I think that there is an evolutionary process in poker that all players go through but you can only traverse this process if you have the desire and the determination to do so. I have been around poker now for a very long time and have studied and worked on my game throughout in that time. Back when I first started then I used to believe that hand charts and systematic play was a good way to play. Then as you evolve you start to believe that this way of playing is only for beginners and that since you are more experienced and more knowledgeable that you can now play more hands and become far more aggressive.
There is some truth to this otherwise the best players in the world wouldn’t be as LAG as they are and be successful with that style. However that is a very difficult style to replicate and the overwhelming majority of players would be better advised to simply learn ABC and stick with it. But this gets back to using systematic play because using a poker system quantum leaps your game more than you think. This is because it prevents you from all of the harmful personality traits that can impact on your game. Whether you are playing a NLHE short stack system, PLO short stack system, NLHE deep stack system, Limit hold’em six max system makes no difference.
It is often said that system based play is a vital step to intuitive play but trying to be intuitive can lead to trying to be creative in the wrong places and the inevitable result is FSP or “fancy play syndrome” if you are not careful. I know use being “intuitive” in a totally different way and my method of play these days is to multi-table lower levels and look for rakeback and weaker players. But I use systematic play quite a lot these days but the intuitive side of it comes from me knowing when to make certain plays without resorting to looking at my system rules.
