[DudeOpotomus]

Like poker, math only takes you so far in sales. You have to learn people if you want to succeed at selling. In fact, math is all but irrelevant for most person to person sales. Buying decisions are mostly emotional. Learning people is a skill that will translate to every other aspect of your life.

[postflopclarity]

this is a bad analogy. at the highest level, poker is entirely math. the player with a better understanding of GTO will demolish someone who tries to "learn people"

[JohnMakin]

playing "GTO" doesn't mean you will destroy people, this is a common misunderstanding of the term. It means that you are playing in a way that cannot be exploited - this does not mean you're also playing in the way that will win you the most money.

Also, there is no "better understanding" of GTO because poker is an unsolved game, and the assumptions you feed into a GTO playstyle can change quickly or be wrong. The thought you can sit there like an automaton with a set strategy and win is false.

been playing off and on professionally for 20 years

[KK7NIL]

> The thought you can sit there like an automaton with a set strategy and win is false.

This is provably false.

You're absolutely right that GTO does not guarantee you'll win the maximum against a fish, but neither does exploitative play. In fact, exploitative play can't guarantee you anything, which is probably why old-school pro players are perennially going broke throughout their careers (that and bad bankroll management).

IMO, currently, over 90% of pro poker players (especially live and in the US) fundamentally do not understand how poker should be played (which is why they get so easily destroyed by the new generation in online heads up).

[JohnMakin]

> This is provably false.

Where is the proof?

> You're absolutely right that GTO does not guarantee you'll win the maximum against a fish, but neither does exploitative play. In fact, exploitative play can't guarantee you anything, which is probably why old-school pro players are perennially going broke throughout their careers (that and bad bankroll management).

I'm not arguing in favor of one or the other, I am just correcting the misunderstanding. In reality, you should adapt to the conditions at the table and your opponents habits, because "GTO" is only possible against perfect play to begin with, so you're always going to be playing slightly imperfectly. so is everyone, because you cannot know everything. And again, it's almost never the way to win the most money. It's a distinction not a lot of GTO nerds understand. I'm not arguing against it at all - I use GTO solvers to work on stuff a lot.

And I also never claimed exploitative strategies guarantee everything, for the same reason "GTO" doesn't either. It's a game of incomplete information. The skill comes in using incomplete information in making good assumptions - that is almost nothing to do with math. And, there are pros that have been winning for long amounts of time knowing zero about GTO theory.

[jandrewrogers]

There is an entire area of math about the uncertainty of decision correctness in incomplete information scenarios. One of the neat aspects of it is that all computable optimal decision makers are mechanically exploitable if you have a reasonably accurate model of their finiteness. In the case of human minds, that just means they are a lot like you. The exploits require iterated games and are cognitively difficult (you have to track a lot of state).

Anecdotally, in my poker playing days I had a lot of success by attacking quasi-optimal play this way. Optimality is contextual. You can engineer a context that motivates suboptimal decisions in fact, though it isn’t easy.

However, at the limit, this is really just attacking the cognitive facilities of your opponents rather than the math of the game. Someone that with a similar ability to manipulate large amounts of state mentally could nullify the advantage. It is meta-games all the way down.

[KK7NIL]

> Optimality is contextual. You can engineer a context that motivates suboptimal decisions in fact, though it isn’t easy.

I agree with your post but I'd just like to nitpick that this first phrase is not true, the equilibrium point is independent of what your opponent does. I'm pretty sure you know this as you then go on to describe not a context where the equilibrium changes but where it becomes hard for humans to find the equilibrium.

So we agree, it's just a small nitpick of how you worded.

[KK7NIL]

> Where is the proof?

von Neuman proved it for 2 players in his classic "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior": https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.215284/page/n3...

Nash proved it for n-players: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1063129/pdf/pnas015...

> "GTO" is only possible against perfect play to begin with

This is a very common misconception, probably because GTO is usually explained as the equilibrium reached by 2 perfect players. The key insight of GTO is that you do not adjust your strategy to what your opponent is doing. If you play the equilibrium strategy and they don't, you're guaranteed to make money.

> And I also never claimed exploitative strategies guarantee everything, for the same reason "GTO" doesn't either. It's a game of incomplete information.

I didn't say you did, I was just making my own independent argument as to why intuitive play is dangerous and people often end up deceiving themselves into thinking they're winning players.

> And, there are pros that have been winning for long amounts of time knowing zero about GTO theory.

Which is why I said that, IMO, 90% of pro players fundamentally misunderstand poker (and that's not even counting the losing players who think they're "pro").

[postflopclarity]

I definitely understand the term, I promise you. if you are playing GTO, you will destroy people. I am 100% confident of this.

[Cpoll]

I suppose I should take your username into account and take you at your word, but wouldn't a player that entirely plays mathematically be easily exploited?

I assumed table talk was at least 10% of poker. Mind games, conditioning your opponent and making reads are present in most sports.

[QuotedForTruth]

If you play game theory optimal (GTO) then you by definition can not be exploited. For poker a GTO strategy is extremely complex where each decision you make depends on the exact situation and includes varying your decisions over time. Like bluff raising 60% of the time and folding 40% of the time you’re in some very specific situation. It’s basically putting your opponent into a situation that they can’t make a profitable decision in the long term.

It’s not really practically possible to do. But if two people did they would have 0 expected value over time against each other. If one player slightly differed from game theory optimal strategy that would give the other one positive expected value. There is no way they can change from GTO strategy to exploit you.

However, this isn’t necessarily the most profitable way to play against real people. When your opponents aren’t playing GTO, there will be some non-GTO strategy that exploits them most effectively. Like if they call too much then you should raise for value more often than against a GTO opponent and bluff less.

[vonneumannstan]

This is exactly wrong. At the highest levels you play your opponent, not only GTO. No one can play pure GTO and you exploit how your opponent moves off GTO.

[KK7NIL]

Maybe if you have a lot of hands and so are confident they're deviating in some hand, otherwise you risk getting exploited yourself.

The players who study GTO instead of trying to win these meta mind games have proven to do very well in online heads up while the old-school mind games guys keep going boom and bust.

[vonneumannstan]

I dont think online represents the highest levels of the game...

[KK7NIL]

Online high stakes heads up cash games is by far the most competitive field in all of poker, for several reasons (global competition, more hands per hour, very few fish, etc).

An online $100/$50 heads up match is probably equivalent to a $10k/$5k live game, in terms of the quality of pros you'll find grinding them.

What do you think represents the highest level of poker instead?

[postflopclarity]

I don't think you've played much GTO poker if you believe this.

[zeroxfe]

There's a world of a difference between "at the highest level" and your typical casino poker game. (GPs general point still stands.)

[dyauspitr]

Other than the basics, math is not going to help you win at poker over reading people. The shoot is shuffled after each round, you can’t card count your way to victory. Hand win probabilities are basic math that most poker player just learn instinctively because it’s not that complicated.

[KK7NIL]

Your knowledge of the application of math to poker is very outdated, look up "GTO poker" on YouTube.

[dyauspitr]

Interesting, thanks for this.

[postflopclarity]

you do not understand poker. it is a highly mathematical game with incredibly complex probabilistic strategies

[DudeOpotomus]

You confirmed both my point and yours at the same time...