TY and glad you liked it.

One thing that is a huge pain about writing any book that involves any math is how hard it is to be technically correct. Usually, stuff that isn't technically correct is much easier to understand and everyone understands what you mean anyway, so it's not a huge problem.

If I were to say "What you do against a GTO opponent doesn't matter" it's always in context of assuming the line you take is part of a GTO correct mixed strategy. Hopefully that should always be apparent from the context of where it's written, but perhaps it wasn't. I don't think I'd phrase it like this intentionally, but if I did ever say "If you open with K2 on the button and the BB calls, it probably doesn't matter what you do on a K65 board against a GTO opponent in the BB" it would mean that's only true so long as the line you take makes sense as part of a GTO strat.

So, with the K2 on the K65, checking is likely part of the GTO strat (you probably need to check back some top pair hands some % of the time, and the K2 looks like a good candidate), but betting is likely fine too. But the sizing has to make sense, which (let's pull some numbers out of our ass) may be a CB size of between 22%-47%. So, as long as you either check, or bet between 22-47% of the time, that will have the same EV against a GTO opponent. Betting smaller than that is likely worse than checking, or betting bigger than that is likely worse than checking.

You're right you could clearly intentionally lose money by playing against a GTO opponent, so your lines definitely matter. Extremes help if you ever find yourself getting confused over something that seems simple. So an easy way to see if you could lose money against a GTO opponent would be to just ask yourself "Hey if I fold every hand pre-flop against a GTO opponent will I lose?" and the answer is of course yes with no math/theory/solvers/etc required.

Glad you had a few of these reading it. I had a few of these "ah-hah" moments writing it, especially when using solvers to look at shallow stack depth.

No, it doesn't, and this is something that often confused players.

The best way to look at a GTO player is not that he's trying to exploit you, but instead that he's trying to play in the most exploitable way possible. So rather than him ever asking himself "How can I exploit Mr. Rothko?" he's instead always asking himself "How do I prevent myself from getting exploited by Mr. Rothko?" This is still true if you play against the GTO opponent like an absolute maniac. He won't try to exploit you for your crazy play (like jamming all in pre-flop every hand), because as soon as he does try to exploit you he'll know he can be exploited himself.

Glad you liked them.

I would never say never, but I think writing a tournament only book is unlikely for a few reasons, the most important one being lack of time. I also think if I were to write a book focusing on tournaments I'd never someone to collaborate with, since I don't have anywhere near the tourney experience that I do with cash games.

Would this book or your previous book be helpful to a tournament player?

Thanks Matthew, had to study and understand it a bit and now it seems completely right as you say. Feels like a breakthrough in my understanding of GTO from where I can start to study it more, I mean mainly split between GTO and maximally exploitative strategy.

But at the same time, that means even if a bet justifies both of these reasons, it is not necessarily a good bet, and vice versa. So how exactly can these 2 reasons help me in my thought process when I choose whether I should bet with a certain hand?

The problem is, I don't see a concrete correlation between these 2 reasons to bet, and the fact that we should bet a certain hand.

1. 72o satisfies both reasons to bet, but we shouldn't bet with it
2. Betting with Ts9s on QsJsJc8s may be good, even if we don't need to deny equity
3. Betting with zero-equity hand in certain spot can be good, even if we almost never win the pot when called, so making the pot bigger is irrelevant
4. Some bluffs on the river are good, even if they do not satisfy any of the 2 reasons for betting

So how exactly do I use these 2 reasons to bet to help my thought process when I decide whether certain hand is a good bet or not?

You meant "unexploitable", of course.

Haven't finished the book yet, but really like it so far. Much more helpful to me personally than Applications.

And by the way, there's nothing wrong with criticizing any book, including this one. But you better know what you're talking about, because the thing I find ironic about some of the criticisms in this thread are those people, who think they're already "good", don't actually understand what's written in the book and therefore probably need it the most.

I see the book available in Kindle but not iBooks. Do you anticipate it will be available through iBooks?

Isn't this an explicit example from the book when teaching this concept? Maybe I chose 74o or something, but I thought I mentioned this specifically.

The fact of the matter is when 3-betting pre-flop, every hand denies equity pretty well and makes the pot bigger in case it wins pretty well. This is why even top notch players from 10 years ago had huge leaks in their pre-flop game relative to today despite pre-flop being such an "easy" street. It was much harder to "figure pre-flop out" than many people realize, largely for the reason that

Yup, so this is a bet despite not denying equity, because betting is really, really good at making the pot bigger in case we win and checking back in position here would probably be a pretty bad play. So even if it only accomplishes one objective (make pot bigger in case we win), it's still a bet. Just like how we bet our very strong hands on the river despite them denying no equity.

But why isn't KK always a bet on a KK2 flop? Well, now it isn't very good at accomlishing either objective. It's the nuts so it denies no equity, and due to it's removal effect it's hard to get called. Your Ts9s example didn't have that problem, as it excelled so much at one of the reasons to bet.

Right, because if a hand has 0% equity, then while it doesn't "make the pot bigger in case we win" it's an absolute beast at denying equity. In other words whenever I bet a hand with 0% equity and I make my opponent fold, I made him fold a hand with 100% equity.

This is exactly how river bluffs work.

I'll assume you mean river "bet" rather than river "bluff," since by definition a river bluff can deny equity.

Show me a river bet that's good on the river that neither denies equity nor makes the pot bigger in case it wins.

They aren't a binary thing. A hand doesn't either deny equity or it doesn't on the flop, some hands deny equity better than others. Betting KK on a A99 flop might deny equity, but it doesn't deny very much of it.

But either way, I think the best thing to do now is for you to show a river bet that neither denies equity nor makes the pot bigger in case it wins that is a good bet. I don't think this exist so maybe that will get us closer to seeing eye to eye on this concept.

I did, thank you

I honored that someone who joined 8 years ago chose this thread to make their first post.

Yes, I think it will help. There is more focus on short stack play in this book than Applications.

I have no idea. This is something Mason could possibly answer but it's out of my hands.

On p177, in Q2, you state that Snowie only recommends c-betting the Jh6c5c flop only 3% of the time as cutoff. I entered this scenario in Snowie and it seemed to suggest betting 1/4pot with 23.04% of range. I'm quite new to Snowie, am I entering this info wrong?

Really enjoying the book overall as well as been full of great information it's also a lot more of an enjoyable read than a lot of theory books can be.

Probably not. Snowie changes it's recommendation, so it might have just changed it's recommendation since I wrote it. In fact, many of Snowie's recommendations changed as I was writing the book, but this isn't something to worry about IMO. But if that concerns you then PioSOLVER is probably a better fit than Snowie.

I also wrote a lot of the book when Snowie only had a 1/2 PSB option. Most of that was edited/taken into account before publishing, but I'm sure some of it was missed, especially when it's irrelevant.

Also, keep in mind the difference between checking and betting becomes more and more minor the smaller the bet-sizing gets. So if someone says "You shouldn't CB very often when OOP on this board," they probably mean it in context of a 50-67% PSB which has historically been the norm. Maybe continuation betting 15% of the pot 50% of the time is technically better, but most people are going to interpret that as "I should mostly just check here" rather than develop a very small size CB range (myself included).

Hi matthew,
I don't know if this is the good section to post this question, in case sorry for that.
While reading your book, I made some simulations with piosolver trying to develop a good perception on how different ranges interact each others in different spots and so understanding better which hands are good to bet bigger or smaller in which spots.

In your book u made the example on 776 BTN vs BB raised pot where u say to haven't a betting range for a big size, which seems logical to me. However, I made some sims on piosolver like I said, and on a lot of paired board (most of them with the lower card paired to be honest) piosolver take the strange decision to bet big with quads, which of course doesn't need any kind of protection and blocks the opponent's top calling range. Why do u think it does that?
Even in a spot like 883, where it bets big only 3% of time, this 3% is only with 88 for value. Any thought?


http://imgur.com/xbJh09P
http://imgur.com/ry5jYkH
http://imgur.com/OmqxnIt

This is the perfect place to ask questions.

The first thing I'd note is as follows:

#1) If it's a 3% big betting range, I wouldn't worry about it too much from a practical sense. It's kind of like how I posted about that there may be spots where continuation betting 10% of the time is technically better than always checking, but the EV gap is so small and it's not really practical that I wouldn't worry about it.

#2) The next thing I'd note is the big bets appear part of mixed strats. I don't see any pure big betting strats. So again, betting big seems less important here than other sptos.

So as mentioned in the book and posted above, big bets can be best even if you only satisfy one of the reasons for betting. This is exactly what happens on the river when you bet with a bluff (so you have 0% equity and are betting only to deny equity) or you bet with a very strong hand (you're not denying equity by betting, and doing it only to make the pot bigger in case you win). So, while the river is the most common spot where you'll bet for only one reason, it can happen on earlier streets too. On that note, it's possible to imagine situations where betting is best with quads, and that might be a good place to start to figuring out your question.

For example, maybe if you bet big, villain mostly calls or raises. This is bad if you have a hand like A8 on the 886tw flop, since you really want him to raise. But it's less bad if you have 88, since he had no "value raising" hands in his range anyways that would raise against a 1/2 PSB but call against a 1.2x PSB. So instead the big bet just gets called by 6x/draws, which were unlikely to raise against the small bet anyways. So, if villain is playing in this way, it's possible to imagine situations where big bets are good.

I think we could go down the rabbit hole and try to figure this out, but we'd need to look at the OOP defending ranges as well as all the assumptions you made on the following streets (did you allow multiple bet sizes on the following street? if so, how many bet sizes?). And I'm just not sure this is going to be all that helpful, especially on boards where we're dealing with very small big bet CB % and many many mixed strategies. But if you do want to figure it out the next step is to examine how villain defends against small bets and big bets and see how that changes based on how you change your turn and river bet sizing options.

Hope that helps

We hope for it to be up in a few days.

Best wishes,
Mason

Thank you! I find I like both print & digital edition for books I would like to reference a lot over time. Mathew did a great job with this book introducing concepts and tools in an eye opening and understandable manner. Besides winning, trying to improve is really the fun part of poker and Mathew has been a great help with both his books and his posts.

Thanks for the reply, been a long term reader of the forums just not very active in posting.

Just thinking out loud here. If we bet most of are pair or better hands on the flop as PFR in position (whether it be .25 PSB, .5 PSB or 1 PSB), wouldn't that make our check back range extremely weak? This probably wouldn't be a problem against most players, but a good player could take advantage and aggressively bet when we check back.

Love the book and will have a lot to think about!

Is the book being sold anywhere at the WSOP?

No. The closest place is Gamblers General Store near downtown Las Vegas.

Best wishes,
Mason

How do you exploit too weak of a checking range? You'd bet too big and bet too often (more than is GTO).

You have to ask if your opponents are actually doing that to the magnitude to make checking back strong but vulnerable hands worth it on 983 type boards. On the dry boards, such as Q72, it's already pretty easy and risk free to check back Q4 and such.

Personally I think you'll need a very good reason to justify checking back a very strong hand on even a semi-coordinated board. It's just hard to justify taking a round of betting out of the game when you're strong and vulnerable.