Recently on our blog, we’ve covered the topic of game theory optimal from a few angles. If you are unaware of the GTO poker strategy, we strongly recommend reading the article “What Is GTO and What Should You Know About It?” We’ve also discussed Why Blindly Following Game Theory Optimal Can Hurt Your Results.
In today’s article, we’d like to look at the opposite side of the spectrum and show you how you can use the optimal strategy takeaways to exploit your everyday opponents.
Knowing how GTO strategy works allows you to implement a successful exploitative strategy
We may sound like a broken record, but there’s no way around that. The knowledge of how “boring” game theory optimal strategy works will benefit your game greatly and will let you surprise your opponents in real time. The overwhelming majority of the best poker players in the world spend countless hours improving their understanding of poker game theory, and this trend won’t stop.
You might ask, “How can it benefit me?” Let us present three tips you can quickly implement in your game. All of the concepts we’ll present are connected, and all are some kind of exploit. But what’s most important, each of them was developed thanks to the study of the GTO strategy.
3-bet more and cold call less
Almost everyone who starts to play poker displays natural human curiosity. After all, you can’t make any hand without seeing a flop, right? That’s probably why a call is a favorite preflop action of most recreational players. We don’t blame them, as for a long time, we all thought that just calling a preflop open was a great way to enter the pot cheaply.
While this holds true to some degree even in today’s games, now we know that, more often than not, 3-betting or folding is a better strategy, especially in cash games and quite often in multi-table tournaments too. Why is it so? There are a few reasons for that; let us mention the most important ones.
Firstly, 3-betting allows you to force weaker players to fold out their hands or put more money into the pot with speculative holdings, often making your opponent’s range capped (meaning they won’t have certain hands in certain situations).
Secondly, 3-betting increases the chances of the pot ending up in a heads-up, which is the go-to situation – you’ll only have to outsmart one opponent postflop.
Thirdly, if you 3-bet or fold preflop, you’ll prevent others from squeezing you out of the pot should someone else 3bet.
Attack capped ranges of other players
As we’ve already mentioned, a capped range is a range that lacks certain types of hands (usually the best holdings). That being said, the exploitative strategy against opponents with weak ranges is to bet big and a lot.
This concept allows you to run over almost any poker player who does not care about balance and play straightforwardly. Let’s take a look at a simple example: you play against someone who raises all their strong flush draws on the flop, or leads out all of their strongest hands on the river. If the river completes a flush and your opponent either checked/called the flop or checked the river, you can play very aggressively against them, as you can be pretty sure that the player across the table doesn’t hold a strong hand.
The great thing about knowing when your opponent’s range is (or at least should be) capped is that sometimes it’s the natural order of things. If you open from the early position and the board texture is very high-card-heavy, you’ll be free to bet relentlessly as the average poker player on the other side will usually lack the best possible sets, two pairs, or even top pairs with strong kickers.
Use big bets on the river in position
The game theory of flops and turns poker strategy is quite sophisticated, as it has to consider the cards to come, which can dramatically change the board texture. The same is not true for the river strategy. On the river, your hand has either 100% or 0% equity (barring chops, of course).
In such circumstances, the GTO play will often be to either bet big or not bet at all. The situation gets even more extreme if you are in the position and your opponent checks to you. In such a scenario, if you constructed your ranges correctly on the previous streets, you can often not only expand your betting range by a lot but also bet big to put your opponents in very tough spots.
Unless you play against players aware of the importance of game theory concepts, more often than not, your opponents won’t have balanced ranges, meaning they won’t be slow playing enough strong hands not to let you run them over.
Usually, in low-stakes online games, exploitative play is the play
But in order to know how exploitative poker is supposed to be played, you have to know how to play GTO poker. Don’t worry, though. You do not have to reinvent the wheel; most of the crucial poker concepts have already been developed and are at your fingertips.
Our coaches spend a lot of time crafting winning and easy-to-replicate poker strategies. Now, you can learn them for yourself for one month free of any charge.
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