Getting my head around SSHE

[TimsterToo]

Hi I'm a newbie here and I've been playing poker for nearly two months now.

I first bought PPLTP from Hellmuth as it was the only book for sale in Amsterdam :-) I tried it out and lost a lot of money real quick! Might work in B&M games but certainly not in 0,50/1,- on PP.

After doing a lot of searching and reading on the net I decided that SSHE might be the next best step and I've had the book for aprox three weeks.

It might very well be me who's stoopid but I really have to read a bit, play a couple of hundred hands and read some more chapter by chapter to get my head around it. The loose components all make sense but it's hard to apply them all at the same time without breaking out a sweat and having too little time to act.

What I basically do now is trying to apply things step by step. I've been working on my preflop play intensively lately and I think that I now finally have to discipline to follow the chart and am also starting to graps WHY the chart is smart.

Next is the postflop play. I've read all of it but when I'm rereading it carefully now with more played hands under my belt I get a lot of A-HA! moments and see how I've misinterpreted it the first time around. Better understanding is slowly creeping in.

I still start over every couple of days and reread everything to see if I'm still on the right track with earlier concepts as I tend to stray to the dark side every now and again.

My question is if someone has a better approach in getting your learning curve as steep as possible. I sometimes read posts of people (on different forums and RGP) that have read 5 or 6 books of different authors and have only been playing for 6 months and I really don't see how you can cope with the amount of (often contradictory) information and still be able to apply it consistantly and with a good grasp of why you play like that.

Bit of a ramble but hey, I'm new confused and absolutely sure that I can crack this at least at the lower leves. (it will probably cost me some more first though) [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

So there!

Tim

[flopwell]

I think this is a good approach. I am on my third reading of SSHE, and I still find many of the concepts baffling, or at least, hard to apply.

[Guthrie]

With all due respect to our hosts, SSHE is not a very easy read. I doubt I'm the only one who spent many hours and lost a lot of hair trying to put the starting-hand charts into a usable format. However, the information is good and you are definitely on the right track. Read some, play some, repeat, and those "Aha!" moments will come, and come more frequently as you progress.

[Aaron W.]

You're off to a good start. Think of it like preparing for a basketball game (I like basketball -- obviously you can pick whatever sport).

Reading SSH is like running drills. Spend the time to review the hand quizzes so that your mind knows the sorts of reactions it will need to have.

Of course, gametime is actually playing the game. You'll often figure out what you should have done (more often, should NOT have done) after the fact. This is much like that moment after you make a stupid pass, when the ball is in the air and you wish you hadn't let it go.

The often overlooked part is reviewing game footage. This not only reinforces the gametime corrections you wish you could have had (see above), but it helps you to break down your game (and your opponents) so that you can really see the how and why certain plays work. Replying to posts around here has a similar effect, but somehow the process of picking yourself apart has better retention.

[Wetdog]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi I'm a newbie here and I've been playing poker for nearly two months now.

It might very well be me who's stoopid but I really have to read a bit, play a couple of hundred hands and read some more chapter by chapter to get my head around it. The loose components all make sense but it's hard to apply them all at the same time without breaking out a sweat and having too little time to act.

What I basically do now is trying to apply things step by step. I've been working on my preflop play intensively lately and I think that I now finally have to discipline to follow the chart and am also starting to graps WHY the chart is smart.

Next is the postflop play. I've read all of it but when I'm rereading it carefully now with more played hands under my belt I get a lot of A-HA! moments and see how I've misinterpreted it the first time around. Better understanding is slowly creeping in.

I still start over every couple of days and reread everything to see if I'm still on the right track with earlier concepts as I tend to stray to the dark side every now and again.

My question is if someone has a better approach in getting your learning curve as steep as possible. I sometimes read posts of people (on different forums and RGP) that have read 5 or 6 books of different authors and have only been playing for 6 months and I really don't see how you can cope with the amount of (often contradictory) information and still be able to apply it consistantly and with a good grasp of why you play like that.

Bit of a ramble but hey, I'm new confused and absolutely sure that I can crack this at least at the lower leves. (it will probably cost me some more first though) [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

So there!

Tim

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope it's an effective method, because I'm doing it the same way (except I didn't read Helmuth [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ). Every day something new becomes more evident because of using a concept in practice. Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.

[djhoneybear]

I would suggest that another thing you should do is to buy and start using pokertracker as soon as possible. It is easy to think you understand SSH and not notice the wholes in your game for a long time. Pokertracker forces you to evaluate your actual play - it will enable you to recall and post tricky hands and it will give you an advantage over the competition by collecting data on your opponents. This will help you search and destroy wholes in your game.

[grimel]

Buy Gary Carson's "The Complete Book on Hold 'em Poker". Read it. Then try SSHE. I'll buy it from you if it doesn't make SSHE easier to understand. God knows it made "Hold 'em for Advanced easier" which BTW made Hold 'em Poker easier to understand.

BTW, I'm apparently a minority, PPLTP by Hellmuth worked for me. I don't play at PP very often. Mostly UB. Upon reading the intro to SSHE I think I found the reason - he beats it into your head to play TIGHT.

Try Carson's book. He's a better writer. Says mostly the same stuff in a different manner. SSHE is college, Carson is high school. Hellmuth is elementary school, nothing fancy, nothing advanced - it probably won't work very well at anything but the intermediate level (Hellmuth's intermediate portion) on PP (say just a bit above break even).

[tinhat]

[ QUOTE ]
I doubt I'm the only one who spent many hours and lost a lot of hair trying to put the starting-hand charts into a usable format.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't know if you eventually got it, but I made a landscape matrix that's very simple to use. Has the "tight" table recommendations on one side and "loose" on the other. I'd be happy to send it to anyone interested. I don't know if it's copasetic but I'd post it here except don't know how...

[TimsterToo]

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I already have Pokertracker which I'm slowly but surely using more and more. I'm applying it mainly to check out the competition. I've got a 4500 hand database which I'll have to start using to eveluate my play. I just feel that I'm learning so much every day at the moment that hands that are a few days old are obsolete anyways.

The next book I might buy is Theory of Poker as I think it will compliment SSHE instead of get in the way or blatantly contradict it. (I promised myself not to fund Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth any more until they've earned themselves back [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) As soon as I really grasp SSHE it will be early enough to do some reading by other authors to provide myself with second opinions and different viewpoints.

Tim

[mvoss]

I'm doing it much the same way you are, except I read WLLHE by Lee Jones before I read SSHE. This made SSHE much easier to understand. By the way TOP is even more difficult to read than SSH IMO [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]