Beyond GTO: Poker Exploits Simplified

The overall response to a calling station is to play more hands. Really internalise that because it goes against the old-school wisdom of playing tight and charging the maximum.

When the player is calling shoves wide, we tighten up a little compared to a calling station who just flats opens too wide.

When a player plays too many hands, the correct strategic adjustment is to widen your range to exploit them.

When it looks like two wide ranges are going to be all-in, this should widen your multi-way calling range. You only need 33.33% equity to call two all-in players, which is easily achievable against two wide ranges. Suited broadway hands, rather than small pairs, perform very well against two wide ranges.

If you recognise that a player is not defending wide enough, significantly increase your opening range. You will print money from stealing the blinds and should be able to make a profit postflop, though be warned that your opponent will be stickier than you might expect after the flop because they have a stronger range in general.

Responding to a preflop maniac

We don't 3-bet with medium-strength hands because they fold out the hands we beat, and only get action from hands that are ahead of us. Instead if we 3-bet our best hands we print money when we get action, and when we 3-bet our bluffs we print money when we get folds.

The way to adjust to these players, counterintuitively, is to play more hands aggressively against them. Their 3-betting range contains too many weak hands so you want action against that range, while their flatting range is severely capped and you certainly want more action against that. You also don't have to worry about having bluffs in your response to them, it's just about showing up with a stronger range than they have.

When a player doesn't squeeze enough, everyone else can take liberties. The players before them can open more, flat more, and 3-bet more, because they are less concerned about the Nit making a move on them. When the Nit does actually make a move, everyone has a very easy decision to fold and not pay them off.

The biggest takeaway probably should be that you should squeeze more yourself. It is always tempting just to call as the BB because you close the action and are always getting a good price to do so. Just because calling is profitable, it doesn't mean it is the most profitable thing you can do. I would argue that squeezing is more profitable in real life than the solvers suggest, because the general player pool is passive.

As we saw in the preflop chapter, if somebody is making a mistake, let them make it. We want to get involved in hands with players who call too much, fold too much, or raise too much. This means that we should increase how many hands we play against them, or at least not decrease how many hands we play.

One important caveat, however, is that increasing hands played only works against calling stations to a certain extent. When the station has a stronger overall range (for example if they are not defending the Big Blind), you will sometimes see a decrease in betting frequency (but an increase in bet size).

If an opponent bluffs less frequently than GTO, you should not bluff catch them at all. Fold everything that can only beat a bluff, and only call with hands that beat some value bets. If an opponent calls too much, you should not bluff them at all. This is probably abundantly clear to anyone who has played against a nit or a calling station. It probably does not need to be stated.

The lesson here is that when an opponent has such an obvious leak, lean into the leak. When they call too much bet big to get the maximum from your value. When they fold too much bet small to print money with your bluffs. If your opponent is making a mistake, let them make it.

In both cases, the adjustment is to play our hand face up. When an opponent does not change their strategy based on the size of the bet, we don't need to hide the strength of our hand.

If you have an opponent who does not thin value bet, the adjustment, therefore, is to call them with all your bluff catchers, unless you also assume they also do not bluff much. A lot of people would assume that the adjustment would be to fold more, with the logic that no thin value bets means a bet is more likely to be a stronger hand.

It is not just about getting an extra few BBs from a sticky player, it also protects your bluffing range. Your opponent will be reluctant to bluff catch you too much when you are capable of turning up with thin value hands. Therefore, by thin value betting at the right frequency, you will get your bluffs through more often.

This turned out to be a surprisingly complex node lock. Slow playing too much changed the strategy in different ways on different runouts, but the takeaway here is that slow playing too much caps your aggressive ranges. It might mean your opponent slows down against you when you are playing passively, which is good for the weaker hands in your range, but it means they can exploit you considerably when you are the one moving the chips.

When a player slow plays too much, you adjust by betting more often and favouring medium bet sizes. This is because there is less fear of being check/raised. You can get more value from the hands you beat and take the pot down as a bluff more often. If you get called by the slowplayer, however, you should be less aggressive on later streets.

Practically speaking, another reason not to slow play too much is that it makes your hand easier to play. Bad cards can come that make your opponent slow down and make it harder to extract value on later streets and generally speaking it is easier to get money in on the flop than the turn or river.

Playing big hands faster does mean you lose value sometimes, but getting folds is part of your EV, even with monster hands.

In both examples, the adjustment is the same. If a bet signals obvious value, the response is to overfold to them. When we have a strong hand ourselves, we just get it in against them. The only hands we like to call with, especially if the bet is small, are the hands that can improve to nutted hands like straights and flushes.

If a bet signals an obvious condensed range, ie. medium-strength hands, we can play face-up against them. We call our better-than-average hands, fold all the mediocre stuff, and only raise the really strong hands.

Against obvious bluffs, we just reraise pretty much everything, usually for a large sizing. The only exception is our very strong hands where we don't want to get folds. There it is better to raise small, or call if you think they will barrel again.

Most people would concentrate on how to play on future streets against players who don't play draws aggressively, but the key takeaway is to be more aggressive against them on the current street when an obvious draw is on the board.

If a player does not semi-bluff, you can bet more frequently and for a larger size. If they do play aggressively, you can safely put them on a strong range with few or no bluffs. You adjust by calling with your best hands and the hands that can improve, getting rid of the marginal hands.

This chapter should also be a reminder to mix up your own play with draws. Make sure to bluff with them often, but also to play them passively at times to avoid being predictable if the draw does or doesn't come in.

There are two adjustments here when we know our opponent doesn't understand when they are capped. The first is to put them in a position to be aggressive when they should play a bluff-catching style, by making inducing bets. Once again, perhaps the mantra of this book, if an opponent is making a mistake, do whatever you can to let them make it. The second is to attack their capped range. When we know they do not have many strong hands in their range, the correct strategy is to pounce when they are aggressive. Wait until they bet, so if you are out of position, you check/raise, then reraise them with all your good hands and bluffs that block big hands or are semi-bluffs. A big caveat, however, is that if a player doesn't understand they have a capped range when they make a bet, they may not understand they have a capped range when they are facing a reraise. To make this aggressive strategy work you need a sense of how your opponent will react to a check/raise or reraise. If you think they will crumble and fold, put more bluffs in your range. If you think they are going to continue unabated with top pair regardless of the runout, weight your range towards value. If you are the player with a capped range, unless your opponent is particularly passive, your best approach is to adopt a bluff-catching style to keep bluffs in their range. Playing a capped range aggressively gets you into trouble against thinking players.

Good players will apportion different potential bluffs to different streets, so that they are always capable of having bluffs in any scenario. A classic example would be to check back some of the time with the nut flush draw. If you always bet the flop with this hand, you can never have the nuts when the turn brings a third card of the same suit. Likewise, checking back with the nut flush draw some of the time gives you a profitable delayed semi bluff on the turn when you don't make your hand. A less obvious example is I will sometimes hold back a gutshot for one street when I am against a player who check/raises a lot. Instead, I will bluff with my big open-ended straight or flush draws, or double backdoor draws. These hands perform better if I get action on my bluffs as they are more likely to hit something strong. By holding back a gutshot to only bluff the turn, I still have a profitable bluff and with just one card to come I don't mind folding it if I get raised (and generally you get check/raised less on the turn anyway).

First and foremost, it's not the worst player population read to assume that if a player you assume is weak is taking an unusual aggressive line on the turn and river, they are not bluffing. Pay attention and make notes when they prove your assumption wrong, but keep 'they always have it' fresh in your mind as a default.

When a weak player shuts down a lot on the turn and river, the adjustment is to be more aggressive. Bet more often and bet bigger. They have too many weak hands in their range, and they are going to be forced to fold more than they should.

Most players know to continuation bet when it is checked to them, but after that street, straightforward bluffers are easy to play against. A check usually means a weak hand you can take them off, more aggression usually means they have it.

If you suspect your opponent raises for information, the main adjustment is to let them do it, by betting more and using bet sizes you think they will raise. We have seen this before in previous chapters, if an opponent is making a mistake, let them. However, one key takeaway from this chapter is to still bet your weak hands that cannot stand a reraise. Players who raise for information make playing mediocre hands easy to play, ironically you get to bet for information with them. If you get a call or a fold, that's a good result, if you get raised you have an easy decision.

I appreciate we just told you two chapters ago that two barrels from an unsophisticated player is a sign of strength, but loose players and thinking players will often fire two barrels as bluffs. Therefore, you need bluff catchers on the turn as well as the flop (and also on the river). When you do not bluff catch enough on the turn, your opponents get to print money against you by building a pot on the flop and then taking it away on the next street. It also means you do not protect the rest of your range. When you overfold the turn, your opponent will shut down a lot on the river when you have a hand. They will also overfold when you are aggressive on the turn. Finally, another reason to bluff catch more on the turn with hands like Ace High is to give you runout coverage for when an Ace hits the river. Tight players rarely spike Aces on the river because they don't call two streets with unpaired hands, so they are easily exploited when the Ace does come on the river.

The short answer to how you deal with players who call too much on the flop, but not on the turn, is to fire two streets. This is just like in the last chapter, where the player overfolded the turn (but didn't call the flop too frequently).

The counterintuitive adjustment is that you bet small with all your non-GTO bluffs on the turn. In the previous chapter, we didn't change our bet size on the turn, but we made it smaller here. We are not targeting the whole range when we fire that second barrel, we are firing at the weak portion of the range that should not be there (that wasn't there in the previous chapter).

When a player bets too much on any street, the general principle should be to let them do it, then don't fold. Check/raise more with your best hands and best bluffs, and bluff catch more with your medium-strength hands.

When a player bets too much on multiple streets, the solver still check/raises on each street. This is mostly to allow the bluffs in our range to take the pot down. In practice, if you have a genuine read that somebody habitually bets every street, then you can probably get away with slow playing your very best hands across three streets.

This advice is for players who are unbalanced by betting too frequently because they have too many bluffs in their range. If a player is the opposite, ie. they don't bet enough across the streets, the adjustment usually will be to lead out more (to get value from their medium-strength hands) and to bluff catch less (because they will be more weighted towards value).