Adding flexibility to your sessions

March has been a pretty busy month IRL and i'm now playing catch up to finish up the month with a half decent hand count, despite a bad cold. My less than stellar state got me thinking about a few important issues that, if changed, could really add value to my game.

Up until now, i've always played with a very rigid structure. I'd get up, eat some breakfast, do some pre-session warm-up, load up 24 tables and play for about 5-6k hands. I've stuck to that because I knew it worked for me, and back in the days when confidence in my game was shaky, sticking to a rigid structure provided a nice safety blanket.

But much like opening hand ranges, if you stick to a static chart, you're really limiting your potential earn at the tables, so once you're comfortable with the basics, it's time to get dynamic and switch it up depending on game conditions. What does this mean in practical terms? Simply that i've started toying around with new ways to play my sessions.

Instead of a strict 24-tables 5-6k hand grind or nothing, i've started adjusting the number of tables based on my current energy state. For example, I might only play 12 tables, or shorter sessions, depending on my concentration. This way I can get more sessions in a day and bb/100 only gets better the less tables you play (although i'm not expecting a huge increase).

Even though there's nothing inherently wrong with marathon sessions, I think the benefits of shorter grinds are pretty obvious : less energy required to start, higher concentration (I usually play my best during the first 1h30 of a session), less mental fatigue after a session, etc. Much like anything in poker, it's important to keep things dynamic and fluid to maximize performances, both on and off the tables. These small changes could end up having a big effect on my bottom line, and i'm psyched to try them out in the coming weeks!