Thoughts on last night...

Played 38 out of 137 hands in a little over 5 hours, I voluntarily put chips into the pot (Vpip) 27.7% of the time. I pre-flop raised (PFR) 21.1% of the time. I 3betted 0% of the time, which is actually really low and surprising although to be fair I can’t even think of many times where 3 betting would have been applicable. I’m beginning to think that 3betting in these games isn’t as valuable as I have been lead to believe. Maybe a better approach in the games I spend the majority of my time in is to only 3bet for value (when I have a premium hand), when attacking someone who is raising pre-flop to often and when I want to isolate a player I feel I have a significant skill advantage over post-flop.

I feel like I am spending a lot of time learning new strategies and concepts yet in the games I’m currently playing in they are far less applicable. In the future when I can move up in stakes and skill levels then yes, having solid balanced 3/4 betting strategies will be essential but at the moment I feel its hurting my profit margin. I don’t need to balance my range against players who don’t even notice what I’m doing, I should just go for value when I have it as the tactics I’m trying to implement may just be above the majority of my opponents ability and maybe mine at the moment.

Another thing I feel has been letting me down lately is how I’ve been approaching final tables, I’ve made four in the last 10 days and cashed minimally in two. I’ve had it in my head the past few weeks/months that I want to be constantly going for the win, when I should be concentrating on what strategies make me the most money. It’s nice to win tournaments but I’m there to make money. Ive done next to zero studying on ICM (Independent Chip Model) and how that should effect my play when approaching the money and even earlier on in the tournament. It’s something I’ve already put more thought in to today and will be doing a lot more going forward.

I’m a firm believer in the saying “we don’t lose, we learn” so my hope is that by writing this out here it will help me learn to keep constantly adjusting how I play throughout the games I play and the players I’m up against. To try not get cemented to a rigid strategy that has been drummed up by computers, solvers and to be more fluid with the decisions I make.