The advantages of ITH's more nuanced "Call 3" type notation is much more clear in this section. So much so, that SSH actually breaks down and resorts to the same idea in late positions "if three players have entered the pot so far, ... also call with any pocket pair and QJs-T9s" (known as call 3 to ITH-ers).
Nevertheless, I think one can see clear differences between the two books here.
1) ITH lists quite a few specific hands that they would advocate raising first-in. These are considerably more hands than SSH suggests raising with, but in the fine print SSH says "in late position, if you are the first player to enter the pot, you should almost always raise." Essentially then, all playable hands are "raise first in" in SSH. I pretty much follow this advice -- I've even been known to raise essentially any hand first-in on the button if I think the blinds are too tight.
2) ITH would call any suited King with 4 players already in. SSH would limit you to K9s and better. I am completely in Hillger's camp on this one. I suspect that if Miller addressed a pot with 4 people in already, he would advocate playing.
3) ITH would call Q8s/J8s/T8s with 4 players already in. SSH will not go below x9s. Intellectually, I think I'd call of these too, but when I look at pokertracker, it appears that T8s is the only one I actually do call with regularly.
4) SSH would call 65s/54s, ITH cuts off at 76s. I don't know why this is, but I don't do well with suited connectors. I draw the line at 76s from habit and sometimes don't call 98s/87s/76s when I'm not feeling like it.
5) SSH simply advocates "raise" for a number of hands that ITH will only raise conditionally. These hands include 99/AT-8s/KTs/AJ/AT/KQ. In essence, I think that Hilger is advocating raising these hands in situations where you can get more favorable conditions (for example KQ or 99 would probably rather be heads-up). I think Miller is more or less advocating a "raise for value." I straddle the line a bit -- I tend to raise the stronger holdings like KQ/ATs/AJ/99 always against limpers and vary my play a bit on the others. Given that I probably don't raise as much as I'd like pre-flop, I'm tending to raise more of these hands. I still can't say that I'm a huge fan of raising something like KTs/A8s against say 2 limpers.
6) ITH would play AQ against a raise, either re-raising or calling. SSH would fold. This is a pretty consistant effect in all positions, ITH values AQ more highly than SSH does. I'm fully in the ITH camp and I almost always re-raise.
7) ITH will cold-call a raise with 98s so long as there are many callers (5). SSH would fold. I fold because suited connectors are not my friends.
ITH will allow a re-raise against a raise with 99/AQs/AJs, SSH would just call. I re-raise AQs and call 99/AJs, unless it was a late first-in raiser. I'll 3 bet all sort of stuff in that situation.
Interestingly, the majority of these situations are in fact somewhat looser in ITH, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary. SSH is more aggressive, essentially raising anything first-in and raising more hands unconditionally than ITH.
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