There are many factors influencing our
long-term success (or failure) at this game. Alertness/fatigue, stakes/limits vis-a-vis bankroll, starting hand selection, table image/playing style, game selection, etc. But at the end of the day, for me anyway, the bedrock of our destiny is the way in which we make decisions,
hand after hand.
Whether you're rockin' a ring game our toughin' out the early levels of a multi-table tourney, you are forever put to the decision-making test. I know this sounds like yet another blatant statement about the blatantly obvious by nickg, but lets dig a little here.
I watch a lot of people auto-pilot their decisions. Do I raise here, call here, bet here, bet aggressively at such-and-such a board? Taken individually, they look like disparate actions born of decisions unrelated to the previous decision. Taken in totality, and this requires many hours playing and observing an opponent, you'll see patterns emerge. Some will always bet a checked flush board. Some will always call with a 9-outer even without the correct pot odds to do so. When we bang up against those folks, we can rest assured that we can, over time, not only profit from those on auto-pilot but also
force them to take certain actions.
I know of a fine player who has espoused a personal theory about starting hand selection in Hold 'Em. It kinda' goes like this: if the previous 3 or 4 boards or flops contained premium cards, giving a premium hand a win, he will play garbage, sometimes aggressively, on a succeeding hand based on the belief that the board is likely to deliver rags. That's a decision-making tool that may work for him, but it ain't based on math. The shuffle, shuffle, strip, shuffle, cut the dealer engages in before every hand tells us that every card has the same probability of emerging as any other card (this by the way is why it is a pure waste of time to keep a sequence sheet in baccarat). Thus this theory might be a little closer to superstition than science. Faced with such a player, it might be profitable to call down to fifth street with ace-high when you see him firing at the 6th big-card flop in a row.
I'm not saying never play your 5-2o, do so by all means. But it might not be that great an idea to play it based on the theory described above.
Yes, there are pat decisions, such as raising rockets UTG, that will be sure money makers over time. But there are so damn many situations in a hand, a game, a week, a month, a lifetime that require attention in that moment and in that moment only.
So what's the point (I love the fact that I'm my own editor and can ramble and still get published lol)? The point is, the hard work of poker is being able to make decisions in the moment more than basing decisions on a playbook. This is how i understand the term, "mixing up your game". Auto-pilot may get you there, but you'll be going at the same speed and altitude the entire way. There won't be much long-term variety in your game and your opponents
will suss you out.
In other words, mix it up, deliberately, and on full alert.
