Re: How to Study?
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I started off with Lee Jones' book and I regret it. It's too passive. Any book can teach you which hole cards to play but very few books can show you why the TAG minus the AG is useless.
I don't mean to bag on your intelligence, but even though you have read all of those books I doubt you understand the reasoning behind 10% of what the books actually cover. This will come with re-reading and thousands upon thousands of hands.
I know my first time reading SSH my head was spinning. And when I got on the tables a few hours later my head was spinning even more. Read a little SSH, play a little. Read a little SSH, play a little.
You might want to start with Ed Miller's first book if you don't have a lot of hold'em experience. But once you grasp the basic concepts, I say kick the rest of those books to the shelf to collect dust until you have more experience under your belt, or the pages of SSH are ripped from paging through it so much. But even if that happens you may just want to buy it again.
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I don't think I've ever agreed with another post so much in my life. I too started out with Jones' book, which is the main reason I'm here. I'm trying to "relearn" how to play Hold 'Em. I'll never understand why so many people advocate that book. It merely teaches you how to be a VERY passive player. When you use Jones' teachings against aggressive opponents you get absolutely steamrolled. I can't say I lost a lot of many using Jones' methods, but I would routinely play for hours and either break even or lose a little bit.
I also agree with the difficulty with SSH. I've read that book and am re-reading it now and I'm still confused by a lot of it. I think a lot of that has to do with Sklansky being such a mathematical person, whereas I am not by any means. Jones' book is very easy to read and much easier to process than Sklansky's. I will give him that.
I'm still trying to get over the shock of just how different Sklansky and Jones' books are. Oftentimes what would be an automatic fold according to Jones is actually a raise to Sklansky. I only hope I don't confuse myself even more by adopting such a contradictory style.
Long story short though... if I can offer any advice it would be to not get bogged down with reading a ton of books. Or, if you are going to read a lot of books, find an author/style that you like and just read their books. It can be very confusing when you're reading multiple authors when you're starting out. The conflicting information, in my opinion, just isn't worth it.
Good luck and welcome!
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