Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubblebust
I've been thinking about this for a while but have not found any literature about it. Anyhow, my thinking is that playing exploitively is an absolute must to succeed in tournament play -- so much so that a perfect GTO player is likely at a substantial disadvantage to someone who plays a great exploitive game.
I mean, it depends what you're playing, yeah? If you're in the weekly GG $10k, then you probably aren't getting much chance to exploit anybody.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubblebust
My thinking stems from the fact that the object of the tournament is to win everyone else's chips and to be the last person standing -- or at least to get as close to that as possible. This really pressures us to identify and exploit the bad play/players we see before the other players do. We need to get their chips before the other players do. Likewise, we need to preserve our own chips when we identify a situation to exploit (for example, we know that bluffs by certain types of players will be really rare in certain situations, even if they happen with much more frequency in the GTO world). If we play perfect GTO without modifying it, we are passing up chances to win more chips or lose less. Our better competitors will not pass these up, and they will be at an advantage. This is different than a cash game, where we can play perfect GTO and still turn a profit in the long run (although admittedly less profit than using correct exploitive play).
Again, it depends who you're playing. If you're playing against sharp, GTO-studied opponents, there won't be many opportunities to exploit them. If you are playing lower stakes where people are looser, fishier, and make obvious mistakes, then sure, you should exploit them.
Dara O'Kearney recommends sticking to GTO even at lower stakes if you want to move up, because even if you cost yourself a little in the short term, you develop better habits and GTO play scales up much better than exploitative play, since the higher you play the fewer mistakes opponents make. I don't necessarily agree, but I do think learning the GTO fundamentals is important. I've said it before, but: If you're going to deviate from the GTO lines to exploit a player, you need to know what those lines
are in order to deviate from them.
I certainly use exploitative play myself when I identify a weakness in a player, but I also try to have my GTO fundamentals down, because when you're multi-tabling online you can't always figure out who's making mistakes (unless they're egregious), and you want to at least have a baseline of play that's going to be profitable no matter what.