Head Games: Understanding Exploitive Poker vs. Game Theory Optimal Strategy in No-Limit Cash Games

With Reid Young, Paul Ratchford, and David Benefield

Craig Tapscott: What should serious poker players spend more time focusing on, playing exploitively or playing game theory (GTO) poker? 

Reid Young: Today, near-optimal play in poker games with variable bet sizes can only be approximated by the world’s most advanced computers. Game theory optimal poker is, for now, impossible to know for games with deep stacks and variable bet sizes like no-limit Texas hold’em. However, studying abstractions from complex games that show simple lessons learned from available applied computational power, and studying simple game theory concepts, is by far the more important use of a player’s focus. The reason to structure your study around the parameters of any given game rather than a particular type of player is because exploitive adjustments are a byproduct of an understanding of the mathematics of the game. In other words, once you understand a game, only then can you use information gathered at the poker table properly to exploit your opponent. Intuition as a source of gathered information is overly-romanticized in poker as a marketing tool and as a way that lesser experienced players with overbearing machismo overpower their competitors. Quantifying intuition is where the profit is created, and that starts with a sound understanding of the game itself.

Imagine you want to hit a target with a sniper rifle from 1,000 yards away with no other information. You should probably aim a bit above the center of the target to account for air resistance and gravity affecting the bullet trajectory, right? Think of that as your near-optimal poker strategy because, to this point, you have no more information. Now, what if you know that there is a five mile per hour wind coming from the northeast and the rounds that your rifle fires drop at a particular rate in this particular air density? Your aim should adjust to be more accurate; but, it needs to adjust based on an originating subset of governing rules around what allows your shot to hit its target. The important idea is that you need to know from where these adjustments originate, and that’s why near-optimal play is so important.

Paul Ratchford: There are so many misconceptions about GTO vs. exploitive poker. When I first heard about GTO I was a little biased against it; the idea that there is a GTO way to play in every situation in a game as complex as poker seemed unreasonable. Now I realize that while GTO does not provide all the answers, it does provide a strong foundation; having said that, I still believe that if you are going to be a big winner in today’s games, you need to think exploitively as well.

As we all know, poker is a zero sum game where rake is taken off of every pot. To beat the rake, you need to consistently find major edges vs. your opponents. I know numerous solid poker players who languish as marginal winners because they are unwilling to deviate far from standard plays and look for opportunities to exploit their opponents.
Most of my book, Exploitive No Limit Hold’em, is spent trying to help these kinds of players break free from their style, which produces a marginal win-rate at best.

I focus more on exploitive poker than GTO, but I cover both where necessary. Players that are good at exploiting their opponents also tend to know when they are in trouble, because if you know why and how to target your opponent, you should also know when you are the mark. Watch the Phil Ivey’s of the world and you will notice they rarely miss an opportunity to exploit their opponent’s weakness. In my opinion, the fundamentals come relatively quickly compared to the fine finish. I think players need to spend more time focusing on finding their edge and thinking creatively about the game in order to be successful.

David Benefield: The discussion about which style of poker we should aspire to, either GTO or exploitive play, has been heating up in recent years with advancements in computer technology that allow trillions of simulations to calculate the best way to play any given poker hand. More and more of the top no-limit hold’em players come from a quantitative background and spend a large portion of their study time making sure their ranges are balanced so they cannot be exploited. Any poker hand discussion that does not include the word “range” is elementary and obsolete. This GTO-style approach is necessary against top opponents, and success in poker at the highest levels requires this style of thinking to some extent, but how far do we take it?

First, we need to define GTO. Many people, including successful poker players, confuse GTO with optimal. Most poker players consider optimal strategy to be the one that wins the most money in the long run. GTO simply means that the strategy will not lose, that it cannot be exploited in any way. GTO is in no way optimal from the standpoint of earning the most money. It does not care about exploiting opponents, only protecting you from being exploited. It looks at each hand of poker as an individual game, so previous hand statistics are meaningless and it will not make adjustments. That said, if the absolute worst a GTO strategy can do is break even, anything outside of that is winning money. Two GTO robots playing heads-up poker will each break even, but the further a human player deviates from an unexploitable strategy against a GTO opponent, the more that player will lose in the long run.

Craig Tapscott: What are some situations that commonly arise in poker that create exploitive opportunities? And how do you get around not leveling yourself?

Reid Young: Any decision any player makes in poker is guaranteed to create an opportunity for exploitive play, in a myopic sense. In other words, the hidden information of your own holding, what some refer to as card removal, creates a discontinuous hand value from your opponent’s perspective that you can abuse at particular times. That might sound complicated, so let’s consider an example.

Consider reraising preflop with an unknown hand against an earlier position preflop raiser. The open-raising player’s distribution is made up of several strong hands, along with a few suited and connecting hands for variation. Now, let’s assume that given the size of your reraise the player who opens with a raise wants to continue in some way with 40% of his holdings. The particulars of the mathematics cannot be explained in a short space, so let’s assume the number as true for the example. If the player does not consider A-Q a likely bluffing hand for you, then his choices may be significantly disrupted. If that player was going to choose hands like pocket aces, pocket kings, pocket queens, and ace-king to continue, then your choice of a reraising hand has significantly skewed his decision. You have confused him into folding too often relative to his true opening distribution, because he has one fewer ace and one fewer queen, both of which make up many of his strong hands.

Exploitive play is all about abusing thresholds created by misunderstandings by your opponents. Avoiding out-guessing yourself is, in a simple sense, about managing two dynamics: the hands you choose when bluffing and the understanding your opponent has of hands you might choose when you bluff.

Paul Ratchford: I feel live poker games are still incredibly soft and there are opportunities to exploit players everywhere. In most live games, continuation betting exploitively works great versus passive fit or fold live fish. The preflop play of live players is generally overly loose. Players limp all over the place and even most “regs” don’t play aggressively enough in late position and the blinds. Another trait of live players is they like to put you on A-K. Often if you three-bet aggressively versus a weak player, he will put you on A-K and call with a small pair or low cards hoping to exploit you, which creates some great value opportunities with high and mid-pairs. I love playing live because players deviate far more from baselines and every table has a life of its own. Online, it is a little bit trickier. Games are tougher and your tactics need to be more advanced. As a generalization, I would say to look more for your exploitive opportunities on later streets online. Many players are still fit or fold on later streets at low and even mid-stakes.

As far as leveling goes, not leveling yourself is one of the most challenging parts of playing aggressively and exploitively. I struggled with this a lot when I first started playing exploitively. It is easy to get stuck in the aggressive mindset where you feel like your opponents are responding to your actions and fail to realize your opponent is not capable of adapting. An example is weak nits don’t four-bet back with A-10 offsuit because of your aggression, they four-bet back with monsters for value. A more sophisticated nit may be willing to four-bet bluff preflop, but they are unlikely to creatively bluff you on the turn or river. Focusing on your opponents’ actions and determining how they think about the game is critical to prevent leveling. Categorizing players in your mind or on paper can help. As you gain more experience, you will become better at understanding the mentality of various player types, which will allow you to play exploitively without leveling yourself. 

David Benefield: What all of this means for poker is that if everyone eventually plays a perfect GTO strategy, the only winner will be the casino because we will all lose to the rake. In my opinion, it is key in poker to exploit your opponents. Right now, no one really has any idea what a GTO strategy looks like for no-limit hold’em, and the best way to make money is by taking advantage of mistakes made by your opponents while minimizing your own.

Top players are on the right track, focusing on building ranges that do not give anything away while studying their opponent’s ranges to find imbalances, like bluffing too much on the river or three-betting only premium hands out of position. As we progress in our understanding of GTO play, the best players will find that they have smaller and smaller edges against each other. If these players are willing to deviate from the GTO strategy and exploit their weaker opponents, they will be able to turn a greater profit. We must find a balance between protecting our own ranges and exploiting those of our opponents in order to find continued success in this game. ♠

Reid Young is a high-stakes poker professional and a popular coach and owner of Transform Poker. He is the author of “The Blue Book:  An Advanced Strategy Guide for No Limit Hold’em Cash Games”. He can be reached at @transformpoker on Twitter.

Paul Ratchford is a high stakes cash game professional. Since 2011, he has been an instructor at DragtheBar.com. He is the author of ‘Exploitive No Limit Hold’em’ which can be found at his blog – thepokercapitalist.com.

David “Raptor” Benefield placed eighth at the 2013 WSOP Main event. He is a very popular high-stakes poker professional and has appeared on TV in Poker After Dark. Benefield has more than $2 million in tournament career cashes.