Game theory optimal (GTO)

What is your thought/s on GTO? Can you share it here guys.

GTO provides insight into what to aim for while playing. After all, as you know from GTO ideally, no one will play, but it is always worth striving for an ideal game.

GTO is bullshit - That is a quote from Alexander Fitzgerland and I believe it.

If you are playing against GTO players, then GTO is legit, if you are not, it is pretty useless. You have to know if the players you are playing against are using a GTO strat. For me, for live games, I am certain in the low end buy in games nobody is playing GTO, and if they do, I can find their weakness and break it. (since they are even effin with a low buy in)

GTO is for GTO players playing each other in GTO only.

I think GTO becomes a crucial tool to learn if you are playing Heads up against someone that knows GTO, heads up is a whole other game of poker though. There are only so many stats you can throw at someone if you give off any kind of tell, and "everyone" gives off tells, no matter how hard you try.

IMO

Luckily, for me, I do not plan to encounter GTO nerds, (sure I could study GTO ranges, but that is nerdsville, I would rather create and make art instead, stories, anything other than to be a math GTO nerd lol) I just want to make a profit at lower end games and work on more important things in life

Pokerstudy said:

GTO is bullshit - That is a quote from Alexander Fitzgerland and I believe it.

If you are playing against GTO players, then GTO is legit, if you are not, it is pretty useless. You have to know if the players you are playing against are using a GTO strat. For me, for live games, I am certain in the low end buy in games nobody is playing GTO, and if they do, I can find their weakness and break it. (since they are even effin with a low buy in)

GTO is for GTO players playing each other in GTO only....

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Exactly what Jason Koon has said also (and he patently studies as much as anyone else).

About 4/5 years ago you had this hysterical take across the poker media that GTO was going to take over/ solve the game...it just became a key talking point whether anyone actually knew what they were talking about or not. I always found the idea dubious.

Koons essentially said keep studying at the level you play and only bother with GTO if you anticipate playing at the highest stakes/ levels.

That said, Koons is now playing in many series (such as Triton) with high rollers and the idea that Chinese billionaires have been studying GTO would be far fetched to say the least.

In addition to, what has already been said, being unbalanced in only going to be a problem, if our opponents figure it out and make correct adjustments to exploit us. So its definitely something, we need to worry about, if we are Daniel Negreanu or Doug Polk, and is going to play 25.000 hands in an online heads-up match against the same opponent.

But if we are playing in soft live games or in micro or low stakes ring games online, the risk of getting exploited is much lower. Online we are often playing in large player pools, so its difficult for our opponents to figure out, what exactly we are doing. They often wont have enough data, even if they are using a HUD, and they might also not want to spend the time nessesary to deeply study our game.

But thats not to say, that balance is NEVER important. If we only ever 3-bet premium hands like JJ+ and AK, then this will show up on our opponents HUDs after a while, and they might start to not give our 3-bets action. Or at least the better opponents will. So the more common a situation is, and the more we play against the same people every day, the more we should try to stick to a fundamentally sound and balanced strategy.

Another example could be, if we C-bet a flop like 883 with air and get check-raised. Then we should at least consider, that maybe we are C-betting these kind of boards to wide, and maybe that got exploited by our opponent. So maybe next time we check back such a board against that particular opponent.

rac1122 said:

What is your thought/s on GTO? Can you share it here guys.

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A BASIC knowledge of GTO and what it means is good enough for the micros and low-stakes. Recognizing exploitative plays is most important at this level.


When the best in the world are sitting at the poker table with you.. then GTO will matter! Until then, learn how to beat those that you play against every day who are NOT poker wizards.

Until nl200, almost no one even uses the basics of GTO, but they are not needed there in principle. A GTO game is not a magic pill that always allows you to play a plus. A GTO game is a trivial software calculation of situations where a GTO calculator balances your bluff range and value from preflop to river as much as possible in relation to your opponent. It is impossible to play exactly according to GTO.

I honestly do not believe the people that say they know GTO really even know GTO lol, I have an understanding of it, but my brain is not pio solver…doubt many others have advanced enough minds to master GTO, if they did they would be millionaires/billionaires in other fields making insane amounts of money lol

In the overall perspective of money, poker is peanuts when it comes to making money compared to other avenues. You really have to enjoy the game etc. I know my limitations and GTO mastery is not something I am even ‘trying’ to accomplish personally.

That’s why for me, I plan to play at a balance for enjoyment and profit at low buy-in games playing against recreational players. We all have different views and goals with poker though, so there is no absolute perfect way to play for everyone.

I would say if you plan to devote all your energy to poker then study GTO, if not, just enjoy the game without trying to become a super computer and trying to master GTO

Game theory (or decision science for economists) is in the first place a mathematical discipline.

For poker purposes, GTO refers to the strategy where any deviation from that strategy presents the opponent with worse odds than if they followed the GTO lines. i.e. the strategy is in equilibrium. By that definition, a GTO strategy can never be bad. In fact, given enough volume, if everyone at the table played GTO everyone would just lose the rake.

That is not to say that the GTO strategy is always the best strategy. In the confines of a solver, where it's essentially just playing itself through the game tree, the GTO strategy is always the best strategy (recall equilibrium). However, if one player deviates from that equilibrium, the "best" play is to make some adjustment yourself and exploit that weakness.

If we have no information on our opponent, we can't exploit them and defaulting to a GTO strategy is best. If we know our opponent is making exploitable mistakes, we should exploit them. We can set up heuristics to come to an exploitable decision sooner (e.g. the NL2 player pool is loose passive).

Whenever I say GTO strategy, I actually mean GTO inspired strategy. Calculating game trees in our heads is impossible, but picking up on solver tendencies and translating that to an executable strategy certainly is.

GTO is useful to think about poker in a balanced way. Some concepts like MDF does go a long way in playing against good players at high stakes.

At micro or mid stakes it's more about exploitative play and making adjustments to population.

Both have their merits and disregarding one over other doesn't make sense.

I personally prefer GTO as it underlines method to madness called poker. But that's no excuse to bluff a calling station and call 3 streets against a NIT.

GTO is balanced way of looking at Poker. It does streamline out thinking process and help us make sound decisions.
However, if one can generate more EV playing exploitative poker then ignore GTO. Its all about generating EV.

It is my current belief that GTO has a lot of benefits under the right circumstances, but most players will never find themselves in those scenarios enough to study GTO deeply (unless you are a high stakes player).

At the freerolls (and maybe micros) I play, exploitative is far more profitable; there are plenty of mistakes to go around and play off of for a sizable advantage.

GTO is also greatly misunderstood I think too; this contributes to some of the problems with discussions on the subject. GTO (like any other strategy) has pros and cons and it takes the player to reason for themselves if this makes this strategy optimal for a given situation or not.