[Foreverastudent]

I just want to add my two cents on SSHE, mostly by sharing my own experience with it.

It seems that, for me, when I read a poker book, I don't fully understand all of the concepts in there, misapply them when playing, and then, with some experience under my belt, I reread the book, and say, "OK, now I understand what they're saying." That's kind of the experience I had with SSHE.

SSHE is a great book, and it has made my game very profitable, since right now I can only afford to play at the lower limits with these types of players (3/6 limit). But you can't just read the book and expect to sit down at one of these loose/passive tables and dominate. You need a fair amount of experience with these types of players, understand how they think (or as often is the case, how they *don't* think), learn about their tendencies and habits. For me, a combination of applying the ideas in this book and real-life playing experience has really tightened my game up.

A few more points about some of the other topics you mentioned. You said that you're a tight and aggressive player. That's great, and that shouldn't change when you go to a loose table. With starting hand selection, all that changes at a loose table is that you can loosen up your own calling and raising requirements a *little* (emphasis on little), since a) even once you've loosened up a little bit, your starting hands are still probably better than the majority of hands that your opponents are playing, and b) with many hands, you're getting the pot odds to stay in the hand anyway. But you should *always* be aggressive. Loose tables make tons of bad calls (by far the most common mistake that these players make), and you really need to punish these mistakes by betting and raising when you have an edge, even if you suffer the occasionally expensive and frustrating run of bad luck.

One example from my own experience comes to mind. I'm in middle position with QT spades in a kill pot (i.e. bets are doubled after someone wins two pots in a row). Six people come in with me, and the pot is unraised. The flop comes king-jack-six with one spade on the board. I bet, hoping to buy an out, but I get all six (!) callers. Still not a bad play, since my equity is well over 18% at this point. The turn is a 5 of spades, giving me a flush draw now. I check, and a player two to my right bets out. Three people call, and of course I raise, since I surely have enough equity to justify this play. Everyone is sure that I had a monster at this point. Well, the river is a blank, everyone checks, including me, and I muck the hand immediately. Everyone looked at me like I was nuts, and I felt more than a little pissed at the time that I couldn't hit any of my outs, but that's the way it works sometimes. You've just got to grind it out and keep making these aggressive plays against loose players, and trust me. It will pay off handsomely eventually.

One additional thought. You mentioned 52s and 96s as playable hands at a loose table. Um... yikes! I know that you should loosen up your starting hand requirements, but you shouldn't loosen them up by *that* much. If your cards are low and unpaired, no-gap suited connectors are really all that's playable from middle position under most circumstances at these kind of tables. At best, I think you can play one-gap low suited connectors on the button or the cut off seat, but two gaps is a little bit too loosy-goosy.