[Closed] SSS Strategy Question

Simple anwser to the JJ, Go all in....

Simple anwser for 99, fold...

Basic SSS to keep you out of difficult decisions after the flop are above.

Without stats and knowledge of your experience at SSS, there is no other way to provide alternatives...

Thank you Ultifanatic, I appreciate your advice, especially as I am only 2000 hands in and negative BB/100 at the moment and only want to improve! I am following the BBS guide at the moment but... I am also following the following rules:

"If you are BB and a late position or SB raises or raises all-in, you should re-steal with 88-AA, AJ,AQ,AK.

If you blind steal and BB re-steals, you should go all-in with 99-AA, AJ,AQ,AK. I've been following this since I saw the video (this is not in the standard SSS document). I have lost a couple of times when the BB has had a decent hand such as QQ,KK to my 99+

Should I be 'blind-stealing' and 'blind-resteals'. I felt like without doing this my BB/100 didn't have a chance of being positive as my normal re-raise hands are only JJ+ & AK.

As a new player - I find players raising before me, or re-raising me annoying when i have a hand like TT and feel I had a chance of winning, but I just want to follow a guaranteed strategy until I break even! :-P

Same here, i cant see how sss with basic strategy can be profitable. For me its like that: 800 hands =-5$ 400hands=-2,5$ and 200 hands=-1,25$ with that strategy. I usually get around 1 hand to play in like 10 minutes. And if i dont hit on the flop, i have to fold. Blinds are eating my money. I stopped playing sss, waste of money. Atleast with basic bronze strategy.

@lauri1 - If you don't hit the flop you don't necessarily have to fold - read about continuation bets, they'll earn you tons of money!

@Teyiebuns - if I were you I wouldn't try any steals and resteals until I get comfortable playing the very basics. 2000 hands is a tiny sample, don't draw any conclusions from it. Until you get a better feel of the game, players ranges and so on you should be good with the basic strategy on microstakes.

Originally posted by Ultifanatic
Simple anwser to the JJ, Go all in....

Simple anwser for 99, fold...

Basic SSS to keep you out of difficult decisions after the flop are above.

Without stats and knowledge of your experience at SSS, there is no other way to provide alternatives...

+1

completely agree. Stick to the chart as much as you can until you are confortable. I have folded on the BB with AQ before because the SB was stealing but the stats I had from the SB were telling me that over a decent sample (400 hands +) that SB had no steal history. So it all depends on what you can tell of that player. If you feel that it is a steal go all in if you think it is genuine fold, if you don't know FOLD

I would not worry about -ve BB/100 over such a small hand sample. playing SS can be very sickening at times and you have to have the stomach for it. It is very to lose 10 BI in no time because of a bad run. I have had a session with 6 tables open where I had no hands for nearly an hour. folded nearly everything then suddenly I got AA and 3 QQ on the screen at the same time. the AA lost to a straight. the QQ lost to KK, A10 (hit A on flop) and AQ (hit A on flop).

My advice is keep playing, accept variance as part of the game, follow Poker Strategy's advices as well as you can. As you progress through the levels you will uncover new articles expanding your play. There is no harm in experimenting a little (as long as it is a little )

good luck with your game

SSS has a pretty high variance because of many situations where you go in with a flip. A friend of mine who's doing this in NL200 once showed me a graph where he had lost $5000 on pure flips. And this was in a timeframe of like 5 days or something.

Also, sss works *only* with a very long period of time. You can easilly lose a lot before that winning streak comes. One sick thing about poker is that you can actually play 10k hands and still run bad just because of bad luck.

lauri1 -> I do not think you have read or fully taken in the SSS basic articles. Against 1 opponent, you should be making a Cbet the majority of the time. Unless it is a scary board where you have 6 ours compared to a possible 19 for an opponent. Like 6,7,8 suited....against your AJo....

Teyiebuns -> Going all in with hands like that should show a profit over the course of time if you do not end up playing reglars alot. That being said, Stats/notes are still the only way to affectively steal/re-steal blinds, no matter what strategy you are playing.
There is no need to blind steal or resteal at micro limits....You may only show a profit of 1-1.5bb/100 but a profit is still a profit. Only when you get into high micro limits or low limits do you need to open your game up to stealing, since that is when people are not just playing the cards. At nl2, 90% of the players have no clue about anything but that big ace in there hand even if the other card is a 2...
You are right to fold the TT to a raise in front of you. That is until you stop thinking you might have a chance to win the hand with it. Holding that TT with a raise in front of you....you should be thinking, I know this guy will raise with XX+ hands, my TT is even against those hands preflop. Plus I know that if I smooth call him preflop he has a high fold to a 3bet on the flop if he semi hit and will check if he does not have atleast TP. These are thoughts you should be having about beating this villain, not that you might have a chance at winning....

A few last points...

SSS, if you do not have rakeback or a bonus or VIP status....go to another site where you get that. It will help with your BR, you mental state(seeing your money increase even if you are losing at the table while you are still learning the ropes) and your ability to move up limits.

Poker is about the long haul. Since SSS is about the small edge of playing premium hands, the strategy is set explicitly for the long haul. Do not expect the simple strategy of SSS to develop in anything less than 10-20 thousand hands and that is only the beginning.

Last, SSS is to teach you that learning poker is a stepped process. The 1st step is BRM. The 2nd step is what cards NOT to play. The 3rd Step is how to play BEFORE the flop......and so on until you play all the streets with a variety of tactics and styles. Just realize that learning basic SSS in poker is learning to count from 1 to 10 in the world of mathematics. You can do alot of things in this world with the knowledge of counting from 1-10...you can do more when you graduate to addition or subtraction but if you never learn the number 3 comes after 2 and before 4, then you will ultimately fail at addition.

Thank you Ultifanatic+others! for your excellent insightful reply!

I am feeling more confident now, and realise you are completely right. I have played 10,000 more hands (still not much but I am feeling more confident now!) and I am only 0.23BB/100 down now! hehe so overall I am up including rake bonuses :-P

I am going to continue playing the SSS for a couple of hours a day for several weeks and see how it goes, and start watching the higher level videos for more advanced strategies as I feel ready for them.

I completely understand your 1,2,3->10 comment and feel I am getting the hang of counting now, maybe on 2 going on 3 out of 10 :-p

At first I was just worried I was doing it wrong and looking for the perfect strategy, now I am starting to realise there is no perfect strategy in poker and you've just gotta get on with it and learn from experience to an extent :-P

Thanks for your advice and good luck to you on the tables :-)

The one other thing you will realize is that when you get to 4 or 5 in the ladder for SSS, then you will see 10 other ladders pop up in front of you.

For BSS, advance SSS, Short handed play, HU, MTT, Omaha....

But not only that but better bank roll managment, pshycology, mathematics, personal growth, etc etc...

All these ladders lead to the ultimate goal of being a good poker player...the thing is most fish will never realize that the cards, the money and the fame really mean nothing when learning and getting better with poker.

Enjoy the game, the challenge, the learning....and what ever else you get out of it...

Originally posted by Ultifanatic
The one other thing you will realize is that when you get to 4 or 5 in the ladder for SSS, then you will see 10 other ladders pop up in front of you.

For BSS, advance SSS, Short handed play, HU, MTT, Omaha....

But not only that but better bank roll managment, pshycology, mathematics, personal growth, etc etc...

All these ladders lead to the ultimate goal of being a good poker player...

+1 great and wise words completely agree

Originally posted by Ultifanatic
the thing is most fish will never realize that the cards, the money and the fame really mean nothing when learning and getting better with poker.

Enjoy the game, the challenge, the learning....and what ever else you get out of it...

the cards, the money and the fame mean nothing? hmmm the cards ok it is more on how you play them but still rather get the rockets anytime of the day ♦.

But the money.....

and the fame... well the fame would be nice as well ♦ ?

♠_cool:

I like the words though. they sound very wise