I usually tend not to reply to any posts made on blonde but I feel compelled to reply to this one as I feel it is one of the more interesting discussions that has been had on this forum since I have been a member. It shows the differences between the two major schools of thought within poker. Exploitative play vs GTO play. Both obviously have their merits.
As you say hand reading may become an important part of this but if I do not know my ranges in each spot then my adjustments are bound to be wrong. I think just playing each hand without an overall strategy is bad unless you know villains range very well.
This is a statement with far reaching meaning and I agree and disagree with every part of it. I 100% agree that not having and overall strategy and not understanding your own range is bad in the long term. But that completely hinges on what your objectives are in poker. In your case you say your objectives are to become the best player you can (ultimately, I assume because you want to move up and player the higher stakes where more and more players understand this stuff and therefore playing GTO becomes more important) and in that case taking the approach you have is perfect. Yes you may not crush 10nl as hard as you COULD but you will win and you will emerge a far better player than most will when they move up and when you start to play games where players are playing a lot better you wont be getting crushed straight away and enter a cycle of beat a stake move up, get crushed move down, beat the game move up, get crushed move down. That most players enter and they will eventually figure out how to win. You will understand how to not get exploited so will stand a chance of winning straight away.
If instead your aim was to crush 10nl for the biggest possible winrate then playing the style you are playing isnt the best approach as many 10nl players have a very fixed strategy that has many leaks. So you can exploit these leaks and not many of them will even notice let alone adjust and even those that do notice will often adjust incorrectly. So the best way to beat 10nl for the highest winrate you can is to just exploit these players. Find and edge and just exploit it until the edge no longer exists then adjust. I also feel that at least putting villain on a ballpark range is important. Many players at these stakes will have very predictable ranges. Obviously there will be players at every stake that wildly differ from this but its a good starting point. Of course if a particular villains range is the nuts then playing a GTO range in that spot may not be exploitable its not correct in that particular spot. So when you do have better reads then deviating is best.
To address matts comment about reciprocal money I feel OP's approach is winning reciprocal money, just maybe not at 10nl. But he will win more money later in his career for taking this approach. Yes is he makes certain plays he wins more reciprocal money now but then when he tries to deploy the same ideas in tougher games he loses more than he ever won at 10nl. Whereas his approach has the opposite effect.
My honest opinion is that at 10nl the best style to play is to exploit the villains tendencies but also have a solid understanding of what the GTO play is. As if you understand what the optimal frequencies are in a spot you can understand when villains deviate from that and as a result you can know how to best exploit them. Yes this will leave you in a position where you are exploitable, but not many 10nl players are capable of doing so. Probably the main reason I prefer this style is for a player to get a good idea of your strategy they must have a decent sample on you, likely several thousand hands and by the time they have this sample and enough info to accurately estimate your overall strategy and exploit it you have moved up. So an approach of studying GTO and understanding it and applying it in the sense that you use it to understand when the villains frequencies are exploitable is the best. This also serves to improve your play for when you move up and to avoid the cycles I mentioned earlier but it also maximizes your profit at the micros and will get you to the higher stakes quicker.
Overall I still think your approach is great given the long term plan you have and you should definitely continue thinking in this fashion. You will of course beat the stake making these decisions but you will not make as much as you could, but I think you already know that.
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