SSHE starting hands question

[Harv72b]

SSH was written with the B&M game in mind. Typically, even today, small stakes B&M games are a whole lot looser and generally crazier than online ones. This is part of the reason they recommend not raising with ATs from EP, I believe...you are going to be coldcalled too much, and while ATs is a good hand in a multiway pot, it is not a good hand to play for 2+ bets in a multiway pot.

Since the online games are generally much tighter than their B&M counterparts, many players have realized that it's now profitable to raise a wider range of hands from EP, even UTG, because they will not be coldcalled in multiple places--if I'm playing a hand with ATs, I want it to be either shorthanded or for one bet preflop. And, because the online games are generally more aggressive than the B&M games that Ed et al had in mind when writing the book, you cannot often limp ATs from EP because the pot is very likely to be raised behind you. So you get into a raise/fold kind of picture on most online SS tables.

Also, keep in mind that SSH is not meant to be the be all end all of LHE play. The authors point out in the book that not all of the advice they give is good for every situation, and that as you grow more experienced in your play and learn to recognize & take advantage of slight +EV situations, you will start to stray from a good deal of what SSH teaches. The book lays the foundation for the correct way of thinking for a small stakes, limit hold'em player--it is up to all of us to take things to the next level.

What you should be raising from EP should be directly correlated to how tightly the table is playing and how well you feel you stack up against your opponents in the postflop game. If the table is playing so tightly that nobody will enter a raised pot with anything less than a truly premium hand (AA-JJ, AK), then you should be raising quite a few hands from every position (and check/folding a lot of flops when you get 3-bet).

[Fryguy]

Also to add to this is that it says right in the book that the starting hand charts were made suboptimal to make them easier to memorize. A lot of the situations for early and middle position were treated the same, even though this shouldn't be the case, simply for the case of ease of memorization.

After you've been playing for a while you tend to stray quite a bit from the chart.

[7stud]

[ QUOTE ]
SSH was written with the B&M game in mind...

[/ QUOTE ]

In "Small Stakes Hold'em" in the section titled "Why this book" on p.2 David Sklansky writes:

[ QUOTE ]
There were two main reasons we shunned teaching how to beat smaller games...So, what happened to make us reconsider? Simply put it is poker on TV and poker on the Internet...All that needs to be said is that this poker explosion has made small games a viable way to make money. On the Internet you get to play more hands per hour. In fact, because you can play 2 or 3 games at once, you may get to play as many as five times as many hands per hour as in a live game. Plus you don't have to tip.

[/ QUOTE ]

So your statement is patently false.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
Your statement makes me question whether you have ever read "Small Stakes Hold'em" because it is a pure fabrication.

[/ QUOTE ]

Go back and read the rest of the paragraph. Then, read the rest of the book. Then, compare the tables they describe to any online game you're likely to find above the .05/.10 level.

Whatever D.S. writes in the introduction does not change the material contained therein. I have yet to see an online table, even when I was playing .02/.04 way back when, which averaged 6-8 players to the flop. Even the "tight games" tables often do not apply to the online game at the small stakes level, which is why so many people stray from those recommendations.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Your statement makes me question whether you have ever read "Small Stakes Hold'em" because it is a pure fabrication.

[/ QUOTE ]

Go back and read the rest of the paragraph. Then, read the rest of the book. Then, compare the tables they describe to any online game you're likely to find above the .05/.10 level.

Whatever D.S. writes in the introduction does not change the material contained therein. I have yet to see an online table, even when I was playing .02/.04 way back when, which averaged 6-8 players to the flop. Even the "tight games" tables often do not apply to the online game at the small stakes level, which is why so many people stray from those recommendations.

[/ QUOTE ]

You responded to this [censored]-tard much nicer than I would have, Harv...