A sample hand from SSH

[Mroberts3]

I was recently reading SSH for the 3rd time, and I came across a sample hand where I disagreed with the authors’ opinions. Well, I don’t so much disagree as I am uncertain about practically implementing this concept. The hand is on page 163 for those of you with SSH readily available. The example goes like this: you have KK in middle position. Two players limp and the player to your right raises, and you reraise. The button cold calls 3 bets. The blinds fold, and the limpers call. The original raiser caps and everyone calls. The flop is Td 9h 5d.It is checked to the capper who bets, you raise and everyone calls. On the turn, (2s) it is checked to you and you bet with everyone calling. On the river (8s) you bet again and are raised by the button. Everyone folds to you and you call. He shows Jh 7h for a river gutshot that he had along with a back door flush draw on the flop.


OK, now Sklansky and company explain that besides the atrocious preflop call, the button’s play was fine, considering he had decent odds to call for his gutshot and back door flush draw, This I agree with. What I don’t like is how they blame the player with kings for the loss of the pot. Their argument is that he should wait until the turn when the bets are bigger to make raises and protect his hand. While it is true that IN THEORY, a raise on the turn would force the button to make a mistake I believe it is flawed in two ways. 1) The assumption here is that the button would either a)fold and let the hero win the pot or b)make another mistake by calling, and 2) that the hero will have the chance to raise the turn.

As for #1a, we are assuming here that the button is aware enough to fold a 10-1 draw with 8-1 odds, something that is obviously wrong seeing as how he COLD CALLED 3 bets preflop with J-7s. This is clearly wrong, he will certainly call anyway, and the hero will lose a bigger pot.

Now many observant people will say to me Matt, but he is making another mistake by calling and that is what we want. This is true, and I do not dispute this. However, he is only making a tiny error by calling with 8-1 odds for a gutshot. With so many people in the pot implied odds make it more like 9/9.5-10. So we are only forcing him to make a tiny error. But I’m not done yet. ALL of this is paragraph is under the assumption that the hero has the opportunity to raise on the turn. There is no guarantee that the player to his/her right will bet again. Many players would be worried that everyone called their bet and opt to check with a hand like AKs on the turn. If the player does not bet, the hero must and is in the same situation as if he had raised the flop (or close too it) but this time he just gave a free card in a monster pot, which is a disaster according to SSH. (I know many people will say that since you can not protect your hand on the flop anyway that it doesn’t qualify as giving a free card. However, it seems to me that if you forgo your flop equity you are in essence losing a certain fraction of the bets you do not make. I say only a fraction because obviously you won’t win every time.)

What I am trying to get at here is that the button’s ATROCIOUS call preflop is where the hero made his money (and from all the other players with decent but not nearly good enough hands.) It appears that by calling on the flop and raising turn, our hero has only squeezed an itsy bitsy drop of value out of this hand, but in exchange, he offered a free turn card, without a guarantee that he will be able to raise the turn and force other players to make a mistake. Wouldn’t it be just as effective and easier (especially if one is 2,3, or 4 tabling as many 2+2ers do) to play the way the hero did?

I Hope I didn’t make too many enemies with this post, my intent is not to bash SSH, it is my bible, but I just think that the book over thinks this situation too much. Perhaps this play makes more sense at higher limits, or to be more precise tighter games, but in that case we wouldn’t see someone cold call 3 bets with J7s Maybe sometimes luck just plays more of a factor in a hand than we would like.