GTO Poker - A Beginner's Guide

What is GTO Poker?

GTO is short for Game Theory Optimal. GTO poker is based on finding an equilibrium strategy, where no player can improve their expected value by changing their strategy. It is assumed that each player knows the strategy of their opponent.

GTO strategy, if played perfectly, cannot be exploited or beaten in the long run. It's about making the mathematically best possible decision in every situation, regardless of what your opponent does. The more mistakes an opponent makes versus GTO, the more profit GTO makes in the long run.

It is a concept that has gained significant attention in the poker world over the last decade or so, transforming the way players think about the game.

Why You Should Study GTO Strategy

Studying GTO teaches players what a solid baseline strategy should look like. As well as making them a tougher player, it makes it easier to spot exactly where and how an opponent is unbalanced. This in turn helps when forming an exploitative strategy to counter the opponent's specific mistakes.

GTO is not the only winning strategy in poker, and in fact, most players do not play anything close to a GTO strategy. There are many situations where exploitative strategies can be more profitable, especially against weaker players who make obvious and consistent mistakes.

Against unbalanced players, the most profitable play will be to exploit their specific weaknesses using a counter-strategy tailored to those exact weaknesses.
This is fine against much weaker players, but there are potential issues with playing in this manner. By playing exploitatively, you are deviating from GTO and so leave yourself open to be exploited yourself by better players who can spot what is happening.
Also, for the exploitative play to be profitable, it is imperative that your assumptions about the weakness are correct and that you employ the tight counter strategy. Otherwise, you will potentially make losing (-EV) plays and may get exploited yourself.
The key is to understand both GTO and exploitative strategies and use them appropriately based on the game situation using reliable information.

Almost all elite players today base their play on GTO strategy mixed with some degree of exploitative play to crush the games they play in.

GTO Poker Ranges

In the context of poker ranges, a GTO range is a range that is optimally balanced between value bets and bluffs, and between different hand strengths. This balance makes it impossible for an opponent to exploit your strategy. The best they could do is play GTO themselves, which would result in both players breaking even in the long run. Any deviation from GTO strategy by either player would result in a loss in the long term for the deviating player.

True GTO strategy has not yet been discovered due to the complexity of the game. But it is possible to approximate it and advance our strategic knowledge based off that. For example, we can know that certain sizes are better than others, that balance is important, and that hands will employ mixed strategies and use mixed sizings in certain situations.

Here are some of the key principles of GTO Ranges:

Balance: A GTO range is balanced between different types of hands. This includes a mix of strong hands, medium-strength hands, and bluffs all in the right proportions for a variety of bet sizes.

Frequency-based betting: Instead of always betting a fixed amount with a specific holding, GTO poker often involves taking various actions at mixed frequencies. For example, a hand like TT might check 50% of the time, bet small 10% of the time and bet big 40% of the time in a certain scenario.

Indifference: A GTO range makes your opponent indifferent to certain decisions with certain holdings. In other words, whether they decide to call or fold, their expected value will be the same. Without indifference, it would be an easy decision to call or fold.

Unexploitable: GTO ranges are unexploitable. This means that no matter what strategy your opponent uses, they cannot gain an advantage over you if you play a GTO strategy perfectly.

For more background information on ranges in general, check out this guide to poker ranges and hand reading.

What is a GTO Poker Chart?

A GTO poker chart is a visual representation of the range of hands that a player should have in a particular spot, based on the action so far in the hand. They are based on the output from GTO solvers, giving a guide for how to play an optimal strategy.

The two main types of poker chart are range charts or strategy charts.
A range chart shows a single range for a specific action (e.g. BB 3bet range vs BTN open raise).
A strategy chart shows the ranges for multiple actions in the same chart when facing a decision (e.g. BB decision when facing an open raise from BTN). It shows the frequency of each action (bet, check, call, fold) that should be taken for every hand combo in the range.

GTO charts are particularly useful in learning a solid preflop strategy to avoid making big mistakes that can be exploited by their opponents.

Here is a GTO poker chart showing the strategy for the BB when facing a raise from the BTN in a 6max 100bb cash game:

Overall, the BB folds 52%, calls 34% and 3bets 14%. The squares are coloured according to the frequency of the action that should be taken. 72o is coloured completely blue, so should always be folded. AA is coloured completely orange, so should always be 3bet. Some hands are a mix of colors, which means they should sometimes take one action and sometimes take another. 87o should call about half the time and fold the other half. QTs should mostly 3bet and occasionally call.

A poker range chart showing only the 3bet range for the BB looks like this:

How to build GTO Poker Ranges - the Rise of GTO Solvers

Building a GTO poker range is a complex process that involves a deep understanding of poker strategy and the use of poker solvers, like PioSolver or MonkerSolver.
Poker solvers are essentially EV maximizing algorithms and their output is only as valuable as the input given to them.

The strategies produced by solvers are only an approximation to true GTO, limited by the constraints of the parameters used in the models. For all but the simplest games, poker is still unsolved and we do not know the true GTO strategy. To model the game accurately, we would need to include all bet and raise sizes at every decision point. This would make the game tree impossibly large, and the computational resources to solve a game tree of this size using the current algorithms are not available in 2023.
That said, we can still produce very good strategies using some sensible assumptions and bet sizes commonly seen in games.

To build your own GTO ranges, you need poker solver software. There are several on the market, PioSolver is one of the more popular ones. To create preflop ranges, MonkerSolver is a popular solver choice.

Creating flop, turn or river solutions is possible on a modern computer with 16Gb of RAM (the more the better). A simple flop solution with limited bet sizes on each street takes about 5 minutes to complete. For more complex game trees with more bet sizes, the amount of RAM increases significantly and may not fit on a home PC.

To solve preflop ranges, a huge amount of RAM is needed. For this, a specialist server with at least 256Gb of RAM is generally required. Depending on the complexity of the game tree, it takes days or weeks to reach equilibrium!

The advantage of running your own ranges in a solver is complete control and flexibility.
Using your own poker solver allows you to customize the range creation process based on specific parameters such as stack sizes, bet sizes, and even node lock for opponent tendencies. You have more control over the inputs and can generate ranges that are tailored to specific game conditions.
You can perform on-the-spot analysis and generate ranges for any given situation using a poker solver. This enables you to adapt your strategies dynamically. It gives you a deeper understanding of the underlying principles of poker strategy.

The disadvantage of running your own sims is the time, cost and expertise required to produce accurate results.
It can be computationally intensive and time-consuming. It takes a considerable amount of time and money to generate a set of accurate ranges.
Understanding and effectively utilizing a poker solver requires a certain level of technical knowledge and expertise. You need to learn how to properly input parameters and interpret the results to verify that they are useful. This learning curve can be steep for less experienced players.

An alternative to creating your own ranges is to use a service like RangeConverter, which has spent years developing a database of pre-solved solutions for preflop and postflop for many different game types.

The main advantages to using a service like RangeConverter are:

1. Time-saving: Accessing a pre-solved database saves a lot of time compared to running simulations yourself. You can quickly reference established poker ranges, which frees up more time to focus on other aspects of your game, such as studying.
2. Accuracy: Pre-solved solutions provided by reputable services are based on extensive analysis, testing, and expert knowledge. They are designed to be accurate, providing well-tested strategies for a large variety of scenarios.
3. Cost-effective: Building and maintaining a comprehensive set of pre-solved solutions is expensive. By utilizing a service that offers a ready-made database, you avoid most of the costs associated with creating a set of GTO strategies and keeping it up to date.
4. Training and study tools: Companies like RangeConverter also offer additional training resources based on the GTO solutions. These include training apps, tutorials, and interactive features that help you improve your poker skills.
5. Enhanced analysis and visualization: RangeConverter provides advanced tools that allow you to explore the data in the pre-solved database. These include graphical representations of poker hand charts, heat maps, strategy graphs, aggregated reports and other visual aids that facilitate deeper analysis. These help you spot patterns to simplify your strategy for implementing in game.

How to Study GTO Poker - GTO Trainers and Range Viewers

Using GTO poker ranges in your game is a powerful strategy but it's also complex. This makes it difficult to implement directly into your game, which can be a daunting prospect for beginners.

Here are some tips to get started:

Use Poker Software: Nowadays there are poker software tools that provide you with GTO strategy for many in game situations. These tools help you learn GTO ranges and are an essential weapon in every serious player's arsenal.
Range viewers allow you to browse the game tree to learn GTO ranges for various scenarios. With GTO trainers, you can test your skills by playing a simulation of a real game. You get instant GTO strategy feedback on your play so that you can see where you are making mistakes and eliminate leaks.

Study: Understanding GTO ranges requires a deep understanding of poker strategy. Invest time in studying poker theory, analyzing hand histories, and learning from experienced players.
It is virtually impossible to memorize all the mixing that occurs in GTO ranges, especially postflop. And even more difficult to accurately implement in game. It is better to focus on the main principles and look for the overall patterns in strategy, being aware of rough frequencies rather than trying to remember exact mixing.

Practice, practice, practice: Like implementing any poker strategy, the best way to get better at using GTO ranges is to practice. GTO trainers are a great way to practice vs the computer and get feedback on your play without risking real money. Once you are confident in training, try to implement the GTO strategy concepts in your games. Review your decisions afterwards to learn from your mistakes.

Can’t wait to start studying optimal poker ranges for your games?

RangeConverter provides a risk free way of learning GTO ranges and implementing GTO strategy.
Train preflop ranges, postflop ranges, and fix your leaks with the GTO Poker Trainer.
Complete key skills from the personalized training courses to master preflop and postflop strategy.
Receive instant feedback and statistics on your play with range charts for every spot.

There are 2 different subscription types available:

Range Reg is perfect for players who want to learn GTO ranges, and improve through experience.

Sign up to Range Reg today for the game type of your choice to train preflop and postflop strategy, and study preflop ranges in the Viewer for every spot:

You’ll find GTO ranges for your games, whatever the format. From heads-up to full ring and everything in between, there are Texas holdem cash game ranges, full ring ranges, MTT ranges, short deck ranges, PLO ranges and much more!

All available online in the Poker Trainer and Range Viewer, and indownloadable format for PioSolver and MonkerSolver.

Check out the lobby for a full list of GTO solutions available.

Conclusion

Game theory optimal poker has changed the landscape of the poker world in recent years. All high level players incorporate it into their game in some way.
By establishing a mathematically perfect balance between value bets and bluffs, GTO guarantees that your strategy cannot be exploited by an opponent.
GTO is not the only winning strategy however - exploitative strategies provide an even greater edge in certain situations, assuming that the correct assumptions and counters are used.

It's worth remembering that poker hasn't been fully solved. This means that the perfect GTO strategy has not been discovered yet due to the game's complexity. Although current strategies are approximations, they are still useful to help our understanding of correct play.

GTO strategy is represented visually using GTO poker charts, which show how to play in specific scenarios.

The rise of GTO solvers has enabled players to construct their own GTO poker ranges. These solvers, such as PioSolver and MonkerSolver, are invaluable tools for improving poker strategy knowledge. But their use requires expertise and a decent amount of time invested. To save time and resources, services like RangeConverter offer pre-solved databases of GTO ranges for most of the popular game formats.

It takes time to become an expert. Diligent study along with regular deliberate practice is recommended for learning GTO strategy. At RangeConverter, we offer an online platform for players to improve their poker skills using optimal poker ranges coupled with comprehensive training courses.

With the resources available today, players who are dedicated to improving at poker strategy are able to start incorporating GTO techniques at the tables. This integration offers a compelling approach to the game that maximizes the expected value, resulting in a more profitable poker experience.

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