Seems cheap, I'd charge more.

Who knew that the magic box that solves poker questions would be difficult to use, expensive, and require both skills and effort? The resulting human behavior implies that they ripped off Thaler with only the one Nobel prize. Standard economic theory would claim that the magic box kills all poker in an instant.

I told myself that I am going to dedicated the next 5 years on maxing my earning with lhe. Other regs seem to focus more on learning clicking that auto sit out and buttoning people. The amount alone time I spend/dedicate just for lhe is not going to work for most people. There no other way around spending time by yourself figuring out not only the correct strategy to different problems but how are you going to STUDY correct and build up mental structure.

Take for example I went from this




All those are saved for easy access


Constantly coming up with better idea on how to memorize all the spot I mess up or not sure about.




Make sure I save all type of scenario and even having time figuring out player I would play head up


You add in the cost of server 250 per month. Pio solver/Monkersolver 1.5k .Getting coach just to learn how to use monkersolver 600.

and for those that think I haven't plan for other games. I spend 1.5k+ on finish sim for nl

I had a talk with a friend the other day and the look of "I know what your secret are" when I told them I have a dedicated server to solve GTO. LOL It not like you give out a commend and all the sudden **** are solve for you in real time while playing poker. Each questions I have take at least 30 mins to solve and actually make sense for Myself It really boring work who wants to sit there looking at min bet mix strategy solution. That why I see a lot of short cut people are trying to do to gain an edge by making a lot of bad assumption on how to exploit players.

If I'm understanding in context, think that's a bit of a caricature of my position.

However, it is true that (1) this isn't a day job for all of us (2) I'd be a lot better at poker if I'd redirected some of the time spent over the years on 2+2 arguments that weren't helping my game!

No doubt. But my question is how we optimize our study time (or tools portfolio) against opponents who have almost no study time.

YES! Absolutely true. I'm trying to figure out the career implications now (like, should I be in consulting).

The implication is that I need to get better with following through on intentions, but that doesn't necessarily meaan I should buy a solver. It probably means I should spend less time obsessing over questions like, "Do 2+2 threads rush into GTO analysis too quickly when they should be talking more about exploitation?" And I mean like $1-3 NLHE threads, games where GTO is just a theoretical baseline but not a practical guide.

Disclaimer: I have the least actual experience with solvers of anyone here so I should probably STFU on this particular topic. I'm interpreting it as a proxy for small/mid stakes players getting bogged down in GTO but that's really a different conversation.

Also these days I play fewer than 10 hours of LHE a month and fewer than 10 of NLHE so really.... yeah, totally different conversation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that at stakes where most of the player pool is presumed to understand the need for balance on every street, even if they construct ranges worse than you do?




Anyway I'm not anti-solver. They seem really educational. Maybe I'll make it the only thing on my Christmas list.

I'm pretty sure they're not talking about you or people like you. The way I read the posts by Sean, BK, and DeathDonkey, they're talking about fellow pros who they see like 150 hours/month sitting in their games who do about zero work getting better. They may be shooting down some of the excuses that you or I might make, but it is reference to full time pros.


I'm a consultant. If a tool in my business is worthwhile, I'm willing to pay for it. I know a fellow consultant who does a good chunk of FPGA work, and on a project we worked on he insisted on using a worse part because he wanted to use the free development tools. The better parts required an "expensive tool". I looked it up, it was under $3K. IMO, if you won't spend a measly $3k on a tool you'd use like 150 days a year, and it is part of your bread and butter work, you're not really a pro. I suspect my feelings along those lines match what Don, Sean, and DeathDonkey are feeling about poker pros who don't do any computer work. I'm totally willing to skip nice to have stuff that's expensive, because there's no prize for a cool collection. However, stuff that improves my work is easy to justify.

Do you think that can possibly be more profitable than learning o8, 2-7, plo etc.

It’s not like your going to be able to improve you winrate by > the amount of bets per hour you’d be able to make playing in games you currently can’t play in. Unless you can play super hi stakes holdem I suppose but seems like optimal approach is to learn all games then spend all time/energy/resources studying your GTO start when no action

Since it's NC/LC, I'm also curious: Take a person talented enough and cognitively capable enough to start from midstakes and work their way toward beating nosebleed stakes. Would they be foregoing other, more lucrative ways to use the time? Or not?

Separate but same question for LHE, NLHE, PLO, or mix/other.

I'm not advocating one view or the other, just wondering. Sort of the higher-level version of all the "Should I quit my job and grind 1-2 NL?" threads.

It's not even that, is it? Isn't all this solver stuff about gto? It's debatable whether playing gto is "better". The average player doesn't necessarily want to spend a lot of effort and money on something that may not be "better".

absolutely yes. but everyone has to decide what their time is worth. some people may derive more happiness from their current endeavor, even if it's less financially lucrative. i'm sure there are some sportsbettors who could make a lot more in financial analysis or real estate or something else, but being good at betting sports and watching sports is their favorite thing to do. ultimately you gotta love your work.

all that being said, i do think it's a little silly at this point to be solver-obsessed with LHE when you can take the same study applications and use it toward NLHE/PLO which is substantially more lucrative these days.

also there is a very clear inefficiency imo in solver usage when it comes to live poker. i'm pretty confident that SoCal/Vegas have a lot of regs that aren't making the jump to solvers, and maybe the way the lifestyle of live poker works... maybe it's always gonna be that way. there may never be "pressure" to expand into solver study because the games are always gonna be beatable for lazy tight thinking players. but i think there's a massive inefficiency there that's totally grabworthy for anyone willing to put in elbow grease... aka the avoidthe9to5 route.

There a lot of study and book on the subject https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Secrets-...erate+practice . For example what is more likely that a child become a prodigy in chess instead of piano if given the same time and focus by parent to gear them toward one vs the other. The truth is sometime things just click for one subject instead of another and it hard to pin point why. Also there a biases for people regarding short term which i doubt any solver is going ruin live poker economy however that doesn't mean long term it won't effect. You guys think the live player were sweating balls when after black friday a huge swarm of internet kids join. What was there saying then LOL internet nerd not going to know live read like me. Now you have machine that is hard to use but can accurately tell you exactly what GTO is. Maybe within 5 years nothing will change but the future is forever and that a long time. Anyway if you believe in BTC but don't believe in solver then you not rational. Both takes a long time for adaption but once it does there no going back am right?

Why not become an expert at something that I know for sure is GTO and wait for better technology/cheaper to solve/use by other smarter people and I copy them? I will use the same way I study with LHE and bring it to another game. You guys think I can just make 300 an hour at another game sitting at casino while having no expense/heart attack dying of old age. I am willing to spend a lot of money getting lhe solve/nl solution what makes you think I don't calculate my opportunity cost of doing one thing vs another.

Sorry I been having a lot of anger issue all these people that buttoning/living in U.S and dealing with a lot of irrational behavior. But look at it this way if I didnt come in with all this solver talk people wouldn't even bother opening up to the subject that nl/plo been discovering years ago.

The way I see it, not having done the work myself, is that exploitative strategies are always better when your opponent literally turns their hand face up.

In the case of face-down variants, you should probably have a balanced range because your opponents are almost never as predictable as you think they are.

what note taking software is that?

I'm studying pretty hard right now, but at NLHE. The cost/benefit of studying limit at this point is, umm, limited.

I don't think I am in a place - yet - where solvers will help my game, certainly not in the live games open to me. Speaking of cost/benefit analysis, I would have to see a pretty clear benefit before I would be shelling out money for both the software and hardware sufficiently robust to run it.

I agree with the last sentence but it's back to my rock-paper-scissors example above. If GTO has our opponent bluffing the river 10%, but she really bluffs 5%, our "game theory optimal" response is not to call with any bluff catcher.

That's theory. In practice if we play many many hours with her we should probably call occasionally just so our exploitation isn't obvious. But we don't need to do that much; a little goes a long way. If we call several times and find that she's bluffing, our read was probably wrong and we should shade our strategy toward GTO. (So knowing GTO is helpful!)



BTW Ed Miller has been writing in Card Player about second-level uncertainty in reads--not just about the hole cards, but about our own reads. And you can go on infinitely, but the key practical point is, the more uncertainty, the more we should shade toward calling.

The conversation has gone from eye opening to mind boggling

Sean, it is basically evidence that games will always be good. FWIW, you and DeathDonkey changed how I think about poker in one conversation in a Vegas hot tub.

Btw have anyone ever ask LHE head up is fully solve which means there is no other exist strategy that is better than cepherus. How many top pro that made vids content/Books the past 6+ years spend explaining all their strategies pre solvers that is now proven to not correct. Obviously this can be easily tested since anyone could check lastest result. Thought experiment what the chance that time spend learning to master X game that isn't fully solve and get fully exploited by some 20s kids that spend latest tech/energy in future. Are you going to spend the same time relearning everything.

As someone who made videos that were not correct, I can say with certainty that there is value in learning strategies that are effective for the time but not perfect. Not only do you often get closer to what is correct but learning strategies that beat the games when the games are soft can be quite valuable. Look at the dawn of hu lhe on the internet. Almost all the winning players were bad by todays standards yet they almost certainly made more than any winning player can make now.

yes another thing I want to mention is how many of those players end up with quick cash but end up with the financial hardship. I am sure those players aren't going well I am broke but at least I made a shi.t load before Or the current environment in order to be top pro now you have to mentally train and mostly got some coaching meditation/bankroll management etc. Obviously I am not making fun of those players since I was constantly broke before but somewhere everything clicked once you realize your exact +ev w solver. In order to play gto you need to have disciple etc.

Oh? That's pretty cryptic.

If you're talking about the ROI on solvers thing, I don't get what's mind boggling. What's +ROI if you play in tough games may not be +ROI if you don't play in those games. I'm not trying to be argumentative or question the expertise of those who are experts; I just don't understand why the previous sentence is controversial.

Exactly. That's why I don't get the "controversy" (even though I've never disagreed that solvers are probably really awesome if you play enough volume or just have enough curiosity to make them worth it).

At some point I'll probably just buy a damn solver because they sound like fun and I'm legit curious what application they have to softer games.

DougL could be right that I'm misinterpreting but these one liners are hard to decode. I'm taking it as "I never realized people on this forum were too lazy to buy and invest time in this particular genre of tool."

OTR nailed it.

U know Don juan, what you are saying is exactly what happened in the chess community.
Today some computer program are as good as world champions.
Yes a lot of opening in chess game or some ending that thought were solved have been changed with the "correct " answer.

But there is so much information to acquire to play correctly in chess that it did not change much anything beside at the top of the food chain because only few are prepare to put the effort into it.

I mean take any education sector like maths,physics,etc
U can have have all the book free from internet or free university lectures courses on youtube to have a "free" degree but almost no one does it.

You can give all the tools in the world to a person but at the end of the day, people arent really interest to be great.
Including me btw lol.