Greetings all, I'm a new limit hold'em player, I've got a few thousand hands of NL and ~500 hands of PLO under my belt so I'm still pretty new. I've discovered I live near a bunch of limit hold'em games and wanted to give them a shot live, but wanted some practice online before I put some money down in a casino.

I've bought and done one read through of SSHE by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth. First question, is this book still relevant? The opening ranges are quite tight, but I've gleamed that's how limit is played. I'm going to go through each section again and take notes to better absorb the information.

How relevant is this book for online play? I've started playing online a bit when games are running and sometimes there are some tighter regs (VPIP/PFR ~28/18ish) and other times a lot of fish.

How relevant is the protecting your hand section? Is this still something people do profitably? Live and online?

I'm sure I can think of others. I guess, is this book still relevant is the question.

It was a good read for sure but it's been a long time since I read it. I'm sure s lot of the concepts still apply but maybe some of the specific play's do not. Throw out a few specific examples and we can discuss.

Unfortunately, limit holdem instructional information fell off the Earth about 5 years ago. I think this book is as good as any to get the limit mindset going. It's probably take some trial and error on your part at the beginning. Start posting hands you are not sure about. Maybe click on some older posts.

I also haven't played online in many years. If you are playing at limits 1/2 or higher, I think this book probably doesn't apply. If you are playing live 8/16 or lower it probably still can apply.

Very relevant for live play IMO. Live limit players up to 8/16 are full of loose passive fish. Follow the pre flop guides and you'll have a huge range advantage over everyone. Follow the aggressive approach recommended by SSHE and you'll make money in spots most people wouldn't. And yes, protecting your hand is very relevant.

Villains up to 80/160 are still SSHE-type villains. There's just fewer of them than at 20/40, which in turn has fewer of them than 4/8.

As a fundamental point, I think it's helpful to refrain from calling people "fish." It's helpful to your development as a player because the majority of players nowadays do at least one thing right. If you took the best characteristics from the 10 worst players and cobbled them together to form a strategy, you would be decent.

SSHE is still the best beginner's book, hands down. And this is despite its title (something something Advanced Players). What it skips - how many cards in a deck, whether a flush draw is more likely to hit than a straight draw, etc. - can be filled in by five minutes on Wikipedia.

There are some drawbacks to SSHE. The "Protecting Your Hand" chapter causes more confusion than solves problems, and should just be ignored. The "loose" starting hand charts are really marginal now because rarely do you get that many people in every pot (good games probably average 50% VPIP, which is SSHE-tight). Everyone above the lowest of the lowest levels will raise hands worse than two pair, and sometimes bluff.

You should definitely read the book, go play a session or two, save up any hand that confused you, and if you can't figure out the best line by personal study, post the hand here. Then go read the book again, and repeat.

Yeah Calli basically nailed it.

Just be concerned as a starting point with a TAGgish, raise or fold first in, avoid calling multiple bets cold pre strategy. At the very least, it won't be an expensive learning style. Small stakes hold em is still a very applicable book for beginner training, and definitely worth a read if you're interested.

As far as where to play, I like your idea to play online. Getting to play 4 tables of $0.05/$0.10 could give you up to 400 hands an hour at a relatively low stress level (even being a 12 bet per 100 loser at this stake, which would be impossible if playing a tight strategy barring egregious postflop play, would be $4.80/hour worth of losing). You get more hands with less danger of tilting over money, and you could even track your own stats and conclude things like "hey maybe I shouldn't be open raising KTo 3 off the button".

OP where are you playing online? And what is the action like? Is it 6-max or full ring?

Currently donking around on ACR. Sometimes a .02/.04 game runs, and sometimes a .25/.50 game runs, but they're very intermittent. Both are 6-max.

If I feel frisky I hop in the .50/1 game.

Also, thanks to all who gave advice. I'll read through the book again, and probably make my live debut early April after some life events are over. I'll continue playing online, and post some hands.

You're lucky to EVER get to play LHE online. I played on ACR for a few months and essentially NEVER saw any actual LHE games going, and even in the rare cases I did, they were 3- or 4-handed tables against tight players. Ignition is just as bad if not worse.

As to your OP, the only "issue" I see with playing online LHE is that you'll very rarely see 3 or more people to a flop, and essentially NEVER see 4 or more. At most live LHE tables you'll essentially never see less than 3 people to a flop and often see 5. You will usually be raising before the flop, so the pots will already be pretty big before the turn card is even dealt. The strategies you use to maximize profits when the villains are making that many mistakes are different than those that you'd use to push small edges in short-handed play against tighter players. The SSHE book is designed to teach you how to CRUSH tables full of villains who play too many hands and take them too far which is why it's so much more relevant for live play than for online play.

The slower pace of live play takes getting used to as well - it took me a long time to beat boredom tilt.

I actually *like* the protecting your hand section. Really, the only thing I *don't* like is the word "protect". You *can't* protect your hand from getting drawn out on. You can't protect your hand from getting called. The important thing is that when you have an opportunity to make a villain choose between folding or making an unprofitable call, you should essentially always do so. Poker is a game of mistakes. Give the villains chances to make mistakes and they will.

My advice for you as you start your live LHE career is to go into it with the mindset that you're there to have fun. Let money worry about itself. Just make the best decisions you can and try to remember 2 or 3 spots where you weren't sure what the right decision was and post them here. Just play, have fun, post, have fun, study, and have fun.

Good luck!