I’ve beaten 1/3 2/5 many thousands of hours per stake. Nice try. I don’t care what you believe.

I don’t see how you can criticize something you know admittedly close to nothing about which is the same issue I take with the authors/ the book.


I’m sure their book has lots of good advice. That doesn’t mean that all of their advice is canon. After asking to see what recent studying they have done of GTO from sites they mentioned, they didn’t say any

I don’t have any reason to believe that the authors know enough about present day gto theory that is being taught on RIO or upswing such that they can criticize it. In fact I have reason to believe the opposite

I didn't admit I know close to nothing about GTO. I haven't lived under a rock. I have used Simple GTO Trainer and watched Upswing and RIO videos. Maybe that is true for the authors.

You are criticizing this book for not taking a GTO approach. However, you apparently have not read the book. You don't refer to anything in the book.

Well I am looking to figure the maybe into a yes no. I am not criticizing the book for not taking a gto approach

Yes, but you've been attacking us non-stop, yet have no idea as to what we're doing in this book. And there are a couple of spots where we do mention game theory and suggest some adjustments because of it.

By the way, I don't spend hours upon hours looking at solver output (even though I do recognize that these are marvelous programs). But recently, I've been doing some reading and see the following:

1. The authors are able to repeat what the solver results are.

2. The authors frequently don't understand why the solver comes to the determination that it does and will either give no reason as to why the solver produces the particular solve or they give at best a confused reason as to why the solver produces the strategy that it does.

3. I suspect you would be in this second group.

MM

He attacks everyone in every post in every thread. Wear the badge with honor

Sure I’m not an author and I’m not selling a book with bad advice, first of all.

You can just say you haven’t spent any time on upswing or RIO studying modern poker gto stuff.

I’m sure there are other resources out there you can explain to us

Can you give an example of what in this book you think is bad advice? I mentioned ITT several things I thought were bad advice.

Over limping KK in the CO after 3 people limped before you


I’ll leave you guys be. I’ve made my point already and enough times

There really isn’t such a thing as “present day gto theory”. The gto theory that existed the instant the first hand of holdem was dealt is the same exact one in place now.

Of course the methods of studying solutions are immensely more available but theory is same as it always was. And Phil galfond and Doug Polk don’t own it and you don’t have to join a training site to study it.

That was mentioned in the Introduction at the beginning of the thread. Have you read the book?

Of course when a play like this might be correct is explained in the book. But PW has no idea/understanding of what the book says.

We'll miss you.

Mason

1000 times this.

As a dealer and a player in low level games it is still quite common to have a player make a large bet on a 4 flush or 4 straight board and his oppent think a while and call. Then the large bettor takes the pot with the inevitable flush or straight. Then while the next hand plays out the losing player will mumble something about not seeing the flush or straight.

Playing GTO in these situations will win, but it is ridiculously suboptimal. An old school framework is far better. Many of your opponents in these games are using nothing more than 1st level thinking.

Even when they use 2nd (or higher level) thinking they do it poorly.

The other day I was dealing a $1/$3 game and it was the usual limpfest. One hand there was a bunch of limps and a late position player (who wasn't very good) raised to $15. Button calls. Action gets to the small blind who I know is a very good player. Very good.

He thinks for a long time and then shoves. He has everyone else at the table covered. Most other players have $300-$500.

Each of the limpers takes a long time but eventually fold. They really want to call. All of them. Eventually it gets back to the initial raiser. He thinks for a long time, then he starts talking about what the small blind shove could have. I stop him (the button is still in the hand). But he had said stuff like "that bet is so large you must have pocket eights and do not want to see a flop".

Eventually the initial raiser calls for his stack. The button then starts thinking. He really wants to call but finds a fold. He shows pocket nines as he discards them.

Small blind then turns over his aces and the initial late raiser sighs and turns over KJ offsuit. He called with KJ offsuit to put about $400 into a pot that barely had $50 in it.

Why is a player trying to avoid being exploited at this table? At most of these low level games GTO is a joke. I get that proper GTO includes exploitative play, but is it really GTO if you are exploiting 90%+ of the time?

I am often one of the last people to defend Mason and Sklansky on these forums, but to be fair to them they were using GTO concepts long before there was anything anyone would remotely call GTO.

I think it is silly to say that they don't have any training in GTO.

Promise? Pinky swear?

There may be some GTO concepts which are useful in 1/3 NL. For example, you don't want to cbet so much on boards that favor the caller or when OOP and you can make large or small sizings, not standard percent of pot.

The book mentions an example where you raise with A5s and the solver recommends sometimes making a 4-bet. At low stakes, the 3-bettor probably has QQ+. AK or tighter, so the 4-bet bluff would be really bad. You obviously don't want to make GTO recommended small preflop raise sizes. Making 1/3 pot range bets on the flop generally really bad, particularly in 4-way or whatever pots. You can't apply GTO directly, as GTO does not deal with 4-way + pots and doesn't understand loose-passive play. You should play small pps in most situations, because you are likely to get multiway pots and opponents will pay off sets. You also want to play suited aces, mainly to stack someone with set over set.

I am not an expert at GTO, but understand some basics. I haven't actually used a solver. I find some of the RIO etc. videos where they spend 30 minutes going over a hand with solver charts in the background tedious and not helpful. There are other videos with like 10 things we have learned from solvers which seem more useful. I also feel that some videos go overboard on taking a GTO approach, worrying about what we block and unblock, when that information should only be used in very borderline cases. Sometimes, it seems like video authors are afraid to discuss things not in terms on GTO, for fear of being branded old school.

It becomes more important the higher the stakes. If someone wrote a book on how to beat 5/10 NL and didn't understand GTO that would be an issue. Maybe important online, but I would not play online today for various reasons. Bart Hanson has free videos going over 2/5 NL hands, some 1/3 and some 5/`0 or bigger. Those videos often discuss GTO concepts as part of practical mid stakes play.

I don't agree that the authors knew about GTO before it became such a thing being too relevant. There is a lot of recent information from solvers that understand game theory etc. does not help with.

I guess Pointless went away when I pressed him on whether he read the book. It would be more helpful to discuss specific disagreements with the book and specific ways GTO should be applied to low stakes live play.

Actually, I would think it's still (trying to) play GTO after it node locks. If you have your opponent always folding aces, the computer will play the best GTO strategy against that proclivity by itself, which means that the computer will assume that the other guy is asking his own solver to come up with the best GTO strategy when it can't play aces (perhaps due to a proposition bet). What your solver WON'T do is assume that if this guy is stupid enough to fold aces there are probably a lot of other things he is doing wrong.

No it wouldn't lmao. They're just hustling to sell courses to 20 year old weekend warriors and GTO heroes playing low stakes NLHE.

We have discussion of this exact play in the book. See the chapter "Consider Huge Reraises with Those Top Four Hands."

Mason

The solver is looking for the Nash Equilibrium based on the inputs. That's different than the GTO solve for the game as a whole, which is based on the rules of the game and known facts (stack sizes, which player is in position, etc.). It's sort of like GTO, in that it's optimal for the assumptions, but it's based on assumptions which could be, and almost certainly are to some point, wrong. Thus, that solution can be exploited. The GTO solution can never be exploited. In practice, you never know what you're opponent will do, and even if you guess right, he might change the way he plays in the future, foiling your solver solution. In the example you cite, if it was a rule that aces always must fold, then the solver solution would approach a GTO solution for the aces-must-fold game, based on the limitations of the solver. But in the aces-must-fold game, folding aces isn't an assumption, it's a rule.

I doubt it. The only thing you've beaten is a dead horse with your nonsense. And I have a lot of experience with people like you who exaggerate their credentials and knowledge.



Good riddance.

There are people selling GTO courses for low stakes NLHE? That sounds like close to scamming.

I mean, I don't know who's buying those courses, but somehow I don't think it's players capable of beating live 10/20 and up.

I have gotten good GTO information from the free Upswing videos and the free version of Simple GTO trainer. Unless you are playing high stakes or online, I think you are wasting your money paying for anything on GTO. I used to have RIO Elite, but mostly watched the PLO and mixed games videos. I don't care for holdem much, and found the RIO NLHE videos with the solver charts tiresome.

Well first Berkey hates GTO and admits to being a feel player. It would be impossible test as nobody is gonna let anyone saddle up to the table and run GTO wizard. I do think a str8 GTO strat would destroy a live low stakes game. It would make a money every time the other players made mistakes and low stakes live players are horrible and make lots of mistakes

One way to find out. Bring your laptop and play according to the outputs.