Some beginner’s GTO questions. If there is a thread to answer all these, please direct me.

$500 tournament. Somewhere early. Day one at 500/1000/100

1st
Math. I can’t seem to do the math at the table. My math skills are rather weak.

If I c-bet 75 into a 125 pot, and my opponent must call 75, then is the math for my opponent – offering him 75/325? If so what’s a quick way to determine equity % I am offering him? With a calculator I know it’s 23% or ~20%. But I get stuck at the table trying to do this math quickly. Any tips on how to do that math for someone with weak math skills?

2nd
So I know I’m suppose to value bet a % of the time and bluff a % of the time. So is it ~80% value, and ~20% bluff?

3rd.
Say the flop is 348sxx, and I have AQs, so with a semi bluff heads up I have backdoor straight and flushes. Am I suppose to know my entire bluff/value range here? And why does it matter? What if I never played against this opponent before, why does it matter that I bluff 20% of the time here? Does that I also mean, I give up here 80% of the time? If I am to construct a value range here, what is it? And if I am to construct a bluff range here, what is that?

4th
Is GTO primarily used HU? Seems difficult to employ it multiway.

5th
Let’s say I am the caller in the above hand. And I’m getting the 20% equity, do I still value bet raise here 80% of the time and raise bluff 20% of the time. And the same as the original bettor, do I need to construct a bluff/value range here before I make my move.

Is the basic principle that someone playing GTO is un-exploitable because of the math involved?

1. How did you come up with 325? You bet 75 into 125, so he has to call 75 into a pot that has 200 right now. To get better with calculating numbers, you can memorize some standard ones like 2:1 or 3:1 and put in some training to do math a little quicker in your head.

2. How did you come up with those numbers? Do you think his and your range and the board are relevant for that?

3. That relates back to 2. If you have a semi-bluff, all the “standard” stuff is off because in those theoretical situations you use equity of 1 for value or 0 for bluffs.

4. It’s also difficult to employ it HU

5. Do you think it matters if you raised or called preflop when it comes to a GTO approach?

6. Yes

two points...

1. GTO stands for Game Theory Optimal. If indeed it is a genuine theory (personally I doubt it) then it is not reality...no genuine theory is, it is artifact, like all theories.

Thus the correct answer to the question:


Would be, "yes, theoretically".

Unless of course it is not a theory at all...in which case who gave it the ****ing silly title??

2. Being unexploitable is not the same thing as making money. In fact two bots playing perfect GTO against one another will both lose over time (to the rake). In many situations, exploitive poker will be more profitable...especially when the playing popualtion has a lot of fish in it.

Like for example in tournaments

lol gto questions in bq, most of which have nothing to do with game theory

I thought that the caller puts his amount into the total 325 then divide his amount by the total to give you equity%, am I wrong, if so, what is the formula? I got that by 75/325 ~ 20% equity.

If HU is difficulty to apply when is not difficult?

I have no idea if matters if I raised preflop, but in the hand I posted, yes I am the pre-flop raiser.

From the few answers to this thread, I take it those that posted are not fans of playing GTO in tournaments?

I still don't understand how you get to 325. There is 125 in the pot and you bet 75. Pot is 200 now. If your opponent calls, the pot is 275? So he is getting 200/75 = 2.67:1 on the call.

Another example:
125 in the pot, you bet 125: Your opponent has to call 125 into 250 so pot odds are 2:1.
125 in the pot, you bet half pot, 63: Your opponent has to call 63 into 188, so pot odds are 3:1.

So basically, if you bet between half pot and full pot, your opponent gets odds of 2:1 to 3:1.

2:1 means he needs 33%, 3:1 means he needs 25%.

If GTO was easy in any setting, everybody would play it and the game would be solved. But as sixfour mentions, your questions aren't really about GTO.

The "problem" with semi-bluffing is that everything gets significantly more complicated if you stop assuming that your hand is 'value' = 100% equity or 'bluff' = 0% equity.

As far as your AQ example goes, your hand has pretty decent equity against most ranges and your opponent might even call a bet with worse. That makes calculations more difficult. The thing you should do in situations like that is to give your opponent a range and see how your hand performs against that and which actions maximize your EV.

My bad, yes pot is 275. So to calculate equity I'm offering Villian is this correct - 75/275 = 27%?

I'm lost on what GTO is obviously, thanks for trying to enlighten me.

In tourneys sometimes there's a difference between these two things:

a) the most profitable chip ev decision.

b) the most profitable tourney ev decision.

----

you should be focusing on the latter. For example:

4 handed tourney, 3 spots pay, small antes.

cutoff: 12 big blinds
me: 14 big blinds
small blind: 20 big blinds
big blind: 50 big blinds

cutoff folds and it's on me. I think that there are many hands here that are slightly + chip ev that I believe are snap folds because of the possibility of being eliminated by the bigger stacks. I'm thinking of hands like JTs, KTo, KJo, A7o, 44, etc.

Make the cutoff a super short stack and the effect is magnified, causing me to fold even stronger hands, despite those hands being slightly + chip ev(imo).

While that’s certainly right as general advice, pay-out structure has a big effect on your optimal shoving range in that example. Without doing any calculations, JTs might be a fold if pay outs are 100/80/60 but a shove if it’s 100/50/20 for example.

Correct. The steeper the payout structure, the more we should play for first place.

Sorry, this bit tilted me enough that I felt the need to post. Gravity is a "theory" and GTO math (see: Nash Equilibria) is well enough established that John Nash literally won a Nobel Prize for his work. This is just straight ignorant and misunderstands what "theory" means. You'd also realize if you'd looked at any solvers ever that we're quite advanced at this point, though obv normal people can only do so much from a standard desktop.


To OP: Don't worry about GTO, don't think about GTO, just try to play well and make money. If you're asking questions this basic, it's kind of the wrong thing to be thinking about.