In his latest Full Contact Poker podcast, hall of fame poker player Daniel Negreanu discuses several topics. Near the end of the podcast, he spends about twenty minutes discussing his recent dedication to learning GTO and applying it to his game.

Here, one of the all-time great exploiters in poker strategy has come to accept that he is being outplayed in high roller events by a new wave of younger players that employ a strategy of GTO, plus live tells.

So, the best high roller tournament poker players in the world are employing GTO, with additional observance of tells, and the net result is the most optimal poker, yet played.

Negreanu likens this to when Tiger Woods altered his swing, and the immediate results were negative, but eventually led to a better overall swing. He knows he will have a learning curve. Also, Dnegs has always been an interactive player, talking to his opponents and seeking tells. Will he choose to button up and cover up?

There are lots of interesting theory implications, but my first take on it is this:

Without GTO theory and solvers, how would poker players ever have known what poker decisions were most optimal?

If part of poker negotiations are mixing the truth with untruths, you can not tell an optimal lie unless you know the precise truth first.

Strictly from a poker theory perspective, these participants are the most skilled, most sophisticated participants in the history of the game. A far cry from the local home game.

It was funny in 2005 Daniel Negraneu spoke about Gus Hansen's game as game theoretical at a poker conference hosted by Mike Caro. Wow, was he misguided about Gus' play and game theory in those days.

But, I personally am trying to re-tool with game theory, and it's hard because there's mental interference where you're looking for "reads" rather than thinking about "strategy", and visa versa, and what you should be thinking about. I think what's the game theory becomes more second nature, then incorporating reads in the more classical style can become easier. At least that's what I hope. The climb to read up on game theory and get up to speed is quite steep.

Great example, leavesofliberty, Gus Hansen. I remember watching him play, either cash games or tourneys. I just could not wrap my head around it. The lacking of rational ranges seemed off, but the supposed results (in hindsight more likely some rungood in early 2000’s WPT tourneys) seemed irrefutable. Who needs cards when you can just blow your opponent off the pot because of his or her range, and does that make having rational ranges a mistake?

At the time, all I did was jam with top value hands, and that was all that was required to profit during the poker boom.

Now, over a decade later with many great books on the math of poker, plus solvers and AI such as Libratus, we have learned what real GTO “looks like” at least, such that most advanced players should at least be able to recognize it at a table.

It seems he found an extremely profitable niche during the "good old days", and was not able to replicate it in the tougher cash games. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it should be noted he lost more than $20M cash before quitting. He got the game theory part right at least, if not the optimal.

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2016/...oker-25714.htm

Rumor has it though that he crushes the backgammon. My best guess is that he used his experiences from backgammon to poker tournaments, and his over-aggression worked well for him, but was never truly a game theory aficionado. I wonder how good of a poker player he actually was, and how good television made him look.

Doyle Brunson also used game theory without concern for being optimal, which he wrote about in Super System. His theory was, simply put, to blow people off of hands, and then free roll on them later when he finally gets called. It's sort've an old school game theory approach. But Brunson had more longevity, and can still be seen playing the big game from time to time.

Meh, GTO is overated. Trying to be GTO will ruin you, because people don't have the capacity to become a GTO machine. I speak from experience. I lost much money trying to be GTOish when all I really needed to do was keep it simple and pick my spots. You see, I don't have to 5-bet bluff all-in vs. regs anymore if I don't want to.

I keep it simple. I ask myself if I 5-bet bluff all-in will they fold? If yes, I do it. If no, then I don't. If it is uncertain then I can randomize, but most good players do this already.

Daniel trying to be GTO will ruin his game in my opinion. Only time will tell.