I'll show you mine if you show me urs

An oldie but goodie...i remember this pic from way back when i started playing on bodog

Starting over at a level of nlhe i havent played since like 2007 has been relatively easy once i remembered and implemented the same old strat that has been beating micro limits for years now. It's a strategy i have ever so creatively titled "I'll show you mine if you show me yours". When i started playing poker i was talking it over with everybody i could find that i felt like was a winning player. One buddy of mine sarcastically said "the secret to poker is flipping over the best hand."

 I mean obviously that is easier said than done most times and there are millions of intricacies a player must learn and recognize before this becomes feasible even 50% of the time. And then there is cbetting flops, misrepresenting your draws and big made hands, evaluating board textures and opponent tendacies, and determining the best course of action once you have unscientifically evaluated all of these variables in ohhhhhhhhhhh about 5 seconds or less. 

But really on a basic level (and 50nl and below can be played on a very basic level) it is that easy....just flip over the best hand. A huge part of success in cash games especially is realizing the level your opponents are on and only trying to play one level ahead of them. If you go farther than that youre doomed to fail or at the least take on some serious and unnecessary variance. So why not just use ur skills to flip over the best hand? 

When i started back on this journey via the stake for 25nl, i started out a little more timid than i used to be. This will happen after layoff where im just not sure about things and dont want to risk marginal spots. I was playing about 13/10.5 vpip/pfr and showing down 30% winning 53% of the time i went to showdown over my first 10k hands. I literally used to make fun of guys who were this tight but getting situated and at a showdown driven game i was still winning at 2.55PTBB/100. Not too shabby tbh but not maximizing profits at this level either.

Then i went a bit wild and really opened up thinking i could "outplay all these fish" ldo. Well that combined with some run bad went HORRIBLE and i dropped 8buy ins in about 2000 hands. I reminded myself what this level was all about and its not flaunting my understanding of advanced plays or picking off bluffs, or calling light'ish to balance my/their range. Its about.....showing down the best hand! 

So i tightened up a bit but more around a less nitty range and over my last 10k'ish hands i am running 15.7/11.6 vpip/pfr and showing down only 27% of the time winning 62% of showdown pots. Im situationally running hot in that im not getting coolered at all and doing a bit of coolering, but im actually running below all in ev and maintaining (i know its a small sample but its all i got for now) a staggering 9.15PTBB/100. 

I know these numbers are lol in the sample size department but they are at least a foundation of proof that at the  lower limits its not what you know, but what you show

Gl all