Made a recent post somewhere involving this subject, perhaps someone would find it interesting to discuss. Here it is :
I always called it "The GTO Virus". People dont see the bigger picture of the complexity of poker I feel and what we can consistently manage on average long-term as a "mere" human being.
Even if you made a gto bot and an exploit bot, the exploit bot would destroy every human for infinite more for sure. Then there's the thing of "feel players" being mocked by poker communities for quite a while now, pushing players further into solver only mode and no gut instincts allowed. It's as if we swear we must prepare to fight pio itself someday soon, and this is the only piece of the puzzle we need to get there, oblivious to the gap of pio+ poker and what humans are capable of maintaining at accurate frequencies with any long term consistency. Meanwhile their average opponent is making infinite mistakes, because they are human, and its your job to figure them out. I believe this has hindered our development of a very important aspect of poker. That is the psychology and intuition aspects. A "feel player" as one might put it. More on that later.
Story time!
Back in my day, this was a game of human vs human which everyone understood, limited and emotional as we are. It was fun. It was creative. I loved it. We must understand that no human plays anywhere close to solver perfect for no extended period of time without cheating, this should be obvious. "But this is the only way oatsy! All that feel player crap is BS, we must prepare to battle endboss pio!" I get it, it sucks to think you've possibly been sucked into an under examined software and used it incorrectly to varying degrees, negatively effecting your poker game overall and wasting time and money for many if not most. I don't deny that the very best use it well and it helps their games. That said, I still think what I have to say applies to you too.
If you dont play at least 500z on stars or the equivalent, I would avoid pio and focus on exploit, not even close. Stop wasting your money guys. We were sold a logically sounding product and made what could have been a poor assumption about it. It sounded perfect, learn to play UNEXPLOITABLE POKER. "That has to be the answer, cant get better than that!"," Nobody will ever be able to exploit me again!" We forget that we are limited humans in the process, with limited processing power, especially long-term and especially in such a long-term stressful and complex job as poker. Not only is pio only used well by the very best, and even they cannot consistently play anywhere near solver ranges long term in the infinite spots that occur within this complex game of ours. Then we all fail by about 99.4% due to the complexity of the game, and our lack of awareness of the more logical, likely reality here.
We must understand that this proves the psychological/exploitative aspect of poker, human vs human, will always be a large aspect of poker long term. Humans are emotional, stressed, impulsive, playing tired, on drugs etc etc. In my opinion a max exploit style while having a solidly balanced game tree vs the guys equal or better than you(especially at 200z+), is in my opinion a better strategy, bringing the solver in at 500z perhaps, and get immediate coaching. This is a human vs human game, I don't deny solvers help us understand things better and create better ranges, but in my opinion are way over relied on and overall damaging to most purchasers, had they been working on my recommendations instead.
Back to the "feel players". Dont get too excited!
Intuition/"feel" has been proven to be extremely powerful through science, feel free to go research, and in my opinion, learning to develop it and integrate it into your game would be extremely beneficial in a game this complex that will always involve a large psychology component, especially if you have a lot of poker experience, as there will be more information that your intuition to instantly navigate through for you.
To top 1% or less, my opinion is to simplify your game trees in as many spots as you feel is right without going overboard, continue to add and memorize your strategies and continue to grow these balanced as you can strategies in as many situations in poker as you can, in your own way, with the help of a solver. Humans just cant sustain these ridiculously complex game trees solvers suggest and humans attempt not nearly well enough consistently in game. If you are intelligent and have already had success in poker, I suggest a more logical, exploitative-rooted, intuitive/logical harmony based(learn to trust gut/build intuition) game, but beware of doing this vs very good players too much who may be for instance over-bluffing you when playing some of the best. The psychological warfare will always be there, with building game trees that are simplified but solidly protected through logic and solvers in as many spots as possible and that's a never ending process of growth. That is my opinion.
