Is it still such a Super System?

[Firetrap]

Hi guys,

I play anywhere from $0.5/1 – 2/5 n/l holdem.

Until recently my main source of information/inspiration was pot limit and no limit poker by Ruebens and Ciaffone. The style Ciaffone recommends suited me, I’m very patient and pretty observant and im certainly not scared to put my chips in the middle either when im sure im winning or im sure a bluff has a strong chance to be successful. In short pretty tight and reasonably aggressive, and successful enough to make a living at.

That book gives a lot of conceptual information and I’d always found my play a bit hit and miss with play on various flops – not recognising a really dangerous flop for my aces for example, prob because I went str8 to this game from 7 stud. So recently while looking for ways to improve my game I came across a book I’ve had a long time have but had never really read……..Super System.

After I read it, it made a lot of sense to me – it allowed me to mix up my hands a lot more than I had been, making me harder to read; allowed me to play a few more hands than I had; and to take on a bit more aggressive style than I had been using – watching the more consistant winners it seemed they were more aggressive than I was, especially in the face of reraises and on 4th and 5th street.

So I memorised the general guidelines on the types of hands that it recommends and began to play in line with it – long story short – result, ive had my worst month ever, im still scraping a little profit but in comparison to my usual results its bad.

I play in more pots, and I would imagine that I am winning a lot more pots than in the past. The main concept that I got from the book was that you win lots of little pots which help pay for the big pots and you get to freeroll them. This is fair enough but im not winning anywhere near my share of the big ones - I’ll say that this is one of the worst months I can remember for bad beats eg AK v KQ allin on K835…..river Q.

My question is do you think it is still as relevant and effective as it was for Doyle Brunson when it was written. Also having picked up Harrington on Holdem , it is very simplistic in comparison. Do any of you guys use only the guidelines from super system, and if so have you found it to be very successful for you? Do you think I should give it another month or revert to a more conservative approach again?

Thanks,
Firetrap

[soah]

SS assumes that your opponents are competent.

[wall_st]

I find that the principles in Super systems work extremely well when in the following two scenarios:

- You are playing short handed
- You have a huge stack in comparison to the rest of the table

I personally have read the book but am very good at emulating the style recommended in the book. One of my roommates on the other hand is extraordinary at emulating the style and has been very successful with it. However I should note that he is much more a gambler than I am.

I think the biggest asset of the book's style is that you can get away with some big bluffs but sometimes (And in the right spots if you are lucky) your opponents will call you down with inferior hands.

Don't worry bout the bad beats, they come and go as you know, if it makes you feel and better I just had AA cracked to a runner runner royal flush after putting all of my chips in the pot with the best hand. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[BobboFitos]

I dont know what others say, (I'm posting this after bombing out in 5th of a 109 PS tourney... wow... SO BAD...) when I first started playing with my friends, we played .5 - 1 blinds with the average buy in 30 dollars.

Yeah, no joke, 30 bets. Some people bought in more, (I bought in 40, and I would think I was the man) and some people only bought in 25. (The min) Doyle's system was GREAT in this structure; every pot I picked up was a big % of money out there.

Being that the blinds were so high in proportion to the buy in, and I was literally betting everything, for someone to take a stand they pretty much had to move in, which made every decision easy. Yeah, no idea why we bought in so little vs the blinds...

Anyways, in "deeper" stacked games, or atleast semi normal, if you're constantly throwing your money around like Doyle suggests, and players really "play back at you," the problem is you run into a large share of hands, and the small pots do NOT cover the large ones. When I first started online poker, at the little 1cent/2cent, (where the players have an enormous # of blinds, not sure why they do it) I definately tried to bring my "knowledge" (having only read S/S) and apply it, and it really didn't work. I lost almost 6 dollars of my initial 10 dollar stake before things turned around!

The other big thing about S/S is that Doyle's advised image is a bonus two fold: You pick it up when no one has anything and ALSO gets you to play large pots when you DO have the best of it. However, in online poker when there are tons of players rotating in and out, image isn't a big deal. (ESPECIALLY lower limits where people dont even notice other players!) So you dont really get paid off in places where you should, and you dont get to pick up alot of the small pots he says you should be able to pick up.


All that said, I recommend S/S first to any friend who wants to learn the game, because without aggression, you can't be a winning player. (Well, unless you're in a game of maniacs, and you keep calling down with the best hand...)

Lately playing 6 max I've adopted more a Brunson-esque approach, I guess you could say, but I still haven't mastered the art of reraising with low pair. I guess I'm still a little bit of a pussy in that regaurd [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[TiK]

[ QUOTE ]
This is fair enough but im not winning anywhere near my share of the big ones - I’ll say that this is one of the worst months I can remember for bad beats eg AK v KQ allin on K835…..river Q.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're playing good poker, most of your losing hands should be bad beats...you gotta get your money in when you have the best hand, like with the AK v. KQ example you gave...KQ is a dominated hand...that's exactly the kind of situation you want.

and re: Super System

The games described are pretty dated, but the concepts are still applicable, just that the games described in it are nothing like the games we may find today.

[Kaz The Original]

I've save you the money.

Play a lot of marginal hands, pick up draws, and bet - three bet all in.

The end.