Example (from the "Value Betting" video by Felipe Boianovsky, but also elsewhere like in Lefort's series) : GTO poker is a solution to any given long term set of hands, so that you cannot be exploited. This is assuming that if your opponent is ALSO applying GTO solutions, then the end result of many hands played with this same person would be a net EV (expected value) of zero.

This is the core of the benefits and costs of an exploitative strategy. You stand to win much more when your assumptions are correct, but you open yourself up to exploitation. If your opponent adjusts, you lose. If your assumptions are incorrect you lose by exploiting yourself. If, however, you only play a GTO style you can only profit when your opponent leaves themselves open to exploitation. If you both play GTO you will end up playing to a stalemate, but if either of you divert from a GTO strategy you will leave yourself open to exploitation. A full discussion of these ideas in the specific context of our app can be found in this podcast episode presented by coach w34z3l: For many of you, the introductory explanation of what the app is and does given in the FAQ link above may be all you want. However, questions on our Discord server indicate that some of you want a deeper understanding of the input parameters and assumptions used in developing the app. We are happy to oblige! I believe that after reading this book, readers who have developed a thirst for GTO should go on to read or revisit those other books. My personal history with GTO and solvers You may have heard players referred to as “exploitative” or “GTO” players. In reality, these two approaches are more like two sides of the same coin than opposing points of view.

The main issue is the following: In live play where 9-handed tables are common, your opponents’ opening ranges and sizes don’t just “deviate” from GTO solutions; they are in a completely different zip code. This is also true to a lesser extent in online 9-max cash games. It has been the experience of our coaches that the rarer 9-max online tables share many similarities with live play, likely because such tables are dominated by live players who sometimes cannot get to the card room. For the 40bb and 60bb ranges, we assumed an open size of 2.5x. In the 40bb case, 3-bet sizes were set at 2.7x (IP) and 3.5x (OOP). 4-bets were fixed to be all-in. The same 3-bet size was used in the 60bb case, but now we set the 4-bet size at 2x (IP) and 2.25x (OOP), with 5-bets being all in.

OK, but what is GTO?" In poker we basically always use GTO to mean Nash Equilibrium. The equilibrium here basically is that all players are playing perfect strategy, and anyone who deviates from playing perfectly loses. The "perfect strategy" exists in pretty much every game and poker is no exception. Be warned that some players do use GTO as a crutch from a mental game perspective. There are times when it is blindingly obvious that an exploit is the way to go (let’s say the player in front of you is drunk and calling everything) but you refuse to diverge because of the uncertainty that playing an exploitative strategy brings. Also, GTO is only as good as the initial assumptions you make. You have to get the opponent’s range and betting tendencies right for the information to be useful. If you don’t revisit and question your own assumptions a few times you could be making big errors and protecting yourself from having to deal with them. Exploitative players have to deal with much more uncertainty because so many more things can go wrong. Their assumptions about their opponents might be wrong and they find themselves diverging very far off the game tree. Opponent A might diverge in one direction, Opponent B might veer off a completely different part of the game tree. If an exploitative player thinks their opponent is under bluffing, then that player shows them a bluff, it can be stressful. Were all their assumptions wrong, or was it just the one time the player bluffed out of hundreds of missed opportunities? Exploitative players have to be very forgiving of themselves.When the solvers arrived, I was already there. I was a very early adopter of solver technology and when Hold’em Resources Calculator came out, I didn’t need my spreadsheet anymore. When PIOSolver came out it just confirmed everything I had suspected from studying GTO.

The GTO Ranges App by Red Chip Poker constitutes the end-point of the most ambitious and extensive GTO research project we have ever conducted. It is also very much an ongoing project. Not only do we have a mountain of data on hand that we intend to disseminate to you, we are also continuing to run our servers to further investigate the nuances of preflop GTO poker. Poker GTO is a strategy applicable to no-limit Texas Hold’em poker. It stands for Game Theory Optimal, and it can be described as a near-perfect way to play no-limit Hold’em. The app includes two distinct preflop ranges for 6-max tables, simplified GTO and exploitative ranges. As explained in more detail below, the exploitative ranges are built from the GTO ones, so we begin with a fuller description of those. Simplified 6-Max GTO Ranges Playing as optimally as possible is all but an easy task. Not even all poker pros fully grasp the complexities of GTO, and you can’t really blame them. This is a very detailed poker strategy that requires a lot of math.GTO is the starting point for all good training content these days, even if that content then goes on to be mostly about exploits. GTO should be your starting point for playing against unknown players and very good players. With persistence and the right software, you can bring your poker game to a whole other level and see yourself become a poker master. Additionally, setting the inputs for the solver has a lot of room for error as well, see my example sim above on As9c8s where it was folding K9, that was because I didn't set the inputs properly so it gave me a bad output.