Professional No-Limit Holdem SSNL Discussion

[ryanj247]

Just finished reading this, and i'd like to get a discussion going about how to apply the concepts in this book to the games we're playing (primarily online SSNL 6max).

I have a few initial thoughts. I'm interested in discussing these, but i'd also like to hear what everyone else is thinking.

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A good portion of the hands we're playing are the top pair hands with Triskaidekaphobia. With 100BB stacks, our standard 3.5BB opening raise with these hands is likely to get 1-2 callers and that will produce an SPR higher than is comfortable for these types of hands. However, the callers are likely to have similar top-pair type hands. In position, a mid-high SPR like this is perfect for stealing pots from them. In that sense, I feel like SPR explains why 23/20ish with a high c-betting frequency seems to be the sweet spot in our games, and suggests that we're already playing them OK.

That's not necessarily the case, however, for our big pairs. In particular, we likely get ourselves into bad spots with KK far too often. And perhaps some people are setting themselves up for commitment preflop too much with QQ & JJ, hands that don't benefit all that much from that approach.

That said, i really don't see any realistic way to consistently get SPR's down around 4 with AA & KK. 10BB raises are not going to fly.

One way to accomplish this would be to play shortstacked. Doing this would also make it easier to get an SPR of 4 or so pretty often with top pair hands like AK & AQ. But it wouldn't make sense to be raising w/ the intent to steal with the rest of the hands we played. Rather we would just be limping and trying to hit two-pair or better hands with suited connectors, small pairs, and weak top pair hands.

So much of the emphasis of this book is on getting ourselves into easy commitment decisions on the flop. Because of that, i feel like between the lines the book is just screaming that we should be playing with 50BB stacks.

So, does anyone feel this book makes a strong case for transitioning to a "make top pair or better and get your stack in" approach, as opposed to the current "raise in position and steal a lot of pots" approach for SSNL 6max online?

Again, these are just my intitial thoughts. I'm interested to hear everyone's take on the book.


EDIT FROM SUNNY: guys, here are some other PNL-related threads as well....

review thread in Books forum

discussion thread in uNL forum

Full Ring forum thread