Back in the good old days, I used to crush 1/2 hu no limit. This was back in freshman year of college, about three years ago, before HU really boomed.

I don't play too much hu NL anymore. I remember I got away from it for a couple months to focus on school and a combination of factors drew me away after those couple months. First, I became more interested in PLO. Second, the hu nl game had evolved - it seemed everyone started to try to play exactly like MasterLJ.

Anyway, back when I was really good at heads up, I truly thought that stats mattered almost 0 percent.
I remember thinking, "It won't matter if people datamine 100K hands on me, because my stats are a result of me adapting to my opponents. Datamining would just be a waste of time."

The only advantage someone could gain on me was by playing very aggro for about 20 hands (when I was trying to gauge how they played) and then instantly switch to a more passive style as I adapted to their aggro style. Opponents could learn this strategy through datamining.

But other than that, datamining was worthless. I think this was because I allowed my game to tremendously adapt to opponents. I could go into limp-mode or go into 3-bet mode. I could cbet a lot or rarely at all. Etc.

More and more I see players adapting the mindset that their own stats have to be some perfect magic number. Some people seem to be like, "OMG, my button PFR is only 32% over my last 20K hands. This NEEDS to be at least 34%."

Another example is everyone's obsession with balancing ranges. While this is important, it's not going to make someone the best player in the world. Being the best means you are the one offensively adapting to your opponents... not the one defensively trying to stop your opponents from adapting to you. Make sense?

I think this is what Phil Ivey does better than anyone in the world. He really doesn't give a hoot about balancing his range because he just plays every hand the best he can against his certain opponent.

An example of this was a hand on HSP. I don't remember the season. There was a raise and a call, Ivey call with 5h9h. Flop was 234 with two hearts. There was a bet and a raise, and Ivey folded.

Some people might think, "If Ivey's not 3betting with 5h9h here, then he is not balancing his raising range well enough. His tightness is exploitable." This is faulty thinking, because Ivey's perceived 'tightness' is a result of him adapting his game to his opponent. Obviously, Ivey is capable of making very loose plays when the time calls for it. (by the way, in the above hand, Ivey's opponent had a set.)

This was a bit of a ramble.

But the lesson learned is that stats can only take you so far. Past that, you have to learn to adapt in every situation. If you're a HU player, don't become obsessesed with trying to play exactly like MasterLJ. If you play ring games, don't worry so much about your own statistics. If you constantly adapt then your statistics will be worthless to your opponents.