The Strategy of Strategy

  For a long time a legitimate military strategy was for two armies to wear bright clothing, get into neatly formed lines, and shoot at each other until somebody decided to take their survivors and leave the field of battle. During the American Revolutionary War the British used to march loudly through the hills and valleys of early American colonies in their bright red uniforms looking for people to shoot at.  Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys thought that was a rather silly way to wage war. Instead of turning themselves into targets, they wore earth tones, hid behind trees, and picked off their brightly colored adversaries. The British considered this "cheating", but the Green Mountain Boys were fighting a different kind of war than the English were.  The English had employed a strategy that was a holdover from the days when war consisted of people stabbing at each other with pointy sticks. Even in the face of an enemy that was determined to play the game in a different way, they stubbornly held to their tradition. The Brits were kicked out of North America, lost their empire, and went on to create Monty Python. So it wasn't a total loss.  This same idea works for poker. People can read something written by Doyle Brunson, or read a book by another established pro, and think that the strategy they are absorbing will work in all situations. This simply is not the case anymore. Poker is a fluid game where a strategy that works for one player will fail miserably against somebody whose approach to the game is completely different. Dogmatically adhering to a single philosophy of poker will ensure that you are easy to figure out and that you will simply lose money at the game. If you go into a hand wearing your bright red coat and expecting somebody to play by your rules, you will find yourself whacked by a player shooting at you from behind a rock.  Good Luck!