The Human Element of Poker

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The Human Element of Poker

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Lucas Greenwood

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The Human Element of Poker

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Lucas Greenwood

POSTED May 09, 2013

Lucas takes a step back from the math and strategy to remind us that our opponents are living, breathing people, and that fact offers certain opportunities. After all, to err is human... to exploit that at the tables... is poker.

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Nom de Guerre 11 years, 8 months ago

concept of GTO is discussed at some length.  can you provide a working definition of what GTO is?  (e.g. is it simply being balanced or is it something more than that).  also, how does one recognize when someone is deviating from GTO? (e.g. does it mean being unbalanced)

re choice of topic for video - don't worry about it it's fine.



Lucas Greenwood 11 years, 8 months ago

GTO = game theory optimal. Essentially it involves playing an unexploitable strategy. If we were playing rock, paper, scissors the unexploitable strategy is throw rock 1/3, paper 1/3, scissors 1/3. That way your opponent can't ever win, the best he can do is tie, by copying your strategy. 

In poker GTO is similar but it is used differently, for example if we are playing HUNL with a .50 sb  and 1BB. If I raise to 3 from the SB and you make it 10 from the BB. You are risking 9 to win 4 (your BB is dead). 9/4= 0.4444, which means if the SB is folding over 0.555556 you are auto profiting on the 3bet. This same math can be used in 6max/FR games by looking at unique ranges for each position, i.e. you should be opening different ranges from UTG and from the BTN.

However, If I'm opening 65% of btns and my opponent is only 3betting 5% out of the BB, I should be folding my opens a large %, probably close to 80%, maybe even higher. The way to recognize when someone is deviating from GTO, is by analyzing their game carefully. Sometimes you will get one piece of information, i.e. they show down 45s after opening UTG which gives you the information that they likely are opening too many hands utg. If they don't showdown cards its harder to get this information bu if you have a sufficient HUD sample on your opponent you can find this data in the numbers, what % of hands they open by position, what % of hands they 3bet by position, How often they call/fold/raise vs 3bets.

With that said vs most opponents you are making decisions based on incomplete information, which requires you to play a guessing game, based on what you have observed. I tend to profile opponents, and  make general reads i.e. he's a bluffer or he's not a bluffer or I don't know. Online its more challenging, but live you can use your intuition more, i.e. this old guy playing his first wsop event and is here on vacation with his wife, is less likely to be bluffing than a 21 year old online pro playing his first series.


David Emmons 11 years, 8 months ago

hey lucas i realllly enjoyed this slideshow and the information you covered is not often adresse; something i think about all the time.  i absolutely know i should make more hero folds when i just "feel" like im getting coolered or im just beat and i fail to do it so often. i also like your advice on live reads, looking towards WSOP.

monkeyshines 11 years, 8 months ago

This is one of my favorite poker videos. At first i wanted to think like a BBV troll, and then the light of Lucas' reasoning shone like a 100 watt light bulb.

Maddsoul 11 years, 8 months ago

I definitely act too quickly in hands at times. I need to control my tempo better. Liked your story about the water bottle. I guess you just need to give em a reason sometimes haha.

Emanuel Cardenas 11 years, 2 months ago

Great video, specially the clarification regarding deviating from GTO is optimal vs opponents who don't play a GTO strategy and make it more % exploitative but always keeping a well balanced game. I was always wondering how much should i rely on GTO vs exploitative play (specially live) since you just know by their bet sizing, live tells, etc, that you are not supposed to call in that spot vs the hand(s) they are representing, even so i ended up convincing myself of not being explotable and was of course drawing dead on the turn and calls OTR still; that's where your statement that the villain doesn't know what we are folding or hero folding is so usefull eventhough is obvious when playing sometimes you are not fully aware of that. 

lleferreira 11 years, 1 month ago

Hey Lucas,

I'm a micro mtt player and I'm watching your videos in order to play better with deep stacks. In micro stakes the are a lot of fishs, and playing a hand in vacuum really works, because there is a lot of players who play only their cards, not worried about ranges. But, against experienced players, the subject of playing a hand in a vacuum suffers diference from cash to mtt play?

Thanks in advance, and btw, great vid


LuckySrecko 9 years, 4 months ago

Hi.

On 12 minute you are saying that each hand shold be played with positive expectation. Note that that by itself is true also for GTO - it stil dictates to play each hand in a way to maximase EV..

Nice explenations anyway. I think I am doing exactlty same mistake online - traying to play GTO insted the player. Live it semm obvious, since it is clear people are doing huge mistakes.

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