[Closed] Why SSS doesn't work

Uh, it really does work, and it doesn't even need players calling with trash. The SSS player benefits from dead money, everyone in front of him who is playing an implied odds hand has to fold or make a bad call.

Of course even if the conditions are such that the SSS doesn't work, short stacking in itself won't prevent you from winning, quite the opposite.

Well.. the dead money you do "win" is just enought to last for another 10 hands in which you most probably will not get another good hand, so it really doesn't make that much of a difference to count as "winnings".

Yes, having a short stack won't prevent one from winning, but that's when the person isn't following the SSS.

Play on Titan!
you can play 24h and there are bad players everytime you play

I dont think its -EV playing the SSS yet but i believe it has certain disadvantages.
- It is easy to exploit a shortstack playing the strategy in its most basic form since you can always steal his blinds/read him.
- On the lower limits the strategy has grown very popular : So there are too many shortstacks sitting on the same table as you most of the time , and they are both tight and know how you play , so you wont get any easy value out of them. Plus , the bigstacks are also getting more acquainted with the SSS and tend to adjust their play more than they used to. So it is true that if they know you are tight and only raise very good hands they might fold more often than they used to.
- Also badbeats hurt a bit more imo , because when you are waiting in a table for 20 min to get a hand , and then your AA/KK loses to a random 2 pair or so, it hurts your morale and then you might have to wait for another long time till you get the opportunity to just cover your loss on that table.
But luckily , fish still exist and you can still make money off them. It's just that the fish/table ratio has decreased. Nowadays you see like half players sitting on a Party NL10/25 table being short ♦. I think the best option would be that the SSS players scatter across the various PS cooperating platforms.

Originally posted by Chiller3k
Play on Titan!
you can play 24h and there are bad players everytime you play

Not an option for me, because Titan, for some untold reason, has Estonia as one of the countries who can't play on their site. I did mail them asking for a reason, but they only pointed to their ToS without giving any specific reason as to why.

Originally posted by undercover82
Nowadays you see like half players sitting on a Party NL10/25 table being short ♦. I think the best option would be that the SSS players scatter across the various PS cooperating platforms.

Yeah, my goal is to eventually move to FullTilt, but as the SSS and a huge amount of bad luck has got the best of most of my BR, I'm still far-far away from changing sites.

Why not switch to BSS? It's a step you'll have to take eventually...unless your bankroll can't take that, off course. But it has to be really low then...

Well.. I'll eventually try BSS, but at the moment I think my BR is too low for that (<$100) .. Would have started with BSS, but was a bronze member back then, so had no choice. (SSS has been very negative actual value for me ;))

But for now, I'll start to build my BR with FL again, because I know that. The main reason why I don't want to learn BSS with small BR is that there isn't any insurance I won't continue my downswing there, and then it'd be death to my BR.

Hi Ohmu!

There are enough players in this forum who can assure you that the SSS is profitable and works really well. At the top of them Alaton who plays the SSS with more than 2BB/100 on NL5000. We wouldn't recommend this strategy to beginners if we weren't sure that it works. Otherwise we would cut our own profit, wouldn't we?

Good luck at the tables!
Puschkin81

Hia Puschkin81!

Yes, I know that there are alot of players who are successful at SSS and I do know that Alaton plays it at high limits, but that really makes me wonder if I'm THAT unlucky, Party just hates me or others (excluding Alaton, as he mixes SSS and BSS, as I've heard) have luck at their side.

And wasn't SSS more profitable at the time when it got selected as the first NL strategy to teach the newcommers? True, SSS is still good for learning the basics of poker and not going broke with BSS and those nasty mistakes new players tend to do, but that doesn't change the fact that SSS is not that good anymore.

I agree, i realy am not fond of the SSS at all.. although i do like some aspects... so i tend to mix SSS with a bit of my own play.

SSS is a high variance strategy. 11k hands are just to few hands to be a samplsize which can tell you wether it's profitable or not.

So I guess you are just unlucky at the moment and maybe a few bad plays make your winning even lower. (Everyone makes mistakes especially in the beginning.)

$100 is plenty to play NL5 with a Man's Stack though, since you don't like the SSS (don't blame you, although it works it's hardly interesting or dignified) you'll probably find that stacking the tiddlers there suits you better.

Originally posted by ciRith
SSS is a high variance strategy. 11k hands are just to few hands to be a samplsize which can tell you wether it's profitable or not.

So I guess you are just unlucky at the moment and maybe a few bad plays make your winning even lower. (Everyone makes mistakes especially in the beginning.)

Yeah, I know it's small, but I've tried to make it work between me and SSS, but it's just that I'm not willing to lose any more money to SSS and risk going broke.

Originally posted by howard182
$100 is plenty to play NL5 with a Man's Stack though, since you don't like the SSS (don't blame you, although it works it's hardly interesting or dignified) you'll probably find that stacking the tiddlers there suits you better.

Yes, it might be enough, but I want an insurance (bigger BR) that when another streak of bad luck hits me, I will survive.

you shouldnt need any luck to beat NL5. The play there is very bad and if you have half a clue you should beat it without any troubles. I just checked my stats from when i played NL5 and they are horrible : 35 VPIP , 4.5 PFR , 0.40 AF. Still i was able to beat it easily.

Originally posted by undercover82
you shouldnt need any luck to beat NL5. The play there is very bad and if you have half a clue you should beat it without any troubles. I just checked my stats from when i played NL5 and they are horrible : 35 VPIP , 4.5 PFR , 0.40 AF. Still i was able to beat it easily.

Ok, this is reassuring I might look into BSS very soon in that case!
Thanks for the heads up undercover82!

Honestly, I think it very tough to play the SSS profitable on Party Poker in the microlimits up to NL $50. Even I see that my winrate on NL $50 was decreasing from nearly 3 BB/100 the first 30k hands to 0.75 BB/100 the last 20k hands. Luckily for me I was able to move up then.

Now I only play NL $50 when I coach and its even tougher now there, especially when I´m not allowed to steal the blinds in a beginner coaching. So I´m not sure if the SSS is really + EV anymore for Beginners, who make (big) mistakes when they start, in the micro limits of Party Poker.

For you Ohmu, maybe try to play FL $0.10/$0.20 until you have a BR you feel comfortable with playing NL $5 BSS.

Fl 0,20/0,40 isn´t that easy:D- they always drew out and nothing to do about that. I think that NL 25 SSS is good enough if you know how to steal-there isn´t no other game, where you could play at 12 tables which is quite profitable even at 0,10BB/100 hands ♦

SSS does work for me so far - I only play at nighttime (starts out around 22 normally and continue as long as I feel like.. It normally gets to 800-1k hands a night, then I take a break and decide if I wanna take another run or call it a day.. Sure - you take quite some beats once in a while but in the long run it should pay off it you just think a little of table-selection.. But if you don't feel like playing the SSS, then don't - nothing works out well if you are not comfortable with what you are doing!

Best regards,
Mugge

seriously,

The SSS is profitable altough I don't play it on party anymore. I would like to do it because of the small tables (i like to play 9 tables at a time)

I don't know but I think your making a mistake somewhere. Are you sure you are playing proper?

Maybe you should put more energy in table selection. I know from experience that a table with a lot of bigstacks is such a big differece then a table with more then 3 S.

By the way fixed limit 0,1/0,2 is easy shizzle. Just play tight and don't be afraid to raise with hands like AKo AQo. Just be able to fold 'em. In the long run (short run also) you see that it is really profitable. Often you get called by more then 2 oponents and there is almost always some stupid donkey who calls you till the end to check if you were bluffing or not

succes