Let's keep in mind there is a reason probability and statistics is taught in many classes in mathematics departments in higher education.
Doyle Brunson said 'play the person, not the cards'
But I think in order to play the person? You actually need to bring in yet even MORE statistics... The probability if they have a tell in a live game, the probability they are playing with an observed pattern.
Take me, I so often limp my way to 4th street before I decide I want to go big.
Now, I also make it to final table a LOT, I never feel I have to win it all - in one hand.
I'm content with consistent slow steady gains. I can't win every hand.
In fact, the more players? The more I have to accept I'll not be in a good many
hands.
Then again, I so often will follow far more hands early in a tournament, the blinds being so cheap.
By limping, and playing like a nit, by mid tournament I have earned a reputation as a nit, and eventually, a pot comes my way that I let someone else build up? and I am all set to go, and go figure, when I do bet far more than I normally do? 95% of the table just folds folds folds folds- and you just know they are ALL saying 'Oh god, the nit has something - I'm folding' and go figure- that is my earned golden
bluff.
And that leads me into my the finality of my rant.
One benefit of unemployment is the time you have to watch 12 hours of pros on youtube - 30 days +... And the ONE thing I have learned from watching pro cash games and tournaments?
Is the mastery of the bluff. It is ONLY through some MODERATE
bluffing, you gain by analogy to the house edge ? 'the game edge'.
You HAVE to go after bluffs, and my favorite way is to play limping first half the tournament - EARN that title of NIT - TIGHT NIT.
All I know is, I reach final table a LOT and I only get there by patience, playing the rodeo clown here and there, playing the nit, and no kidding, near reaching final table? that's when MOST people START to play like a nit, and THAT is when I loosen up. A bluff near END game is HUUUUUUUGE - just ONE hand end game is 30x more chips than you'd ever bet in the first half of the tournament.
I best not prattle on - those are my two cents.