What's the difference between K2tog tbl and SSK?

[allisonmud]

I'm working on my first project that uses SSK... so I looked it up, and it seems the same thing as knitting 2 together through the back loop. However I found lots of charts that list the 2 techniques side by side as if they are somehow different?

TIA!

[Ingrid]

When you ssk, you actually twist the stitches first as you slip them, knitwise, to the right needle. When you k2tog tbl, you're not twisting them first.

[suzeeq]

With the ssk the stitches lie flat when you're done, but with k2togtbl they lie twisted.

[redwitch]

But either way, they are both left-leaning (the opposite of k2tog, which is right-leaning). You can also substitute k1 sl1 psso, same thing: left-keaning decrease.