How GTO Strategies Can Revolutionize Your Poker Gameplay

Poker strategy is constantly evolving, and games are becoming increasingly challenging. Keeping up with the competition and improving your game without the right approach and essential tools is difficult and time-consuming.

GTO (Game Theory Optimal) is currently the dominant concept for understanding and learning poker. You can notice its influence on poker strategy in every aspect of the game, from high-stakes professional tables to the smallest-stakes casual online games. Let’s explore how you can implement GTO insights into your game and gain an advantage over your opponents by leveraging the latest technology to enhance your understanding of poker strategy and save time (and money) on your learning journey.

What is GTO and Why Should You Use It?

GTO is a strategic approach in poker that aims to achieve an unexploitable playing style, minimizing long-term losses against any opponent, regardless of their skill level. Its main goal is to keep your plays unpredictable and balanced so that no one can exploit your tendencies and win chips from you in the long run. Playing poker completely according to GTO is nearly impossible and impractical due to its complexity and theoretical nature. However, taking it as a roadmap in creating your poker strategy will significantly help you better understand your and your opponents’ tendencies and the game of poker itself. This awareness will substantially contribute to increasing your win rate. Let’s move forward to discover how GTO strategies can be used to improve your play in real-game scenarios. If you’d like to learn more about GTO, click here.

Mastering Preflop With a GTO Approach: Big Blind Defense Strategy

Playing correctly from the Big Blind position is crucial because it’s where we play the most hands, and most of the time, we play out of position post-flop. For that reason, it is essential to understand how and with which hands you should defend against your opponents’ aggression. Let’s analyze this in a ChipEV 40bb deep spot. This is our opponent’s opening GTO range from EP (Early Position):

Our opponent’s range contains mostly strong hands with high equity and good post-flop playability. Their holdings are dominated by suited aces, suited broadways (two-face cards), and middle-to-high pocket pairs. It is important to note that despite being the first to act pre-flop, they are not limited to only the strongest hands and can still open more than 15% of their starting hands without being punished by other players for raising too wide, thanks to balancing their range. Are you opening often enough from that position?

Once we know what we are dealing with, we can analyze what our response should be when facing a 2.3BB raise from EP while we are in the BB (Big Blind) position. This is our GTO range from BB in this spot:

Due to our opponent’s strong opening range and being OOP (Out Of Position) for future post-flop action, our raising range is limited to premium hands, balanced with a few bluffs consisting of hands that have good post-flop playability and provide us with wide board coverage. By constructing our raising range this way, we become difficult to read for our opponents in 3-bet pots, as we can have the best possible hand on every flop structure. Thanks to the good price we get with 1bb already invested, we should mostly defend by calling. Specifically, according to GTO, we should call around 45% of our hands and look for our chance to win a pot post-flop. To achieve this relatively high number, we call with almost every suited hand and nearly all connectors. It is important to include hands from our raising range, such as AQ, AJ, 99-JJ, and sometimes even AK, in our calling range to balance our weak and strong hands and provide board coverage on high-card flops. As you can see, despite facing a raise from EP, we still defend widely and play slightly more than 50% of our hands, and this number increases as our opponents open wider from later positions. Are you defending your Big Blind wide enough?

Mastering Postflop With GTO Approach: How to React vs. c-bet

After calling on the BB on the majority of flop structures, we should always check to the raiser. A GTO solver sometimes advises betting first at low frequencies; however, this is so rare that we can simplify our strategy here without harming our win rate.

The flop is . Jump into the GTO solver simulation and experience for yourself how the strategy unfolds!

Our opponent’s optimal strategy is simple and straightforward. This flop favours their range (they have 64% equity, while our range has only 36%), and for this reason, they are c-betting (continuation betting) with almost every hand. For a 50% pot size bet, our response to this aggressive approach is to raise for value with our best hands, such as sets (but mostly calling with a set of Jacks) and two pairs, while balancing our value raises with bluffs.

Due to our disadvantage in range and equity, our bluffs should consist only of high-equity draws – mostly flush draws with a pair of deuces or overcards. For weaker draws, the GTO strategy prefers calling mixed with occasional raises. We are also calling with all made hands.

Nodelocking – Adjust GTO Strategy to Your Opponents’ Playstyle!

But what if our opponents don’t follow GTO strategy and don’t realize that they can profitably bet with all their hands? For this scenario, we have prepared another simulation in which we adjust their strategy to align with a certain type of player. This type of simulation is called nodelocking and will become a game-changer in your poker study! Let’s assume our new non-GTO opponent is only c-betting with strong made hands (top pair and better) and only draws with very high equity:

By applying this c-betting strategy, our opponent’s betting frequency in this spot has dropped from almost 100% to around 40% (now they are checking behind with 59.8% of their hands).

How will this knowledge change our strategy? Significantly! Now we can exploit their suboptimal tendencies and adapt accordingly. On top of that, our adjusted strategy is not only performing better but also remains unpredictable and unexploitable!

In this new scenario, we should be more cautious with our calls, so now we are folding 74% of our hands (compared to 49.4% against a GTO range). Top pairs with low kickers and second pairs (excluding second pairs with backdoor flush draws) make up the majority of our new folding range, as they are often dominated by our opponent’s range.

Our raising frequency should be lower as well, but the way we play our best-made hands doesn’t change substantially. We should limit our bluffs while still balancing our value range with them. Folding more hands and playing less aggressively may not look like an improvement at first glance; however, it will save us a lot of chips and improve our win rate in the long run. In poker, it is essential to be able to adapt to different play styles, minimize your losses while being at a disadvantage, and maximize your EV in every spot.

Mobile Revolution: Transform Your Poker Game With GTO in Your Pocket!

In the fast-paced world of poker, every decision counts, and being well-prepared can make all the difference. Imagine having the tools to refine your strategy and improve your game anytime, anywhere!

Poker Academy proudly presents the world’s first mobile app with a fully functional post-flop solver. Along with our industry-leading Preflop Charts and intuitive GTO Trainer, this is the complete package of essential tools for your poker education right in your pocket! Learn and access your poker strategy wherever you desire – whether you’re relaxing on the couch in your living room or taking a break during a poker session and want to review the hand you just played. Join our GTO mobile revolution and download the app now!

Step Up Your Game – Join the Poker Academy!

The topics covered in this article are just the tip of the iceberg, providing a good start to your journey into the world of GTO and improving your poker skills every day. Whether your goal is to become an elite poker player and win millions of dollars, or you just want to beat your friends in a home game and have some fun, Poker Academy is your place to learn winning poker strategies. Jump into one of our 1.1M Preflop Charts, discover every possible spot in our AI-powered Postflop Solver, and practice what you have learned in the GTO Trainer – we have everything you need to succeed.

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