Being unbalanced and capped is GTO. It's not "gto" to always trap the nuts sometimes on the river "so you have the nuts in your range". That just doesn't make any sense, if someone jams GTO will just choose other hands to call with, it doesn't need the nuts in the check call range since the nuts make the most money in the bet range. It's quite obvious that your betting range (on flops, turns and rivers) will be stronger than your checking range. Being "unbalanced" in that matter does not matter one bit.

But outside of a theory argument, just stop calling rivers since literally no one bluffs. This is not much of an observation but a fact, the only stake where you will see regs bluff close to GTO frequencies is high stakes, at midstakes and low stakes all regs on aggregate are not betting enough.

He's saying that in reality people don't play like GTO bots so stop pretending you're playing against them and excusing bad calls with "well it was GTO so I had to call".

Stopped playing because of work life, then stopped posting. Got playing a bit again over the whole lockdown thing and thought I'd take a look how 2+2 is doing these days.

That is where we can node lock with population tendencies (like that cbet range thing), and see how to play optimally against pool. But that is just a side note.

I came to this revelation myself recently. After 100k hands vs pokersnowie I had developed some very bad reflexes related to bluff-catching rivers. The people we're playing against at 25NL zoom are not bluffing enough and generally have it when they bet large on turn and river.

I've been through not wanting to get bluffed but if they have it 8 out of 10 times the winnings when we're right are dwarfed by the losses when we're wrong.

I will call where I have blockers or pick up on a sizing tell but generally I folding rivers to large bets.

So this thread has basically evolved to “GTO does not work at the micros.”

I disagree but whatev.

The Zone50 pool on Ignition is super soft, in my experience.

That has been my experience on Ignition as well. Had a long losing streak, and part of that was they came up with the goods, and I started to dislike my TPTK hands.

I get some bluffs through, but not with a shove. Just a raise.

The great awakening is happening! Let it be told from mountain top to mountain top. People are finally starting to figure out that micro players aren't even paying attention enough to understand your damn range.

I've coached 100's of winning regs over the years, and just getting them to understand an accurate range in real time is often challenging. I can't tell you how many hand reviews I've looked at where people are c/cing more than one street w/ A high just to protect their checking range. lol Not that you should never do it of course, but the frequency and reasoning is a bit mind-numbing if you've coached at all.

But it's human nature to want to run before you learn to walk properly.

I'm not reading it like that. Learn GTO play. But you need to know when you should be applying it. That's it.

Welcome back, you've been missed. Hope life is going well.

GTO works at all levels but exploitive probably works better at the micros. My issue is when you try to play exploit your opponent you run the risk of leveling yourself. Plus a lot of really bad players play based on mood so when some yahoo shoves for 100xbb over my 2.5 RFI hard to tell if he has a strong hand or is a donk in rage mode. Plus it takes a lot of hands to get a feel for someone particularly post flop.

There are two important purposes for trapping with the "nuts".


One: If you have QQ and the board for example is Q 5 3 rainbow, the opponent's very unlikely to have top pair, hence you're blocking their calling range. You can most consistently make money either by making your range weaker by checking, causing your opponent to think that they have more of a value range than they thought they did, or by enticing them to bluff. This makes slowplaying beneficial.

Two: You make your condensed ranges less exploitative. Optimal betting and bluffing patterns experience a nosedive even with a relatively small portion of slowplayed "nut" hands in your range. The danger of running into hands like these can make checking your hands down to showdown significantly easier. Your bluffing capabilities with these ranges also improve, and you can build secondary polarized ranges.


But if you still think it's "dumb" and you'd rather value bet QQ on a Q 5 3 rainbow and watch your opponent fold to it, feel free.


Oh, right. And being unbalanced and capped is not GTO. Actual GTO play exploits unbalanced and capped ranges like crazy. For example a turn GTO raising range can go from 5% to 50% if they know you're capped. The exploitation you open yourself up to is insane if you never slowplay. Similarly, if your opponent never slowplays and you know that they'd not be calling multiple streets with a capped range, you can absolutely go to town on them.



Here's the concept of GTO play and GTO solvers. They assume GTO play by the opponent. It's GTO play only if the opponent plays GTO themselves. Against other opposition, it's not the optimal way to play. However, even so, the GTO that the opponent plays against you is the optimal counter-strategy to your lines. So if they themselves are deviating from GTO, then you will gain EV elsewhere. Hence, playing GTO never is bad and always beneficial.

However, actual GTO play vs exploitable opponents is very different. For example, if your SB and BB overfold, the optimal raising range becomes 100%. If your opponent overfolds to check raise, the optimal check raise range becomes very high. If your opponent only ever all ins the nuts on the river, it's optimal to overfold a massive amount of the time. You only balance your ranges in equilibrium. If one option has the highest EV, you would do it 100% of the time.

The problem is, these extreme strategies open you up to counterexploitation, and counterexploitation is always even more powerful than the initial exploitation itself. Even one instance of counterexploitation can outdo hundreds of hands of exploitation, when the opponent adapts. And you can't know when they're going to adapt. For example, if you have the read that your opponent never slowplays and bully them relentlessly but they eventually do adapt, slowplay a monster and get your stack, what now?

You get into a "he thinks that I think that he thinks that I think that.." scenario. Some people are good at them, some people are not. The only people who you can count on not adapting are pure fish and total nits who are afraid of everything. Everyone else is able to.


With default GTO play, you know that your opponent cannot adapt to it. The optimal counter to it is GTO - they'll always bleed money one way or another otherwise. But it is not the way to play for the biggest possible winnings. It's a defensive strategy against opponents who you have no reads on.

Well seeing people running solvers at 10nl made me feel like I'm from the stone age, but a good thread on GTO in the micros and it's like I never left.

Anyone can purchase a solver, it's like 75 bucks not different than a training course. Thing is most people don't really understand how to use it correctly in ways that will actually help and be implementable

While I don’t agree with most of the post with which you are also disagreeing, you do realize that the question being discussed was river calls? I don’t think your massive wall of text is required to convince most players to check QQ on a super dry Q high flop.