I recently finished reading through Small Stakes Hold'Em (by Miller and Sklansky) and was surprised to read how many more hands were profitable to play. As long as at least four players typically see a flop, you can play something close to 20% of your hands. I thought the recommendations seemed extra loose, but I've been 3-tabling with their starting hand selection for a week now and have had superb results.

I'll give a few examples:

In EP you can limp in with any two suited cards ten or higher.

In MP you add all pocket pairs, AXs (s000ted), K9s-K8 [and a few other hands]

In LP you add suited connectors down to 54s, and any two offsuit cards ten or higher.

From SB you add ANY two suited cards.

All of these assume there typically is four or more people seeing flops. In other words, only in the looser low-stakes games.

The SB recommendation seemed the loosest one to me. But so far it's worked out nicely. You only pay a half-bet when there's already three or more bets in the pot.

With all due respect to Miller and Sklansky I believe that many of these suggestions are way to loose for the average or even slightly above average player. If you don't play extremely well post flop these kind of hands are very likely going to get you in alot of trouble more often than not. If you choose to play this loosely preflop you really need to put alot of effort into choosing your games and for that matter seat position (would be really nice if that seat change option was available online) wisely.

The SB suggestion is in my opinion ludicrous but I don't have a dbase full of information about the outcomes of entering with ALL suited connectors from the SB to say anything with authority on that subject.

If it is working for you then by all means keep on keeping on but keep a sharp eye over time on your overall results with some of those suggestions to see if they are really panning out for you in the long run. Continued good luck.

True, I did neglect to mention good post-flop play is VERY important to playing these hands correctly. Getting the most bets possible out of strong draws and strong hands. And you need to know when your hand is no good.

When you complete the SB with 54s and hit mid-pair with your 5s, you don't want to get involved in much of a betting war here - in fact, you should fold in smaller pots due to the reverse implied odds. You were looking for two-pair, a straight or flush draw, and maybe even a couple backdoor straight/flush draws.

I agree your recommendations for the average and neophyte player is sound. But when you know what to do post-flop, you can open up your pre-flop game slightly when the right conditions arise.

I think it is a good setup if you can find games that loose, but the 2/4 tables on the bonus trail just don't expose you to 4+ players to the flop. It seems the best games for his setup are very low-limit - 5./1, 1/2 some places and in live low-limit. Otherwise, the table has to be just right (loose enough) to justify giving up so much edge before the flop. Either way, I think it is easy to modify his 'tight' strategy for even the tighter low limit games. Just cutting out QJs, JTs, KTs, 77, 88 from ep gives you a reasonable starting hand selection from there. The biggest leak may be in the middle position recommendations. Very often in the tighter games, you will be the first one from 5/4 off the button and you like something you can raise with. He has you playing everything from k9s to 98s, which just won't run at these tables. The important thing is being able to make some slight modifications to your strategy according to the table.