What Is Gto Poker
Today we are going to talk about GTO poker trainers – what they are, which one is best and how you can use one to play better poker. GTO poker trainers are the cutting edge of poker training software in 2020. We’ll look at how using a GTO trainer as part of your poker study can help you outplay your opponents and understand your ranges better. Doug Polk breaks down the strategic differences of Game Theory Optimal (GTO) vs Exploitative, which is a subject that seems to confuse a lot of you guys. Play solved poker hands and get instant feedback on the precise EV (Expected Value) Loss of every action. The WPT GTO Trainer allows you to rapidly plug leaks and learn the Game Theory Optimal strategies that have dominated the highest stakes games in the world. GTO poker is a solution to any given long term set of hands, so that you cannot be exploited. This is assuming that if your opponent is ALSO applying GTO solutions, then the end result of many hands played with this same person would be a net EV (expected value) of zero.
The last couple of years of poker have seen an increasing move to understand and apply GTO poker solutions to today’s game. In doing that, there’s been a lot of confusion in the poker community about what GTO (game theory optimal) actually is, and how and when to apply GTO solutions to a given poker situation. We’d like to clear up that confusion and also make a case for why software like Leak Buster is still very important to learning and growing as a poker player.
What is GTO poker?
GTO poker is a solution to any given long term set of hands, so that you cannot be exploited. This is assuming that if your opponent is ALSO applying GTO solutions, then the end result of many hands played with this same person would be a net EV (expected value) of zero.
In each individual hand, a GTO solver will provide the highest EV line, assuming your opponent is also taking a GTO line. This can include mixed strategies of betting 80% of the time, and checking 20% of the time for example. This mixed strategy is based on your current equity you have versus your opponents entire hand range, and the sizing of your desired bet. Even if you are far ahead in equity in a given poker situation, a GTO solver will want you to check a percentage of the time (based on your equity and bet sizing) that will not allow your opponent to exploit your play.
For example: If you had a flush on the turn, and you ALWAYS bet your flush, and never checked, then your opponent would know to fold a larger percentage of their range because your range will always be very strong.
Here, our OOP (out of position player turns the nut flush with Ah9h). The solver wants us to check 8.44% of the time, and bet 91.56% of the time. In reality, against most opponents, especially fishy players and anonymous players, we’d want to bet 100% of the time to get value from other hands. If you were analyzing this hand, you’d conclude that I should be betting here pretty much always. That’s the highest EV line, but to the solver, in order to play perfect GTO poker, it would check 8.44% of the time. This is an extreme example where the betting and checking percentages don’t have much of a difference. Here’s a more common example you’ll see a solver be ideally off in terms of highest EV exploitative line vs. a GTO line, and that’s when you have TPTK (Top pair with top kicker).
Example 2: You have AdQs on a turn of: Qd 9s 6h 4h. The solver in this case, even though the board is very coordinated and you’re first to act, the GTO solution here is to check 98.27% of the time and bet only 1.73% of the time. Against most opponents, this would be a significant EV leak to check here almost all of the time. The solver also has almost never check-raising in this spot (.01%), and most of the time this wouldn’t be ideal exploitative either.
GTO vs. Exploitative play
This should be common sense, but in all poker situations, if there’s an opportunity to exploit your opponents play, you should do it. You only make money in poker when your opponent makes a mistake (takes an non-optimal line) and allows you to exploit that mistake.
An example of exploitative play would be where your opponent only continues on the turn if they have top pair or better. If this was the case, you’d widen your bluffing range, and decrease your value range versus this opponent. They have a clear pattern that can be exploitative. This is where the value of GTO lines comes into a play. If you’re playing against an opponent enough, and you know they’ve seen you take certain lines with specific hands, then you balance this out by taking a more GTO line where you may be checking a strong hand more often then you would when you’re trying to exploit a player and maximize the EV of your hand. In the short term in this situation, you may give up slight EV for that specific range of hands, but in the long term, you’ll get paid off when your opponent reacts sub-optimally and bets when you have a very strong hand or visa-versa because they think they’re picking up on a exploitative pattern in your play. But they aren’t because you’re one step ahead of them.
GTO Solvers are taking a line that prevents them from being exploited by someone else who is applying a perfect GTO strategy, the net result being zero for both players if they are taking the best GTO lines. GTO Solvers are NOT taking the highest EV line with their range of hands, they are taking the highest EV lines with an entire range of hands taking into consideration the fact that:
- You will play lots of more hands with this same opponent, thus you don’t want to become exploitable.
- Your opponent is also applying a GTO solution to their hand.
So in summary, GTO poker is great to learn from a theory perspective. It can illuminate some subtle differences in suit combinations you might have in a given situation, or allow you to understand areas you can increase your check-raise bluff percentage for example. It will however, take less EV lines in certain situations because it assumes your opponent will be playing optimal poker. If you’re a high stakes player playing against some of the worlds best opponents, you need to mix up how and when you bet certain ranges of hands. If you’re a small stakes (even some mid-stakes), or micro stakes player, you should be focusing mostly on learning how to exploit your opponent, while learning the theory of why certain lines are ideal against the very best opponents.
How Leak Buster Fills in the Blanks
This is the purpose of software like Leak Buster. To show you ideal exploitative, high EV lines, against the majority of your competition. You want to maximize the EV of every single hand, especially against opponents you don’t have much history with. If you’re on an anonymous site, you should not be worried about balancing your ranges. You should be going for the highest EV line every time, unless you have a very specific reason not to.
Good luck at those tables!
GTO Poker Explained - Learn what Game Theory Optimal poker is and whether you should use this strategy over exploitative play in poker games. 4 Benefits of Using GTO. Finally, take a look at these 4 general benefits that result from using solid GTO strategy. Avoid Circular Thinking. A relic of poker training from the 90’s is trying to understand what “level” players are playing at. Level-based thinking starts with you considering only your own hand. GTO Replayer replays your hands from the biggest sites (Amaya, iPoker, WPN, Winamax, and PartyPoker) in full graphics with GTO tables. The replayer includes a GTO table for each action. You can build your own GTO solutions with GTO Solver. In GTO Quick Solver you can create your situations. The following is a glossary of poker terms used in the card game of poker.It supplements the glossary of card game terms.Besides the terms listed here, there are thousands of common and uncommon poker slang terms.
If you have even a passing interest in playing online poker, chances are you will have heard the term ‘GTO’. This stands for Game Theory Optimal and it means using a strategy that cannot be countered in any way by your opponents.
Another way to describe GTO is that it is an unexploitable strategy but what does this mean in terms of playing the game?
GTO is defensive in nature because you are trying to play the perfect set of hands yourself and relying on your opponents to make mistakes. An important aspect of this is not thinking in terms of the current hand but in terms of a range of hands both you and your opponent could have plus the hand, your opponent may think you have.
This requires a decent grasp of maths because you will need to work out odds, ranges, and frequencies. You can view this handy guide over at 888 Poker – The Beginners guide to GTO poker for even more information
Let’s take a look at an example to get a better understanding of how GTO might work. In this scenario, you are playing at 888Poker and have raised preflop. The player on the button is the only one to call, so you consider two possible plays. The first is to only bet when you make a top pair or better and the second is to bet only when you miss.
Both are sound strategies but if you stick to this throughout the game your opponents are going to know how to react. Therefore, you need to find something in-between, using a mix of both plays and this requires some working out.
You must work out the odds of their call being correct and balance this with the number of times you are value betting and the number of times you are bluffing. Picking the right amount of value bets vs bluffs is what makes a good GTO strategy. This is in addition to knowing when to use them in relation to the situation and current bet size.
As you begin to understand each situation better and know not only your own but also your opponent’s frequencies and ranges, you can exploit this to your advantage. Playing on your Android mobile app? Not a problem, you can still play GTO Poker!
For a GTO poker strategy to work, you must have played against someone for a number of hands. You cannot use assumptions as this will not work. If you are playing online poker at a top website such as 888Poker, this can be tricky as you may not play against the same opponents often enough to avoid assuming. However, even after a few hands, you can begin to build up a picture of their frequencies.
When using GTO, do not look at the outcome of a hand individually. You may have a good hand or a bad hand but this should not be taken in isolation. Just because you got lucky on the river does not automatically mean you made the right play. Work out what the correct GTO strategy is for certain times of the game and assess it following the end of the game.
This will tell you if you made the correct long-term call and that is what GTO poker is all about. You must work on your game, both at the poker table and away from the poker table for a GTO strategy to be successful. Practice makes perfect and no matter what poker variant you play, it will help you perfect your game and strategy.
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