5 Spots Where GTO Poker is Costing You Money
- May 23
- 4 min read
Updated: May 27
GTO poker promised us unexploitable strategies which, if followed, would implicitly lead to profit and victory. Unfortunately, these strategies come with a whole bunch of caveats: They are only really useful for heads-up situations, they break down once stack sizes become too large, and they are only accurate if your opponent is playing a GTO range and behaving like a bot. Too often, players who have done extensive solver work find themselves worse off financially than they were before.
The trickiest part is that they are now losing money in spots where cutting edge technology is reassuring them that they are playing correctly. And with the old poker adage of "don't be results oriented", it's easy to see how these players may continue making these solver-approved plays over and over, bleeding money in poker environments where the plays are not appropriate.
So in this video, I'm going to cover critical spots where GTO is absolutely the problem and not the solution and what you should play instead:
Top 5 Spots Where GTO is Poker is Costing You Money
Rigid 3-Bet or Fold Ranges
Rigid 3-bet or fold ranges can be problematic because they do not take into account the player and the specific situation
In some configurations, such as when a professional player opens from the button and a recreational player is in the big blind, 3-bet or fold is at best suboptimal and at worst it is a losing strategy
3-bet or Fold Is Not Recommended in This Configuration as the Small Blind Considering the player configuration and adapting a strategy accordingly will lead to more profitable plays, such as occasionally flatting with strong hands like 99, TT, and AQo and isolating weak players with more 3-bets
Messing Up the Multiway Sandwich
In multiway pots, players often find themselves sandwiched between two opponents, one with position and one without, and checking is usually the standard GTO play. But this may not be the best approach in live poker where players tend to flat with a weak range (compare the green portion on the left to the ENTIRE range on the right):
CO Calling Range in Theory vs. in Live Poker Checking the flop can result in losing value when the in-position opponent is passive and doesn't bet. It can also put us in difficult spots when facing a bet-raise line
Instead, players should consider the tendencies of their opponents and adjust their strategy, either by leading out against passive players or using an aggressive check-raising strategy against more aggressive players who are likelier to stab
4-Bet Bluff Spew
Four-bet bluffing ranges can be unnecessary and costly against recreational players who tend to have stronger three-betting ranges than theory would dictate
Against recreational opponents, bluffing into a tight range will be unprofitable due to the lack of fold equity, and players should consider their opponent's range and adjust their strategy accordingly
Players should be more selective with their bluffs and consider how much preflop fold equity they have combined with the equity of their hand against their opponent's range, rather than relying on a default four-bet bluffing strategy
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