By taking part in a GTO technique, you’re assured to win, which is why most of the world’s greatest gamers are gravitating in the direction of it. But whereas it’ll win in opposition to a desk filled with novice or low-stakes gamers, it’ll additionally depart some huge cash on the desk. In this collection we have a look at methods to identify exploits in your opponents and maximize your win price.
Game Theory Optimal (GTO) methods can be utilized for nearly any recreation. Poker is only one of them.
For occasion, suppose you and I select between two fruits, say apples and oranges. We secretly write down apples or oranges on a bit of paper, after which examine them.
If we each wrote the identical fruit, you give me $3. If you wrote oranges and I wrote apples, I provide you with $5. If you wrote apples and I write oranges, I provide you with $1.
If we select our numbers randomly, then that is a good recreation. But as a result of we don’t, one in every of us would possibly have the ability to predict the tendencies of the opposite one and have an edge.
For occasion, if I feel you’re 70% to jot down oranges, I’ll write oranges and have a 70% probability to win $3 and a 30% probability to lose $5. That’s an EV of 60 cents.
If you assume there’s an 80% probability I’ll write oranges, you’ll write apples and win $1 80% of the time whereas shedding $3 20%. Your EV could be 20 cents.
But fairly than attempt to predict what you’ll do, I can fall again to the GTO technique. Which on this case implies that I write oranges with a chance of two-thirds. If I try this and also you write apples, I’ll win $3 one-third of the time after I additionally write apples, and lose $1 the opposite two thirds of the time. My EV is one-third of a greenback.
If as a substitute you wrote oranges, I might win $3 two-thirds of the time and lose $5 one-third. Again, my EV could be one-third of a greenback.
Thus, on this recreation I can assure myself a revenue of 33.3 cents on common per recreation, and there’s nothing you are able to do about it.
If we performed many video games and also you at all times wrote apples, I might common precisely the identical revenue as I might should you at all times wrote oranges. And importantly, I might make 33.3 cents per hand even should you performed any kind of “mixed strategy.”
Do you see this? If you don’t, I ask you to think about your oranges and apples individually. Since they each common giving me that very same 33.3 cents, mixing up your technique fairly than at all times writing the identical fruit, it doesn’t change something. (Which is why it’s easy algebra to calculate GTO methods in video games like this.)
Also discover that it might not provide help to within the slightest if I advised you precisely what my technique was. I’ll common a 3rd of a greenback occasions the variety of occasions we play. Such is the character of GTO.
BUT if I used every other technique and advised you about it (or should you may deduce it), that may be a unique story.
For occasion, should you knew or suspected that I used to be writing each numbers with equal frequency, you’ll know (if you already know GTO) that I’m writing apples extra typically than GTO would inform me to.
So you must EXPLOIT that by writing oranges extra typically. In truth, you must write oranges each time!
Do that and also you lose $3 half of the time however win $5 the opposite half. There’s the GTO technique you may have used that stored your loss all the way down to 33.3 cents per hand it doesn’t matter what I did, however it might be insane to make use of it as soon as you’re fairly certain that I’m straying from my GTO technique.
In this case you moved your EV from minus 33.3 cents all the best way as much as plus a greenback.
And, after all, these similar ideas may be utilized on to poker. It’s extra of an apples-to-apples comparability, no oranges required. More subsequent time. ♠
David Sklansky is the writer of The Theory of Poker, in addition to almost two dozen different guides on playing, poker, and different video games. The three-time WSOP bracelet winner’s newest ebook, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em: Help Them Give You Their Money, is now available on Amazon. You can contact Sklansky at dsklansky@aol.com.
