GTO, explained

What GTO means

A GTO strategy is a way of playing that can’t be beaten in the long run, whatever the other players do.

It doesn’t win every hand, and it doesn’t read minds. It makes decisions that are hard to take advantage of.

If everyone at the table played it, nobody could win more by changing their play. Game theory calls that an equilibrium.

Ranges, not hands

You can’t see your opponent’s cards, so think about all the hands they could have. That’s their range.

Every action narrows it. A player who raises before the flop and bets big on the river has fewer weak hands than one who just called.

GTO thinks about your own range too. How you play one hand depends on how you play all the others you’d have in the same spot.

Balance and mixing

If you only bet with your best hands, others simply fold whenever you bet. If you only bluff, they call you every time.

So a GTO strategy is balanced: its bets hold some strong hands and some bluffs, in the right mix. The bigger the bet, the more strong hands it needs.

It also mixes: the same hand is sometimes raised and sometimes called. Mixing makes you hard to read, because no action gives your hand away.

When GTO mixes two actions with a hand, both win about the same on average. Either one is a fine choice.

Before the flop: charts

Before the flop, a chart shows what to do with every starting hand from your seat. Players learn the charts by heart, since the same spots come up all the time.

Pairs run down the middle. Suited hands sit above them and offsuit hands below. Each square’s colour shows how often to raise, call or fold.

The later your seat, the more hands you can open: from the button you raise far more hands than under the gun, because fewer players are left to act behind you.

With a short stack the charts change to push or fold: all-in or nothing.

After the flop

After the flop, GTO looks at both ranges and the board. Who is more likely to have a strong hand here, and who can have the very best ones?

When the board suits your range better, you can bet often, and often small. When it suits your opponent’s range, check more.

Big bets are for very strong hands and for bluffs. Medium hands prefer to check or bet small, because a big bet only gets called by better hands.

GTO or exploit?

GTO is the safe default: it doesn’t lose to anyone. But it doesn’t win the most against players with clear mistakes.

Exploiting means changing your play to take advantage of those mistakes: bluff more against players who fold too much, and bet more good hands against players who call too much.

The catch: when you exploit, you can be exploited back. Start from GTO, and change it only when you have a good reason.

GTO on Poncler

• At the table: with Poncler Pro, the GTO guide shows a strategy for your decision, and the review after each hand scores your play.
• GTO lab: charts for every seat, situation and stack depth, push-or-fold charts, an equity calculator and a spot analyser.
• Training: real spots to answer, with a score that shows how close you were.
• Free for everyone: one chart in the lab and one Training drill a day.

Poncler’s GTO guide is an approximation, built from equity, pot odds and the shape of ranges. It isn’t a solver, so treat close spots as close.

Sign up free

Words to know

Range

All the hands a player could have in a given spot.

Equity

Your share of the pot, from how often your hand wins from here.

Expected value

What a decision wins or loses on average, if you made it many times. Short: EV.

Balanced

A mix of strong hands and bluffs that’s hard to play against.

Polarized

A range of only very strong hands and bluffs, with nothing in between. Big bets often are.

Mixed strategy

Playing the same hand in more than one way, each some of the time.

Range advantage

When one player’s range holds more strong hands on this board.

Solver

A program that works out a GTO strategy for one exact spot, which takes a lot of computing.

All poker words