style. Needless to say I had a nice salmon dinner the next night, and enjoyed every bite.

So cheer up, everyone who thinks they really are a good, maybe even great player, but their results just aren't showing it - there really is hope!

I am now upgrading my mood level from Bitter (Red) to Sullen (Orange).

- Bitterness is joy with a bad attitude

jstewsmole · #2 07-19-2005, 12:18 AM

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I was a 1.5-2 BB winner before I read SSHE, and I'm doing much better now (more than 4BB/hr at 2/4), and I my win rate is much more stable.

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THis one time, at band camp, we were playing holdem, and my winrate was like 10 BB/100 for like 600 hands.

Chris im beggin u what is ur starting hand chart look like?
Im glad u finaly found the secret to the whole starting hands thing as that is the true secret to poker. I mean everyone knows how to play postflop already.

I just figured winning 2 to 3 bb/100 was running bad. Now i know that i just haveto learn how to play preflop.

One tip i can give about BR management is that whenever i have a winrate that is better than average for the day, i take all the surplus money and just spend i t on expensive dinners and other things to treat myself.

Cause its like free money at that point [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Paxosmotic · #3 07-19-2005, 12:22 AM

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One tip i can give about BR management is that whenever i have a winrate that is better than average for the day, i take all the surplus money and just spend i t on expensive dinners and other things to treat myself.

Cause its like free money at that point [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
Really? That's kinda dumb. Whenever I have a winning session (everytime I sit) I just withdraw the profits since I'm far too good at poker to go on a downswing.

Can't wait to see the PF chart after your first million Chris, hope there's some fish left in the sea for me! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Exsubmariner · #4 07-22-2005, 07:53 PM

That hurt my head.

A_Junglen · #5 07-22-2005, 11:17 PM

Oooo does this magical chart have colors?

Ed Miller · #6 07-19-2005, 01:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
There is no chart, I just stopped using the one in SSHE. Everything else in the book is great advice, though - it vastly improved my postflop play. I can't give too much away, but if you use everything else you know about poker, you'll do swimmingly. When I bank my first million (not including living expenses and any luxury items I may buy), I'll let everyone else in on what exactly is wrong with it.

That strategy set me back a full year (and I had only been playing seriously for 9 months at the time). I was a 1.5-2 BB winner before I read SSHE, and I'm doing much better now (more than 4BB/hr at 2/4), and I my win rate is much more stable. Ed Miller owes me $384 (which is what I lost from when I started using that preflop strategy, from my StatKing data).

[/ QUOTE ]

So my bad preflop advice cost you $384, but my good postflop advice will help you bank a million! That sounds like a pretty good tradeoff to me! So if I owe you the $384 (or, let's say a small percentage of that like 1-5%) then you should definitely owe me a piece of your million! I think one percent is fair!

So from this point forward, let's just say you owe me 1% of your million, or $10,000! You can feel free to pay in monthly installments (with a very reasonable interest rate like, say, 4.25%)! And make sure you deduct the $3.84 I owe you from the first payment!

shant · #7 07-19-2005, 01:40 PM

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! ! ! !

! ! !

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Ed Miller is rad.

666 · #8 07-21-2005, 03:16 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
! ! ! !

! ! !

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Ed Miller is rad.

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Paxosmotic · #9 07-19-2005, 05:37 PM

Oh man that's just comedy [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] Way to laugh off the criticism, Ed.

BitterChris · #10 07-21-2005, 02:13 AM

Sorry, Ed - just being bitter about almost giving up [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img].

Maybe the games have changed since the book was written, but I have just not had any luck with these guidelines. Some players are a lot worse than usual, others are some seriously decent players for 2/4 or 3/6 trying to move up, and of course you have the LAGs and the trappers.

One of the problems with reading two dozen poker books and applying them all is that when things go south, and you reread them to reinforce your learning, if things still don't turn around, you have to figure out what you read that needs adjustment. That adds up to almost 7500 pages for me - that's a lot of thinking to do.

Now I have normal swings, instead of always winning small or losing big, and I am confident that I should have a positive expectation (at the smaller limits at least), because now I can take my bad beats. I saw a guy raise JJ under the gun the other day, his opponent called with 72o and flopped 2 pair (no fooling), the jacks bet all the way down with an overpair in a heads-up pot, the fish didnt even bother to raise him. When he saw that he had lost, he swore and left the table - when the game was excellent. I used to be like that, thinking I lost my profit for the entire day on a hand like that, now I chuckle and increase my buy-in when I get my better hands cracked like that, since I know that they won't stay lucky forever.

Will keep everyone posted.

- Bitterness is joy with a bad attitude