Many players blindly follow GTO ranges, assuming that this is the optimal way to play. In a sense, this is true, because GTO is a theoretically optimal strategy that helps you to be unexploitable in any situation.
So what's the catch then? 🤔 Why can't you become a successful player just by using GTO charts? There are 3 strong reasons for that. We'll break them down and suggest the steps for improving your GTO usage.
👉 GTO ranges don't allow you to do the most important thing in poker: fully exploit your opponents' mistakes.
GTO charts are built by solvers based on Nash equilibrium, which means, assuming that all players follow GTO frequencies perfectly. In such conditions, you really have nothing better to do than follow GTO. Any deviation from the optimal strategy will make you vulnerable and lead to losses.
If everyone followed GTO, no one would make money except poker rooms. (Since all players would be playing breakeven against each other, and poker sites would continue to make money from the rake). Happily, this is not the case.
👉 In real games nobody plays perfect GTO. Your opponents make a lot of mistakes and play far beyond the theory optimal.
You need to take full advantage of those mistakes. This is how money is made in poker. If you always play GTO ranges, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities to gain extra EV.
Solver knows how to play postflop theoretically perfectly; you don't. The GTO preflop strategies are built assuming that the equity of your hands will be fully realized postflop. This will never happen in reality. The best players can get close to a solver in terms of equity realization, but they will never fully reach that level. Just as no human can outrun a car. Learn more about Equity Realization - the fundamental concept of winning poker strategy.
Pure solver ranges contain a lot of weights variations. By trying to follow them perfectly, you overload your brain. You're trying to behave as a computer, but you're a human. Your brain capabilities are limited. The best players take this fact into account and learn to use their brains in a balanced way, concentrating on the most important things.
The average timebank on preflop is about 15 seconds. During that time, to make a good decision, you have to evaluate a lot of factors:
A proper assessment of these parameters is much more important than deciding whether to play your hand with 15% or 20% frequency according to GTO.
So, now we know the 3 reasons why it's a bad idea to follow GTO charts blindly. So what to do? Well, GTO charts remain the solid base of your strategy in the modern poker world. But you can make some adjustments to make their usage more efficient and simplified.
Don't worry much about board coverage and overfolds. At micro and low stakes, opponents are not able to competently exploit small deviations from GTO. Even if they understand the frequencies preflop, they will make mistakes postflop. With a solid play, you can even make more from them postflop, which will more than compensate for small losses preflop.
Original ranges from solvers contain a lot of variations of frequencies. They are difficult for a human to perceive, let alone follow them precisely during the game. To avoid overloading the brain with a large number of fractional frequency variations, use our Round Weights feature.
This feature allows you to round all weights in a range with a selected step (10 or 25). This way, ranges will keep their structure but will be much more readable and easier to use in practice.
Be sure to tighten or loosen the ranges of hands you play based on the types of players at the table. Our Range Editor makes it easy to create many variations of charts. You still won't be able to cover all scenarios, but it's great to have charts for most of the standard adjustments as a base.
💡 You can use ready-made preflop strategies from poker schools from the Library. They have already done the work on adapting solver strategies for real games.
With Freebetrange, you have unlimited possibilities to create and practice your strategy. Use them to build the perfect preflop to maximize profits and quickly grow in stakes!
