Super cringe talk from David Friedberg, Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Sacks on the All In podcast where they're praising Hellmuth's masterful poker skill.

Highlights:

-Calacanis, Friedberg and Palihapitya seem to be in agreement that Hellmuth is the best poker player in the world

-Chamath thinks GTO is exploitable and that Hellmuth exploits "GTO players"

-Chamath thinks using a HUD online is cheating

Poker topic starts at 1:02:27 and ends at 1:07:19
They continue discussing AI, GTO and chess afterwards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcGwHworAo0

I wonder if these guys know Hellmuth doesn't even enter high roller tournaments where the world's best players actually compete against one another?

does he also think you can exploit chess engines?

Didn't listen to the podcast, but I just know this statement is going to be mocked.

It's worth pointing out that GTO play absolutely -can- be "exploited" by physical tells. It's not using the word "exploited" in exactly the same sense, but someone just bluffing at optimal frequency is going to be a huge loser if their opponent can get a read on which bets are bluffs and which are value bets.

This has always seemed to be to be under-discussed when people talk about the use of GTO and solvers. As players get closer to playing GTO, physical tells should become a more important part of one's strategy, not less.

Billionaires are smarter than staked GTO players who play super high rollers for 5% of the action. Money talks and it is worth listening to or at least considering.

Hellmuth does not play against the best players in the world because he is a modern day Sun Tzu. He wins by - just like water - avoiding the strong while attacking the weak.

What about nerds that gets angry on a forum everytime someone says something positive about Hellmuth? Are the billionaires really smarter than them?

It's easy to make fun of Hellmuth and his "poker skills".

I would argue that his ability to get those incredibly smart and successful people to not only sit in games with him but also believe that he's the best in the world is at least as impressive as anything that happens in super highroller events. At least if your ultimate goal in poker is to make money.

(FWIW, I dislike Hellmuth and have several friends in the high roller community. But credit where credit is due)

I mean it is a bit funny imo hearing guys that are so intelligent and successful talking like poker fish. I think it's a bit amusing, but I would hardly think that's worth making a negative value judgment against those guys

Makes you wonder how much they know about everything else they talk about with similar conviction

He was not talking about physical tells at all as when he starts talking about poker/solvers he specifically says, "and we can talk about chess the sameway". He doesn't understand the definition of gto.

https://youtu.be/bcGwHworAo0?t=3794

He says,

"The problem with GTO is that you can actually be very exploitative against somebody that's actually playing perfectly because the AI is perfected around what is the rational set of decisions in every spot and so you can set people up to make a lot of really bad mistakes and I think helmuth understands that and so because he is one of like this dying breed of people that plays live he's able to just be so exploitative"

i mean in a tournament setting, you can argue that you can make more money than the gto players (who rely on playing strictly their memorized version of gto), because you will deviate much more vs any weaknesses of other players and capitalize maximally on them. Fair enough. But to say you can exploit someone who plays GTO directly makes no sense obviously. Maybe he meant the former and didnt express it very well.

He said literally word for word, "you can be exploitative against somebody that's actually playing perfectly"

I can't think of how he meant something else when he says it like that. He made no statements regarding tells.

yeah this makes no sense. In reference to chess, there is this thing of playing non computer moves to force an actual guessing game and take your opponent away from memorized moves to make it more a game of talent and deeper fundamental understanding again. However this is not what his words are saying. At the very least he expressed himself very badly there.

Yeah, I agree.

Out of curiosity, what sort of physical tells would someone look for to distinguish between a value bet and a bluff? And is there another distinguishing tell for merged bets? Are the tells consistent between people or do you have to find specific tells for each individual (ie. Kgb eating his Oreos)? Are the tells consistent even when opponents randomize decisions? Like what if an opponent has a value bet strength holding but randomizes a check. Do they still give off a tell?

Genuinely not trying to mock you. I’m looking for a sincere response.

As for the OP, poker whales saying fishy things regarding poker is to be expected. Being rich and successful doesn’t suddenly make you an expert on topics in which you’re a complete novice.

He doesn't obviously play as much outside WSOP etc but he's playing the poker masters currently,had several final tables in the last US open and has several final tables in super high rollers including final tables in million dollar tournaments when he does play

He probably didn't express it well.
While I think helmuth sucks at deep stacked cash it's laughable people think gto is the be all end all in live poker unless you're in some super high roller event or a cash game with all crushers.

Why exactly is it "super cringe" for billionaire poker players to have non-expert view on poker? It's just a hobby for them. P.S. Hellmuth is the GOAT.

The poker world is full of people who think they're smarter than rich successful people bc they're better at a game they play and/or study every day than the guy with money just having fun.

Hellmuth is a poker god. Get over it.

lol, funny cause venture capital seems pretty similar to being staked for 5%

The Oreo tell was actually pretty reliable until that damn move came out and ruined it for everyone. And also all the card rooms stopped providing players with free Oreos.

I’m not claiming to be particularly good with physical tells (though I’ve won a few memorable pots based on them.) I’m just suggesting that this might be a big reason why Hellmuth has been so consistently successful at tournment poker for 35 years. 35 years ago, physical tells were considered the most fundamental part of poker strategy (If you read the original Super System, a lot of it is recommendation like Mike Caro saying “If your opponent pushes his chips into the pot really quickly, he’s weak and you can bluff him off the hand”.)

You probably have a to study individual players to pick up on things at the highest level, but I imagine Hellmuth has an intuitive sense of a lot of patterns, especially from weaker players.

I don’t see any reason why tells wouldn’t be present if you are randomizing. Usually the tell indicates whether your hand is strong. So a check from a strong hand would look different than a check from a weak hand. I guess the one exception would be if you are randomizing in such a way that you don’t know what your actual hand is (e.g. in 2-7 lowball you bet every time you squeeze none across because want to bluff 1/3rd of the time anyway).

What do you expect from a couple of white South Africans? I wonder what in their history would make them think they've, you know, mastered things they know nothing about

Google "Joe Navarro poker" and pick up his books on poker tells. Best place to start.

Cheers, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Any reasonably reliable physical poker tell can override, wipeout, and make totally irrelevant any gto-based, betting pattern based, and h.u.d. frequencies based data in a blink of an eye.