I wanted to start this principle off with a quote. “If you know the enemy and know your yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle”.
Just like an earlier discussed principle “Avoid what Is strong and strike at what is weak” this wisdom comes from Sun Tzu. Based on his wisdom and my own experience of what brings me success, I created a wallpaper for myself saying “prepare like a boss, and know your competition”.
If I become aware of flaws in my thought processes that lead to making mistakes in hands, and if I am aware when I tend to perform poorly, then with this information I can shape my preparation in a way that makes it less likely for these win rate droppers to occur. This is the part of knowing yourself Sun Tzu refers to in his quote and the reminder of how linked preparation is to how well you perform which I put in my wallpaper.
The EV of your actions in poker are often directly linked with the action/reaction of your opponent. So, what the highest EV decision is, depends on what your opponent is doing. This brings us to the part of knowing your enemy/competition. If you understand how a strategy generates EV in theory, then all that is left for you to do is to study your opponent(s) to figure out how to make the highest EV actions in order to defeat them.
This principle is so important for me that its my wallpaper. Should it be yours as well?