Poker Gto Meaning

If you have even a passing interest in playing online poker, chances are you will have heard the term ‘GTO’. This stands for Game Theory Optimal and it means using a strategy that cannot be countered in any way by your opponents.

Another way to describe GTO is that it is an unexploitable strategy but what does this mean in terms of playing the game?

What Does It Mean in Poker? GTO is short for Game Theory Optimal, which is the mathematically perfect way to play poker that makes it impossible to be exploited by opponents.

GTO Poker Strategy is a Good Strategy for Mid Stakes and High Stakes Alright, now before a bunch of angry GTO math nerds accuse me of being a 'hater' in the comments, I do want to point out that GTO poker strategy is actually pretty effective once you reach mid stakes or high stakes. The term GTO is becoming more and more popular. Although the theory of GTO has been discussed for many years, its popularity within poker is peaking right now. A common way to explain how GTO works is based on the game Rock, Paper, Scissors. Poker GTO is a technique that refers to the Texas Hold'em poker no-limit. It stands for Game Theory Optimal, and it can be defined as an almost ideal way to play no-limit Hold'em. The benefit of this strategy is that not a lot of players know how to use the technique. GTO in poker is an 'absolutely perfect' strategy, one that cannot be beaten by any opponent regardless of their strategy. The existence of such strategy has been proven by Nash a long time ago for.

Poker Gto Meaning Abbreviation

GTO is defensive in nature because you are trying to play the perfect set of hands yourself and relying on your opponents to make mistakes. An important aspect of this is not thinking in terms of the current hand but in terms of a range of hands both you and your opponent could have plus the hand, your opponent may think you have.

This requires a decent grasp of maths because you will need to work out odds, ranges, and frequencies. You can view this handy guide over at 888 Poker – The Beginners guide to GTO poker for even more information

Let’s take a look at an example to get a better understanding of how GTO might work. In this scenario, you are playing at 888Poker and have raised preflop. The player on the button is the only one to call, so you consider two possible plays. The first is to only bet when you make a top pair or better and the second is to bet only when you miss.

Both are sound strategies but if you stick to this throughout the game your opponents are going to know how to react. Therefore, you need to find something in-between, using a mix of both plays and this requires some working out.

You must work out the odds of their call being correct and balance this with the number of times you are value betting and the number of times you are bluffing. Picking the right amount of value bets vs bluffs is what makes a good GTO strategy. This is in addition to knowing when to use them in relation to the situation and current bet size.

As you begin to understand each situation better and know not only your own but also your opponent’s frequencies and ranges, you can exploit this to your advantage. Playing on your Android mobile app? Not a problem, you can still play GTO Poker!

For a GTO poker strategy to work, you must have played against someone for a number of hands. You cannot use assumptions as this will not work. If you are playing online poker at a top website such as 888Poker, this can be tricky as you may not play against the same opponents often enough to avoid assuming. However, even after a few hands, you can begin to build up a picture of their frequencies.

When using GTO, do not look at the outcome of a hand individually. You may have a good hand or a bad hand but this should not be taken in isolation. Just because you got lucky on the river does not automatically mean you made the right play. Work out what the correct GTO strategy is for certain times of the game and assess it following the end of the game.

This will tell you if you made the correct long-term call and that is what GTO poker is all about. You must work on your game, both at the poker table and away from the poker table for a GTO strategy to be successful. Practice makes perfect and no matter what poker variant you play, it will help you perfect your game and strategy.

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So how would you beat an opponent playing GTO Rock, Paper, Scissors? Well, you’d have to deviate from time to time. If you know your opponent is going to throw Rock 33% of the time and you see them throw Rock five times in a row, you can be fairly certain that Rock won’t show up very often in the next few throws. You now have a 50% chance they will throw Paper and a 50% chance they will throw Scissors. Your optimal strategy here would be to throw Scissors.

• Your Scissors vs Opponent’s Scissors = a tie.
• Your Scissors vs Opponent’s Paper = a win for you.

You could play your Scissors strategy until your opponent throws a Rock, then revert back to GTO strategy. Once you see a pattern again you can deviate from GTO to create a winning strategy.

You’re probably thinking, “Great, I’m a Rock, Paper, Scissors pro…what does this have to do with poker?”. Well GTO, in its very basic form, is just the art of perfect balance. Let’s explain in poker terms.

• Rock = Raise for value 33%
• Paper = Check 33%
• Scissors = Raise as bluff 33%

Poker Gto Meaning Definitions

Let’s say on the river the above were your three options. Just as in Rock, Paper, Scissors, you’ll need to find the right balance. Of course, with poker it’s much more complicated, based on many different factors including your opponent.

Whilst the perfect balance may be to bluff the river 33% of the time, it wouldn’t make sense to bluff an opponent you know will call you 100% of the time. In this case you can only raise your value hands and check your weaker hands.

However, if this opponent notices that you only ever bet on the river with value hands, so starts folding, they are exploiting your play. You could then start to bluff the river, exploiting their play, until they figure out you are bluffing. After they figure out you only bluff the river, you could revert back to GTO of 33% bluff, 33% value, 33% check making us much tougher to play against. Again, we can deviate from GTO where doing so makes sense.

Poker Gto Meaning Definition

GTO is really not too important at lower stakes games, but is important for high stakes, nosebleed games and high rollers. For most of us, whilst it’s good knowledge to have, it’s probably not as important as balancing our value bets, bluffs and calls to exploit our opponents.