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GTO Wizard·They're not a fish. They're not a maniac. The TAG reg is the opponent you'll face most often, yet most players have no idea how to exploit them.

GTO Wizard·Monotone flops tend to provoke great anxiety among poker players. It’s easy to imagine that your opponent may have flopped a monster. And if you have flopped a flush, it’s easy to imagine a fourth heart killing your action and devaluing your hand. Such fears, though understandable, will prevent you from playing these boards optimally if you do not learn how to conquer them. The truth is that flopped flushes are rare, and if your opponent did not flop a flush, they are not terribly likely to tur

GTO Wizard·Bounties are a significant new variable to take into account when studying tournament theory and ICM. This article explores the theoretical fundamentals of bounties, starting with an analysis of the structure and function of the two sub prize pools—the regular prize pool and the bounty prize pool—that comprise the total prize pool in bounty tournaments. The two prize pools in bounty MTTs function both independently and in concert together. In this series of articles, we will analyze the structu

GTO Wizard·Responding effectively to donk bets on the turn is tricky;, there’s no getting around that. It’s one of the reasons why learning to use such bets yourself is so valuable. It requires an awareness of your own range and tests your opponent’s willingness to make stubborn, counterintuitive calls and raises. Know Thy Enemy - To combat donk bets, you must first understand them. In particular, there are three key features of a well-implemented donk betting strategy to be aware of... GTOWizard, GTO Wiz

GTO Wizard·Donk betting–taking the betting lead away from the previous street’s aggressor–on the flop is rarely correct and easy to misapply. On the turn and river, however, donk betting strategies are both easier to implement and more strategically relevant. To understand why, you must understand how donk betting relates to the distribution of equity and of nutty hands between the ranges of the previous street’s aggressor and their opponent. Before the flop, an open- raiser always has a stronger range th

GTO Wizard·Success as the BB in limped pots begins before the flop. The BB’s equilibrium strategy at all stack depths employs a polarized raising range that includes many of the junkiest offsuit hands. If you miss these raises, you will see the flop with too many weak hands making it easy for the SB to deny you equity with small bets. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·What size should we bet with our value and bluffs? When our range is perfectly polarized (with our value hands having 100% equity), many studied players know that our optimal wager is the geometric size: the fraction of the pot that gets us exactly all-in if we bet this same fraction on each remaining street. When used before the river, this geometric sizing enables our value hands to get all the money in while maximizing our opponent’s overall defense frequency. And while our bluffs do not ben

GTO Wizard·Solver solutions with multiple bet sizes often involve a lot of mixing between those sizes, thereby blurring the heuristics underlying sizing decisions. If any hand can bet either size, then what’s the point of using multiple sizes? How would you ever choose, in a real game situation, which to use with a given hand?This is where solvers come in handy, not to memorize outputs but to learn from them. Your goal, when studying with GTO Wizard, should be to understand why solutions look the way they

GTO Wizard·Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments are much more complex than traditional MTTs. The fact that players are incentivized to make high-variance plays for bounties often masks just how complicated they can be. One of the areas where players struggle in this regard is multiway pots. It is often correct to take seemingly wild gambles, and play in a way that would otherwise be unprofitable in regular tournament formats, when multiple bounties are on the line. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·While lots of work has been placed into research and explanation of heads-up pot strategy, multiway pots still largely remain an unexplored frontier in poker. Multiway dynamics feature very different strategic ideas compared to HU. As expert player Matt Hunt stated in his multiway course, Three's A Crowd: "Multiway postflop spots are more similar to multiway preflop than heads-up postflop". GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard is proud to present our 5th tournament in Japan! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Since our previous statement about the future of the online poker ecosystem and the introduction of GTO Wizard Fair Play Check, a lot of events have happened in the poker world around game integrity, including various controversies and concerns about fair play. Since our previous statement about the future of the online poker ecosystem and the introduction of GTO Wizard Fair Play Check, a lot of events have happened in the poker world around game integrity, including various controversies and c

GTO Wizard·Today we have a special puzzle for you that will test your intuition as a poker player, and challenge your understanding of combinatorics. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Check out our new ICM MTT spots, HU MTT, deepstack cash, and 9max cash solutions. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Understanding solver technology is very challenging. You not only have to grapple with the technology itself, which does not come naturally to a lot of people, but you also have to determine why the solver takes lines you could not even conceive of.

GTO Wizard·There's a maniac at your table. They bet every street, call everything, and somehow keep winning pots they have no business being in. So what's the adjustment? Do you start blasting back?

GTO Wizard·Studying shallow stack play when ICM is a factor is even more important than studying it in ChipEV Scenarios. This is because we are at the business end of the tournament, where every decision has significant real money implications.

GTO Wizard·This is part two in our series on exploiting players who don’t study GTO. In the first part, we explored how being unstudied in the ways of theory can cause preflop mistakes and sizing tells. In this follow-up piece, we will learn what the punishments are for some of the other common tendencies: capped ranges and unbalanced bluffing strategies. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Train like a Pro. In this update, we’ve introduced a new Practice Mode statistics page, better performance metrics, and the ability to review previously practiced hands and sessions! It’s the best way to improve your poker skills! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In this article, I will introduce one of our most unique innovations in what poker tools have to offer: Custom Aggregated Reports (CAR). They enable you to generate solutions for all strategically distinct flops with just a single action, while still having the freedom of the AI configuration options you’re used to. The question now is, “How to use these reports for improving, and when are they preferable over simply running a single hand through the AI?”

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard has combined the power of artificial intelligence with traditional solving methods to bring you high-quality GTO poker solutions at incredible speeds. What used to take hours of computation on high-end hardware can now be done in seconds from your browser! This fantastic advancement naturally leads us to an exciting inquiry: How precise are these rapid solutions? We benchmarked our solutions against conventional solvers to find out. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·We’ve created over 40 custom drills for this article! Though all drills are accessible through the article, we highly recommend importing them for easy access. Click here to access the drill import sheet. All drills have the RNG mode set to “High RNG.” Learning poker is daunting; the process can feel like hitting your head against a wall for those starting out. Fortunately, if you’re adamant about taking on the challenge, you’ve come to the right place. Let GTO Wizard be your helmet; with time—

GTO Wizard·Today, we’re announcing a major upgrade – introducing Heads Up Preflop Solver! And read until the end for exciting news about job opportunities with us. Now you can solve optimal preflop strategies for heads up games within seconds using GTO Wizard AI – with customized betting trees, stack depths, and antes. This includes all the features of GTO Wizard AI, such as our dynamic sizing, nodelocking, and custom parameters. Knowing how to crush heads up play will give you a massive edge over your co

GTO Wizard·The previous articles in our PKO series showed how preflop ranges that are adjusted for bounties vary from our standard ICM ranges at various stack depths. As a next step in understanding how we adapt to PKOs, we will review how postflop play is impacted. In this article, we will study specific examples of how to play flops when bounties are available: - As the covering and covered player - And compare the differences at various stack depths and tournament stages ... Deep Stacked @75% Field Lef

GTO Wizard·Playing from the Button presents many unique opportunities in any tournament format, especially in PKOs. Apart from the benefit of always having position postflop, in Progressive Knockout Tournaments, we potentially have the opportunity to play our widest range for bounties against the Blinds. In this article, we’ll look at how covering others and being covered ourselves affects our preflop BTN ranges in a PKO. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·One of the keys to adapting to new game formats, such as Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments, is understanding when to adjust our preflop approach from that of a Classic tournament. In PKO tournaments, this begins with how we play preflop, both in the early and late stages of a tournament. Our previous articles on PKO preflop ranges covered opening ranges and how we respond to an open. Building on this knowledge, let’s look at how to handle 3-bets in a PKO versus a Classic ICM environment an

GTO Wizard·In this series, we have looked at factors that can influence ranges in otherwise identical scenarios. As rake increases, ranges typically tighten but are played more aggressively. And in the case of increasing antes, ranges widen. Let’s exammine another factor that impacts ranges, which is stack depth. We have already looked at this from an ICM perspective; a mega stack or a micro stack at a certain table in a multi-table tournament can change the strategies of the players on that same table. B

GTO Wizard·Continuation betting from out of position can be a dicey proposition in single-raised pots. Cold calling ranges tend to flop comparable equity to that of the preflop raiser, and position nudges the advantage to the caller on the average flop. This is not the case in three-bet pots. Out-of-position three-betting ranges are stronger than the ranges that call them, and with a lower stack-to-pot ratio, position is less important. Consequently, high continuation betting frequencies are typically cor

GTO Wizard·When you three-bet before the flop and the original raiser calls from out of position, you have already enjoyed some good luck. True, much of your three-betting range would have preferred to take it down immediately. However, getting to play heads up after the flop in position is a nice consolation prize. For all but your strongest hands, it is a better outcome than facing a four-bet from the original raiser or, horror of horrors, a cold four-bet. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·When there’s been a raise and re-raise before the action is on you, you will have to play extremely tight. This is true regardless of your position, the positions of the other players, or the effective stack depth. Most people get that part right. The tricky part is what to do when you do not fold. Just how strong a hand do you need to four-bet? Should you ever bluff? Should you ever call? If you do four-bet, how large should it be? In this article, we will answer those questions and more. GTOW

GTO Wizard·Playing in position against a three-better is a lesson in playing to your advantages. As the defending player, you will not have the equity advantage or the nuts advantage. What you will have is the positional advantage. This incentivizes you to play even more passively than you usually would as the defending player facing aggression, forcing your opponent to make tradeoffs and reveal information by acting first on future streets while you bluff, pot control, and squeeze extra value from margin

GTO Wizard·Three-bet pots are scary. Playing out of position is scary. Put them together, and you’ve got many a poker player’s nightmare. As always, the best way to combat that anxiety is to arm yourself with information. Once you understand the principles that guide your play in these tricky situations, you’ll make better decisions in these big, important pots. You’ll still lose them often – that’s baked into the situation, as we’ll see—but you can rest easy knowing your play was sound... GTOWizard, GTO

GTO Wizard·In our article “How Does ICM Impact PKO Strategy?“, we contrasted how PKO and Classic preflop strategies change throughout a tournament as risk premiums increase. We saw that ranges were generally wider in a PKO tournament because the upside of winning bounties offsets the downside of losing chips, so much so that we can play looser multiway than in heads-up pots. For more details on this principle, we suggest reviewing the referenced article. But what other factors should we be considering in

GTO Wizard·Status & info about our solutions. Preflop was solved in MonkerSolver using a very complicated preflop tree that allows for calling in all situations. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·One of the most daunting aspects of learning the modern game of poker, especially with solver technology, is simply how much information there is. If you are new to solver study and are then presented with a hand matrix featuring a wide range, a variety of bet sizes and all of the actions mix, it can be overwhelming. The human brain has devised intrinsic ways to reduce the demands on your working memory. Thankfully, human brains have also built poker training software like GTO Wizard that has e

GTO Wizard·Many games allow “straddles,” where a player who is not in the blinds voluntarily posts a blind bet that functions just like a blind: it is live, and if no one else raises, the straddling player still has the opportunity to raise before the flop is dealt. Straddles are typically twice the big blind, though larger is sometimes permitted. UTG is the most common position for a straddle, which buys the straddling player the right to act last (preflop) after everyone else, including the blinds. Str

GTO Wizard·In our previous articles comparing PKO and Classic tournaments, we reviewed how to adapt our preflop strategy based on stack distributions and tournament state. The following topics were discussed: opening ranges, how we respond to opens, and facing aggression after raising first in. Equipped with this knowledge, let’s look at how the nuances in PKO preflop play extend to differences in postflop play. Thanks to GTO Wizard’s AI functionality, we can easily compare PKO and Classic postflop play b

GTO Wizard·Final tables can be the most exciting and rewarding phase of a tournament, and being able to convert these final tables into wins is crucial to our overall results as poker players. This is especially true for Progressive Knockout (PKO) final tables, where we find both big pay jumps and big bounties. So how do we maximize our return at these PKO final tables while avoiding taking unnecessary risks and giving ourselves the best chance to capture bounties? Today we’ll be looking at how PKO final

GTO Wizard·In the past, I’ve written about gambling biases that can affect how you play and how confirmation bias can hurt your study efforts to improve using GTO Wizard. I wanted to end this psych series with an add-on article that looks at some more cognitive biases besides the confirmation bias that specifically makes you lose traction on the road you must travel to progress in poker... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Often when looking through a solver's meticulously crafted grid of deception, one of the following questions arises: Why is the solver sometimes folding top pair while also sometimes calling third pair? Wouldn’t it be better to always call the top pair and always fold the third pair? Why is bluffing this hand okay while bluffing another seemingly similar hand is a mistake? Why is the solver choosing to raise a pair on the river as a bluff? Pairs have a showdown, shouldn’t we be raising our bust

GTO Wizard·One of the great ‘through the looking glass’ moments for any poker player is when they learn how much staking is involved in the poker ecosystem. When first introduced to the game, we assume that everyone playing in the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event is sufficiently bankrolled to do it on their own dime. It fits with the image—painted by movies like James Bond Casino Royale—that every professional gambler is a ‘high roller.’ The reality is that the vast majority of poker players in an

GTO Wizard·The last thing you want when you have a nice stack at the final table of an MTT is to get 3-bet by a player who covers you. Unless you have exactly Aces, your skin is liable to crawl. The danger is not just that you may run into a better hand but that even if you are ahead, claiming your equity may require you to put your tournament life on the line against a hand that could easily draw out on you. The more players remaining in the tournament, the greater this risk, especially if many of them h

GTO Wizard·When studying with a solver, it’s easy to fall into the trap of getting tunnel vision and forgetting what you set out to accomplish. Solvers are excellent tools to help give humans an understanding of what hands want to do in various lines, but this slew of information often misguides newer players away from their main objective: generating EV.

GTO Wizard·A “calling station,” someone who is seemingly willing to consider calling down with any pair, can be a source of frustration for many players. This article will explore ways how we can exploit those stationery tendencies, transforming any potential frustration into excitement.

GTO Wizard·You are studying and working hard, but your results still aren’t where you want them to be. Does this sound familiar? Most players tend to focus on implementing new strategies or trying out fancy lines, but often forget where most of their EV comes from. In what follows, we will examine three critical leaks that will kill your win rate in low- and mid-stakes environments. By the end of the article, you will be able to exploit your opponents on a deeper level, and you will have discovered one of

GTO Wizard·Five years ago, we built GTO Wizard and changed how the world studies Texas Hold'em. Today, it is PLO's turn.

GTO Wizard·These upgrades have rolled out over the past two months. Taken together, they represent a massive expansion of PLO at GTO Wizard, including tools that don’t exist in any other PLO solver. Here’s everything that’s changed since launch.

GTO Wizard·When the preflop raiser is not last to act on the flop, they have more incentive to check strong hands, meaning they will be less capped if the flop checks around. How does this change the BB’s turn probing strategy? Which boards and turn cards should they probe? How large should they bet?

GTO Wizard·In his book The Art of Learning, chess and Push Hands champion Josh Waitzkin describes a training process of “making smaller circles”. In the context of martial arts, this means mastering the essence of a particular movement with broad strokes first, in slow motion, then refining it in ever greater detail. Hopefully you won’t be punching anyone at the poker table, but the concept of making smaller circles can provide a framework for studying solver solutions, which contain an overwhelming amoun

GTO Wizard·One of the keys to adapting to new game formats, such as Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments, is understanding when and how to adjust our preflop approach from the one we’re familiar with (e.g., Classic tournament). In a PKO setting, the adjustments begin with how we play preflop in a tournament’s early, mid, and late stages. In our previous article on Raise First In (RFI) ranges in a PKO, we covered the impact of bubble factors on the RFI ranges. Building on this knowledge, let’s now look a

GTO Wizard·Tournament poker generally incentivizes stack preservation and more conservative play than cash game poker, and this is reflected in ICM simulations. However, when one player covers the other by a wide margin, their risk is not symmetric, incentivizing the deeper-stacked player away from this conservative approach. Asymmetric risk dramatically changes the incentives of both players, leading to equilibrium strategies that look much different from their Chip EV counterparts. For example, while Ch

GTO Wizard·The solvers have shown us that short stack strategy can still be very nuanced, and as you will see today, most players are probably punting too much when they find themselves with a micro stack.

GTO Wizard·The World Series of Poker (WSOP), the most prestigious poker tournament series in the world, has named GTO Wizard its Official Poker Training Partner for the 2026 summer series at Paris Las Vegas and Horseshoe Las Vegas.

GTO Wizard·Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the highest EV bet size(s) at each decision point! Dynamic Sizing uses a machine learning algorithm (learn more in this article) to estimate optimal sizing. This begs the question – how accurate is this algorithm? How often does it find the best sizing, and how do we measure its performance? We ran extensive benchmarks to find out! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·This article will provide a 4-point checklist of questions to ask yourself when facing a barrel, each one giving you an information point on whether our holding is a threshold hand or a clear decision one way or the other.

GTO Wizard·Today, we’re launching our biggest solver upgrade yet: custom Multiway Preflop Solving for up to 9 players!

GTO Wizard·The meaning of GTO in poker is Game Theory Optimal. Game theory is a study of mathematical models of strategic interaction conceived by mathematician John Nash. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Morphology in poker is the study of shapes/forms of ranges. This domain of poker study is particularly handy when it comes to preflop theory. There are several types of poker ranges, all of which play in strategically different ways. The easiest way to conceptualize them is by associating a particular shape. Instead of trying to track every possible combination of hands, it’s more efficient to start off by thinking in more general terms, such as the overall shape of a range. This will not only

GTO Wizard·This guide will explain, in detail, how to upload your hand histories.

GTO Wizard·Andrew Brokos explores the key adjustments to the BTN’s raising range construction strategy when the BB is a calling station.

GTO Wizard·The Independent Chip Model (ICM) was invented in 1987 by M. Malmuth and is one of the most important formulas for understanding tournament poker strategy! But it took us almost 35 years to fully utilize the concept… GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Today, we’ll share one of the most significant theoretical breakthroughs in tournament poker since the invention of the Independent Chip Model (ICM). We’ve developed a powerful new technique that allows tournament players to solve ICM spots in a fraction of the time required by traditional methods while being orders of magnitude more accurate. By integrating this new technique with GTO Wizard AI, MTT players can now solve postflop ICM spots in seconds, even when thousands of players remain! ...

GTO Wizard·BASIC SUMMARY Via a so-called cookie toolbar located on the website ('Toolbar'), you can provide consent to the company amagama s.r.o. to process your personal data in connection with the saving of cookies on your device. Cookies are small files which allow the company amagama s.r.o.

GTO Wizard·Today, we are proud to introduce another technological breakthrough – GTO Wizard AI. This powerful technology can accurately solve any poker spot in seconds! Unlike presolved solutions, custom solving allows you to edit the solving parameters. You can modify ranges, adjust the stack and pot size, add or remove actions, customize the betting tree, and automatically simplify and optimize your bet sizes! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·If you’ve been around poker for a decent amount of time, you’ve probably heard the following two phrases. You may have even uttered (or thought) them yourself! “I’m at the top of my range; I have to call.” “I’m at the bottom of my range; This is a mandatory bluff.”

GTO Wizard·We will compare BTN’s c-bet strategy when playing heads up against a Nit and against a GTO opponent in a 100bb cash game, BTN vs BB SRP via custom reports.

GTO Wizard·Today, we’ll be discussing a scenario that presents itself incredibly often for online cash grinders, one that incorporates all three of these complications: playing the XC-X-? line as the OOP preflop raiser from the SB vs BB in SRPs.

GTO Wizard·Just like GTO Wizard AI for No-Limit Hold’em, GTO Wizard AI PLO solutions are solved on the fly according to the parameters you input. These are solved using state-of-the-art technology that combines traditional solving methods with predictive neural networks to solve any spot within seconds!

GTO Wizard·There are hands that fare best as shoves and hands that outperform as regular (non-all-in) opens, and I wanted to see how this is influenced by the tendencies of the players that are left to act.

GTO Wizard·“Pot Geometry” refers to betting an equal fraction of the pot on each street, such that you’re all in by the river. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Can a poker hand be courageous? How does your ability to value bet future streets impact your strategy? Here's how the concept of Valor can improve your game. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Combinatorics is a fancy term for evaluating the number of possible “combinations” (combos) of any given hand: the combination of 2 cards of certain ranks and suits. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Stack-to-pot ratio, or SPR, is a way of measuring how deep the effective stack is and thus how strong of a hand will be required to risk that stack for a shot at winning the money already in the pot. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In poker jargon, equity expresses how much of the pot a hand will win, on average, at showdown against an opposing hand or range. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·An “abstraction” is a way to simplify the game of poker. This game is so complex that we must reduce the gamespace to solve it. There are a variety of methods used to do this ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Indifference in poker is one of the most misunderstood concepts. The word “indifference” means that two or more actions have the same value. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Variance and Bankroll Management. Vital Soft Skills for Every Poker Player. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Welcome to the wonderful world of game theory optimal poker! This article will serve as your roadmap to GTO Wizard. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In this article, we will derive some heuristics for exploiting calling stations specifically. Before we proceed, however, it is important to understand what exactly player profiles are and what they can and cannot do.

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard's hand history Analyzer is a powerful tool, but to use it, you first need to locate your hand history. This guide will walk you through how to export your hand histories as a text file from most poker sites and poker trackers.

GTO Wizard·This guide will explain, in detail, how to upload your hand histories.

GTO Wizard·Advanced players will often tell you that your range affects your strategy. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·MDF & Alpha. Minimum Defense Frequency and Alpha are metrics on poker that determine how wide someone needs to defend facing a certain bet size. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Pot odds are a fundamental calculation in poker. In the simplest terms, pot odds tell you that if you want to call, for example, a $5 bet, you better recoup at least $5 from the pot (in the long run). GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The term “fold equity” is ambiguous in the poker community. Firstly, it’s an EV equation, not an equity equation. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Implied odds are the value you expect to gain over and above your raw equity. You can think of it as the value you expect to gain on future streets when you outdraw your opponent. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·As a tournament player, you may have heard about the concept of “ICM”, but what does this actually mean? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The term “Equity” is ubiquitous throughout poker theory. Equity refers to your chances of winning a hand, assuming the pot gets checked down. In simple terms, equity refers to your “piece of the pie”. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·“Morphology” is the study of form or structure. You’ve probably heard terms thrown around such as “linear”, “polarized”, “merged”, “condensed”, “capped”, or “uncapped”, but what do these even mean? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Expected value (EV) is the most fundamental metric in poker. Every decision you make is underpinned by one common goal – to maximize return. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·So, you’ve got your own solutions to some spot, compared it to GTO Wizard, and noticed that the strategy isn’t the same. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The 10 Most Important Concepts for New Poker Players. Fundamentals are one of the most important points when starting out. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Playing a short stack well is an essential tournament skill. It is extremely rare to win a tournament by going wire-to-wire as one of the chip leaders. Indeed, if you late register the tournament, as is often advisable due to the ICM benefits, you will come out of the gate short-stacked. No matter how well you play, no matter how well you ultimately do in the tournament, it is likely you will play a significant portion of it as a short stack, under some degree of ICM pressure. In a poker tourna

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard's hand history Analyzer is a powerful tool, but to use it, you first need to locate your hand history. This guide will walk you through how to export your hand histories as a text file from most poker sites and poker trackers.

GTO Wizard·With the advent of solvers, some troubling new turns of phrase have entered the poker lexicon. In strategy discussions, I now routinely hear claims like: “The solver says you have to call here” or “GTO says you have to fold this”. Though I’ve been guilty of using similar language myself, I believe it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what solvers are and how to use them. GTO Wizard provides strategic guidelines, not ironclad rules. Solvers and solver-based tools like GTO Wizard provi

GTO Wizard·Valuing your hand appropriately—determining whether it’s strong enough to value bet or so weak you should consider bluffing—requires synthesizing information from two sources: the face-up community cards and the actions of the other players, which provide clues about the strength of their hands. Most players are more comfortable with the former than the latter, which results in significant mistakes in pots where there was no betting on the flop and turn. In such scenarios, all players will like

GTO Wizard·Wizards, today we are releasing multiple improvements, and GTO Wizard is now multilingual! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·We are excited to introduce GTO Wizard AI, formerly known as Ruse, the world’s best and fastest artificial intelligence solver, empowering players with previously unthinkable study methods. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Our new Events feature recreates iconic WSOP and SCOOP final tables, precisely solved with exact chip stacks and prize structures, complete with automatically synced video replays and interactive player stacks. Relive legendary poker moments, analyze critical decisions, and elevate your game by studying authentic tournament scenarios. Stay tuned—more historic final tables are on the way! Additionally, we’ve introduced specialized Mississippi Straddle and Double Straddle solutions designed spec

GTO Wizard·Today we are releasing our largest batch of new solutions to date! In fact, we added so many new solutions that we needed to completely revamp the solution selector! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Today, we stand at the precipice of another such revolution. GTO Wizard is proud to partner with GGPoker to directly bring real-time Game Theory Optimal (GTO) analysis to live poker broadcasts, starting with the prestigious GGMillion$ final table streams.

GTO Wizard·Future of GTO Wizard. First of all, let me thank all of you for your support and all the kind words. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In the complex world of poker tournaments, the Independent Chip Model (ICM) plays a pivotal role in decision-making. However, when diving deeper into game theory and ICM, players may come across counterintuitive results that challenge conventional understanding. This article aims to explore the limitations of Nash Equilibrium (GTO) in ICM spots. In this article, we will demonstrate: How different Nash Equilibria have different EVs, Why minimum EV is no longer guaranteed, How a GTO strategy can

GTO Wizard·A preflop raiser who continuation bets too often is always a potential target for exploitation, but the best opportunities to profit from their mistakes emerge when they are out of position (OOP). From out of position, it is both easier to overdo and more expensive to bet the flop too often into a preflop cold caller. If you are the in position (IP) caller, understanding how to take maximum advantage of this mistake will serve you greatly. There are some competing heuristics at play here. On th

GTO Wizard·On some flops, it is simply not possible for the preflop raiser to continuation bet too often. The unexploitable, solver-approved strategy is already to bet their entire range. In other cases, it is close enough that simplifying to betting their entire range does not open them up to significant exploitability (though it does make it all the more important for the blinds to respond with appropriate aggression). However, the raiser is not supposed to bet even half their range on less favorable fl

GTO Wizard·Bluff catching—calling a bet with a modest hand which you expect to win only if your opponent is bluffing—is not a significant source of profit in most situations. It is often a roughly breakeven proposition against a well-constructed betting range, and even when it is profitable, it tends to be only by a slim margin. Bluff catching is not a significant source of profit. Much of the strategy in big bet poker games like No-Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha revolves around not ending up in spots

GTO Wizard·You raise from early position (EP) in a multi-table tournament and the BB calls. Both of you have a roughly average stack of 25bb. Without knowing anything else about your opponent or the flop, I can tell you that the BB should almost certainly check to you. You should usually bet small (25% pot or so), and the BB should fold more than you might think for such a small bet. This all follows from your and your opponent’s preflop incentives. You need a relatively strong hand to open from EP, where

GTO Wizard·A preflop raiser enjoys a significant range advantage over a BB caller, enabling them to continuation bet most flops at a high frequency, usually for a small size, without fear of exploitation. There are exceptions, however. In some scenarios, the preflop raiser’s equilibrium strategy involves checking more than half their range on the flop. This is the case even on some flops where they have significantly more equity than the BB. Such scenarios occur more commonly when the preflop raiser is in

GTO Wizard·The key to exploiting opponents profitably is knowing when to stop. I’m not referring to how often you can get away with something before your opponents catch on and adjust back—that’s an important consideration, but a separate one. Rather, I mean understanding that your assumptions and adjustments on earlier streets will have implications on your later street play. For example, suppose you suspect an opponent folds too often, so you bluff the flop with a hand you ordinarily would not. But this

GTO Wizard·This article will give you a plan of action for establishing which types of boards prefer which sizing schemes and which types of hands fit into these schemes (both for value and for bluffs) when OOP BvB in Spin and Gos.

GTO Wizard·Knowing what and how to study in poker can be overwhelming. Learning heads-up (HU) poker, in particular, intimidates many players because of the wide ranges and the high variability in optimal strategies as stack depth changes. It’s common for players to find themselves jumping from one topic to another because they lack structure or an end goal to guide them. This article will explore ways how we can exploit those stationery tendencies, transforming any potential frustration into excitement.

GTO Wizard·Analyzing postflop ICM sims is tricky. Because ICM dramatically changes preflop strategies, starting ranges for postflop spots can be quite different from what they would be in Chip EV sims, making head-to-head comparisons difficult.

GTO Wizard·Is all ICM pressure the same, or should we tailor our postflop strategy to different payout structures? How big of an error is it to take the same default final table strategy into a tournament that features a more top-heavy or a more flat payout distribution?

GTO Wizard·In the early days of online poker, players were too loose. In the modern era, I think the prevailing leak is that they are too tight. Perhaps the most consistent leak I have noticed in the last six months before writing this piece is players who just call with nutted hands on the river, because they misjudge relative hand strength and fear hands that make up only an insignificant part of their opponent’s range.

GTO Wizard·Language and poker are two of my great passions in life, so I’ve always been interested in poker’s unique and colorful vocabulary. As a poker coach, podcaster, and writer, I have particularly strong opinions about the language we use to explain poker strategy.

GTO Wizard·A Mississippi straddle is when you straddle the button (put out a third blind). Action starts on the SB (after the straddle) and ends with the BTN. Straddling the Button, is considerably less disadvantageous than straddling Under The Gun, to the point where some people even think it’s advantageous (which it is not). Point being, players are more likely to straddle when they can do so on the BTN, so you should actively seek out games where that’s allowed.

GTO Wizard·This is the second in a series of articles about playing in games with a Button or Mississippi straddle. You don’t need to read the first to make sense of this one, but as this article is about responding to raises, you may get more out of it if you understand the incentives around open raising when there’s a Button straddle on.

GTO Wizard·There are two articles on the GTO Wizard blog that make good prerequisites to this piece: Principles of Turn Strategy and How to Analyze Turn Textures in Poker. If you’ve already read them and just need a quick refresher, here are the key concepts to keep in mind: Hand values are more clearly defined on the turn than on the flop, they have more clear incentives, and they pursue those incentives more explicitly. The more equity a player has, the more likely they are to bet. The more likely they

GTO Wizard·One of the biggest strategic differences between playing in versus out of position involves betting frequency and sizing on the river. Solver strategies for the OOP player, when they involve betting at all, often bet tiny—as small as 10% of the pot—with a wide range. For the IP player, seeing a mix of large bets and checks is much more common, with solvers showing little interest in small bets. This is because betting in position reopens the action, giving opponents the opportunity to check-rai

GTO Wizard·Position is an extremely valuable advantage in poker. Most players would describe the comfort zone as being in position (IP) coupled with having the stronger preflop range. This situation, known as the ‘bread-and-butter’ of poker, occurs when we raise from late position and are called by one of the blinds. Once our opponent checks, we then have the option of c-betting or checking back for a free turn card. However, the pokerverse expands far beyond this comfort zone. We will inevitably find our

GTO Wizard·Heads up (HU) tournament play presents unique challenges to the average player. Many tournament players, particularly those that play large field MTTs, only rarely experience heads up play. This article will examine three common examples of how our opponents, in the Small Blind, may vary their preflop HU strategies in-game and how we, as the Big Blind, can take advantage of these variations.

GTO Wizard·Tournament poker is about precision. Cash games, where stacks typically run into the hundreds of big blinds, are more forgiving of slight variations in preflop raise sizing or calling ranges. There’s room to make up the difference later. In tournaments, savvy opponents will size their 3-bets precisely, adapting to the positions and stack sizes to give you the most challenging possible decisions. For example, when facing a 3-bet with just 20 or 25 big blinds, it’s tempting to purely play a shove

GTO Wizard·In this article, we’ll delve into both the theory and the practice of open limping. Why does it make so much more sense in Mississippi Straddle games than in traditional, two-blind Hold‘em? How should you respond to limpers when you have position on them?

GTO Wizard·I’ll begin this article with a confession: I’m bad at overbetting flops. I’ve known for years now that there are flops where overbetting is an important part of the preflop raiser’s continuation betting strategy, but I’ve never integrated such bets into my game. Every once in a while I toss out an overbet when it feels right, but there’s no deep understanding behind it, and I’m certainly not doing it in a balanced way.

GTO Wizard·GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·A “sticky” player on your left, one who calls your preflop raises too often and doesn’t give up easily after the flop, can be a major headache. Part of what makes them so annoying is that your options are limited. Being out of position is a big disadvantage, sometimes so compelling that you just have to give up. Their stickiness is not necessarily a mistake. But there are players out there who fight too hard, who think every flop that doesn’t obviously favor the raiser’s range is theirs for the

GTO Wizard·Before the advent of solvers, open-limping was considered the province of passive, gambley recreational players who just wanted to see more flops. And to be fair, that’s mostly what it was and still is. Raising when first into the pot offers enormous benefits. At best, you can win the blinds and antes uncontested. Even when you don’t, you deny equity to players behind you, most notably the blinds, who would otherwise get a cheap or free look at the flop. There are situations where solvers deve

GTO Wizard·Which is the better hand on a K♥8♦5♦ flop: K♠T♣ or 7♥6♥? OK, I’ll admit I didn’t provide enough information to answer that question. Let’s say we’re 100bb deep in a single-raised MTT pot, and it’s early in the tournament, so we’re looking at ChipEV ranges. The CO has just continuation bet 33% pot with K♠T♣ on the K♥8♦5♦ flop, and the BTN holds 7♥6♥. Who has the higher EV? Perhaps you deduced that I wouldn’t be asking this question unless the answer was 7♥6♥. Despite being “just” a draw, it has

GTO Wizard·When the BTN open-limps off a short stack, the postflop play against the BB should resemble that of a single-raised pot (SRP). That is, the BB, having taken no preflop risk, arrives at the flop with a weaker range and so should mostly check. Then the BTN, with the stronger range, should most commonly bet small, just as if they were continuation betting in an SRP. Not all players occupying the BB understand these concepts, however. Because the scenario is less familiar, even players who understa

GTO Wizard·Targeting has long been a staple of exploitative poker thinking. When you’re value betting against a predictable opponent, it pays to think about what the likely second-best hands are that could pay you off and how much they’re likely willing to call with those hands. Likewise, when bluffing that same predictable opponent, it pays to think explicitly about what better hands they might fold and what the smallest amount you could risk is to get those folds. This is not exactly how Game Theory Opt

GTO Wizard·When we think about the best hands to bet in a given situation, we tend to consider how well various candidates will perform when called: * Will they be ahead? * Will they have good prospects for improving? * Will they be good candidates for betting later streets, whether for value or as

GTO Wizard·In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who asks, “In what scenarios is it ok to check-raise one pair in cash games (100 bb deep)?” I believe the answer contains important insights into game theory and incentives that will be of interest to many others besides Matt. Check-Raising a Single Pair Thanks for sending in the question! And to any of our readers, if you or anybody you know has a burning poker strategy question that you want our authors to look

GTO Wizard·Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results can appear daunting when they employ many different bet sizes at a single node, especially if most hands mix across all sizes with no clear heuristic for choosing between them. There are methods for making sense of the apparent madness, but it also helps to understand what this mixing is worth and when you might be better off with a simpler strategy. Let’s find out together! ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Nut draws hold obvious appeal as betting and raising candidates. They benefit from fold equity, sometimes even making better hands fold, while also having the potential to win big pots when opponents do not fold immediately. Yet solvers do not consistently play nut draws aggressively. For example, in a 100bb CO vs BB single-raised pot (SRP), CO continuation bets their nut flush draws just 69% of the time on a Q♠6♦2♦ flop: Despite the obvious appeal of c-betting nut flush draws, solvers do not c

GTO Wizard·You’re in the money in an MTT but still a long way from the final table. The average stack is about 30bb, which is roughly what both you and the players behind you have. You open 9♠9♣ from the CO for a min-raise, and the BB calls. The flop comes 7♠4♥2♦. The BB checks, and you bet 60% pot (the solver recommends a slightly larger continuation bet here, but this is based on a hand I actually played, so you’re going to make a few mistakes along with me and hopefully learn from them). The BB calls.

GTO Wizard·My favorite way to study with GTO Wizard is to approach it experimentally, using the scientific method as a guide. That means I start with formulating a hypothesis and then dig into the data or otherwise run experiments to test that hypothesis. When I set out to study scenarios where the SB limped and called a raise from the BB, my hypothesis was that they would resemble BTN vs BB confrontations. In both cases, a late position raiser is contesting the pot with a player who called out of positio

GTO Wizard·Continuation betting from the SB does not follow the usual patterns for out of position (OOP) c-betting in single-raised pots (SRP). In this article, we’ll examine how and why the SB approaches the flop differently than OOP preflop raisers in other positions. Preflop Incentives: The biggest driver of postflop strategy is the preflop action, with board texture being a secondary consideration. Essentially, the preflop incentives determine the ranges with which each player sees the flop. The range

GTO Wizard·Dealing with turn aggression is an area many players find difficult, which is an excellent reason to integrate it into your game. The decision whether to check-raise, check-call, or check-fold the turn can be the difference between playing a medium-sized pot and a very big pot, so it can make a substantial difference to our overall EV. But it can be tricky to figure out exactly which hands make the most sense to check-raise since we’re often dealing with some very specific considerations regard

GTO Wizard·One of the most memorable pieces of poker wisdom I ever received came from my long-time podcast co-host Nate Meyvis, who told me: “The freedom to bet any amount is the defining feature of no-limit hold ‘em. If you only ever bet between 50%–100% of the pot, you’re really handcuffing yourself.” This was in a long-ago era of poker strategy, before the advent of game theory solvers. At that time, few players used very large or very small bets, and even fewer understood when and why to use them. I w

GTO Wizard·There are a great number of cognitive biases, mental models, and heuristics that I plan on writing about in relation to tools like GTO Wizard. Much has been written already about how biases impact poker gameplay itself. For example, the Gambler’s Fallacy and Survivor Bias, both of which are widespread in a game where variance plays such a significant part. There’s far less coverage about biases that impact poker study. Today, I kick off the series with one of the most well-known and perhaps mos

GTO Wizard·This article was inspired by Mark, who submitted a question to my podcast about a concept he called: Buying the Showdown. As he describes it, the idea is, after c-betting the flop, to “bet small in position with the middle of your range on the turn, with the intent of the river going check/check.” The case made for this play is that it would enable you to get some additional protection for your medium-strength hands, maybe even some thin value, and avoid facing a polarized bet on the river. Mar

GTO Wizard·Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. Playing out of position against an aggressive opponent is even harder, as it worsens an already relatively impaired ability to realize equity because they’re often putting you to the test. What happens, then, when they decide not to bet? _Our Villain_ Meet Aggro Andy; he’s a Tight-Aggressive player who likes to put maximum pressure on his opponents. He often defaults to playing the specific hand he’s holding by looking for reasons to bet rather than consid

GTO Wizard·In part 1 of “Introduction to Bounty Theory,” we analyzed how the structures of bounty tournament prize pools form the basis for several potentially significant insights into the fundamental differences between bounty and non-bounty MTTs. In particular, we noted that the two prize pools—the bounty prize pool and the regular prize pool—have different natures: The regular prize pool functions the same as in regular, non-bounty tournaments and can be modeled by ICM. The bounty prize pool, however,

GTO Wizard·When is bluffing profitable? When you expect your opponent to fold! That’s not a joke, and I don’t say that only because it isn’t funny. When playing against weaker players, you may be able to anticipate that they will fold, or at least that they are likely to defend at lower than the optimal frequency necessary to make your bluffs unprofitable. Bluffing is not generally very profitable, so exploiting opponents who over-fold really is where much of your profit from bluffing will come from. That

GTO Wizard·This guide will teach you everything about how to use our automatic hand Analyzer.

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard takes the pain out of analyzing your hands with automatic Hand History Analysis features!

GTO Wizard·Learn the principles of turn strategy in poker and discover what makes the turn unique. Understand how hand values differ on the turn compared to the flop and river, and learn how to navigate the challenges of limited betting opportunities and lower stack-to-pot ratios (SPR). Master the turn and take your poker game to the next level. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Master the art of turn analysis in poker. Understand how the turn card changes the dynamics of the game and learn how to use this information to your advantage. Discover the key concepts of modern poker theory and take your game to the next level with expert strategies and techniques. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The Pareto principle, or the ‘80/20 Rule’, is an economic theory that, when you learn about it, you will start to see in all aspects of life, including poker. Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first observed it in the early 20th century, the principle suggests that: Roughly 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. Signor Pareto noticed an intriguing pattern while studying land ownership in Italy. He observed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of t

GTO Wizard·In a sense, tournaments could be considered the more complex format compared to cash games. The case for that is built around the notion that there are more moving parts, especially when ICM is a significant factor. The payout structure, fluctuating stack sizes, and phase of the tournament all influence the strategy. So much so that following any one range in a cookie-cutter fashion would be foolish. You can, however, take a lot away from the ICM solutions in the GTO Wizard solutions library. W

GTO Wizard·In my article on confirmation bias, I mentioned that there are many cognitive biases and fallacies that impact gambling decisions, especially poker. This is undoubtedly because the human mind has not evolved to naturally comprehend the variance and uncertainty of the type we are subjected to in this game. Indeed, much of the research that led to the coining of the fallacies and biases that we’re about to cover was influenced by gambling because games of chance were often used as a model. In som

GTO Wizard·If you are playing low stakes, chances are you have a plummeting red line in your tracker’s graph. If that sounds like you, have you asked yourself why that might be? There is a common misconception in poker that repeatedly comes up in discussions of hands played in low stakes: “Fold your bluff catchers; they always have it!” While this is valid for certain spots, it’s also wrong in many other situations. This train of thought can quickly wreck your red line if you don’t think in ranges, keepin

GTO Wizard·Variance is what makes poker great. Without it, recreational players would not keep playing. Most players say they understand this, yet frequently try to avoid or reduce variance at the tables, even when what they are doing is profitable. The best example of this might be the many ways in which poker players can “insure” themselves against bad luck. What follows is an overview of some of the popular forms of insurance in poker. Run It Twice ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·What factors influence c-bet sizing on the flop? Is it fold equity, SPR, draw equity, polarity, protection, nut advantage, or range advantage? Range advantage tends to influence the frequency of bets. The greater our range advantage, the more often we bet. Nut advantage, however, along with fold equity, are the primary (but not the only) drivers of bet sizing. The following rules around bet sizing are useful to follow: ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Bluffing is a fundamental skill in poker, blending deception with strategic calculation to sway the outcomes of hands. While numerous resources delve into the basics of bluffing, few explore the theory behind triple-barrel bluffing. In this article, we explore the math of multi-street bluffing in poker. Specifically, how to calculate the expected value (EV) of bluffing across multiple streets. Join us in the investigation to uncover the mathematical underpinnings that elevate bluffing from an i

GTO Wizard·Did you know that 3-bet pots out of position (OOP) as the preflop aggressor make up roughly 5% of all hands you play in a cash game session? 5% might not sound that much, but when you keep in mind that you have already invested a considerable amount of chips, you will realize that these spots significantly influence your win rate. In this article, we will look closely at this scenario, specifically 100bb deep before and on the flop. The aim is to equip you with all the knowledge you need to cru

GTO Wizard·Whenever you’re running a bluff, it’s reassuring to have a backup plan like some draw equity that could enable you to win the pot even if your opponent stubbornly refuses to fold. But is it a good strategy? As it so often is in poker, the answer is “It depends.” This article will deal with the questions of when and why it may be best to bluff with draws versus extremely low-equity “airball” hands... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Rake is one of the main things that allows poker to distinguish itself as a skill game compared to other casino offerings. It is also one of the most contentious topics in poker. Unlike ‘house games’ like roulette or blackjack, poker players play against each other, not the casino. Rather than the casino having an edge, they make their money by charging a fee to play, known as ‘rake.’ In cash games, this is usually a percentage of the pot. In tournaments, this is a one-off fee on top of the buy

GTO Wizard·We’ve just rolled out a revolutionary update! You can now find optimal postflop ICM strategies tailored for any tournament format, including classic freezeouts, satellites, progressive knockouts (PKO), regular knockouts (KO), and mystery bounties. Learn more about the update here! To achieve this, we developed new methods for accurately modeling the value of bounties. This involved creating algorithms to calculate the expected value (EV) of knocking out players both in the current hand and in f

GTO Wizard·4-bet pots are often uncomfortable to play. Some of the reasons include: — A lot of chips are already in the middle early on in the hand — Ranges are tighter than the more commonly occurring spots — Any postflop mistakes are more costly due to the preflop action. The most difficult configuration of this type of spot involves playing as the preflop caller from out of position (OOP), as your range will be weaker and you will lack the inherent advantage that position gives you. To study these spot

GTO Wizard·Studying poker can be a challenge to both new and seasoned players. Tournament poker, in particular, presents additional challenges to learning due to the extra moving parts that need to be accounted for and managed appropriately. From fluctuating stack depths to the varying stages of a tournament—giving rise to a spectrum of ICM implications—to the presence of bounties. Luckily, with GTO Wizard we have the tools available to improve our performance in each of these areas. Whether you’re just l

GTO Wizard·Minimum Defense Frequency (MDF) is, strictly speaking, the calling (and/or raising) frequency that makes your opponent’s 0% equity hands indifferent between bluffing and giving up. It’s a frequently misapplied concept, because even in Chip EV scenarios, the hands you’re aiming to make indifferent to bluffing not always have 0% equity. And, there are many spots where your opponent is supposed to get profitable bluffs. Once we throw ICM into the mix, MDF goes out the window. There are still spots

GTO Wizard·Slow-playing, like running a big bluff or making a heroic call, feels great when it works. It feels like you are winning by wits alone, playing your opponent like a fiddle as you cajole them into throwing ever more money into a pot they have no chance of winning. The danger of this good feeling is that it may seduce you into slow-playing when it is not wise to do so, costing you many chips, if not the entire pot. Ultimately, you want to play big pots with your big hands, so it’s best to find wa

GTO Wizard·Via toy games, it is easy to demonstrate that a player betting a perfectly polarized range maximizes their EV by using geometric bet sizing. That means they choose a percentage of the pot such that if they bet that percentage at each remaining opportunity, their final bet will be all-in. Real poker games are more complicated, though. Hands change value from street to street, which complicates the idea of polar betting in several important ways: ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·One of the keys to adapting to new game formats, such as Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments, is understanding when to adjust Classic tournament strategies. In PKO tournaments, this begins with how we play preflop, both in the early and late stages of a tournament. This article will give you an understanding of the factors that influence when to expand or reduce our Raise First In (RFI) ranges in a PKO MTT so that you can make proper in-game decisions without having to memorize a PKO-specifi

GTO Wizard·You cold-called a preflop raise. That’s scary. You bet into a check from the preflop raiser, which is doubly scary because you know a check from an out of position (OOP) raiser should be uncapped and can possibly be followed up by a raise. The good news is they didn’t raise your bet. The bad news is they didn’t fold either, which is probably what you were hoping for, even if you had a pair. So, now you’ve got to play the turn, which means there are a couple of things to figure out: How likely t

GTO Wizard·In single-raised pots (SRPs) between an in position (IP) raiser and an out of position (OOP) caller, there is usually a clear relationship between one player’s aggression and the other’s passivity. Typically, the OOP caller checks most or all of their range to the IP raiser, who then bets most of their range. The rare cases where the IP player is not incentivized to bet so often are also the cases where their opponent bets most frequently. There is usually a clear relationship between one playe

GTO Wizard·One of the great modern debates in poker is GTO vs Exploitative strategy. It can be a surprisingly polarizing discussion, with each strategic methodology having devout adherents who dismiss the other. In reality, GTO and Exploitative poker are two sides of the same coin. Rational exploitative players use GTO as a means to identify leaks and as a baseline strategy to deviate from as an exploit to said leaks. GTO strategy, on the flip side, is informed by potential exploits that could be used aga

GTO Wizard·Playing the flop OOP in a 3-bet pot can be challenging. Turn play, however, is what gets the heart pumping. As the pot gets bigger, mistakes become more costly. But don’t worry; this article covers everything you need to start crushing your opponents in 3-bet pots OOP on the turn as the preflop aggressor (PFA). Once you understand how to approach the turn, you’ll become much tougher to play against. Let us dive right into it! Impact of Flop Play What drives turn decisions? One factor is SPR. Ho

GTO Wizard·The most consistent leak I have encountered live and online, and at a variety of stakes, is when an out of position (OOP) player leads into the preflop aggressor (PFA) with middle pair-type hands. The sort of hands that should really be check/calling. This occurs on boards where leading is usually not a thing. Many years ago, this action was mostly taken by players who flopped a very strong hand like a set and wanted to take the betting lead, but nowadays, it is consistently associated with med

GTO Wizard·The Mystery Bounty format looked like a novelty event at first, but swiftly became a mainstay of live poker, so much so that in many ways they have become the 2nd Main Event for a lot of poker festivals. It took a while, but the format has finally penetrated online poker, with most operators offering Mystery Bounty MTTs. The format still has detractors, largely because of their gambling nature. The player who wins the most money will rarely be the most skilled player, and in some instances, can

GTO Wizard·One of the most important inventions in poker that contributed to the growth of the game was the satellite tournament. This is a tournament where the prizes are tickets to a larger buy-in tournament. If it weren’t for satellites, hopeful amateur players would not be able to participate in events like the World Series of Poker Main Event. Satellites have massively improved tournament liquidity, made events softer, and helped create viral ‘Cinderella stories’ of amateurs winning big, most notably

GTO Wizard·A big stack in No Limit Hold‘em does not always carry a license to steal. In a cash game, for instance, there is no sound strategic reason why having more chips than your opponents should cause them to fear confrontation with you. In a tournament, however, shorter stacks do have some reason to avoid confrontations that could put the last of their chips on the line, particularly on big bubbles. Taking advantage of appropriately risk-averse short stacks does not require an especially big stack, s

GTO Wizard·Why did Dracula quit the game when Wolfman insisted on a mandatory straddle? — Why? — Unlike zombies, werewolves, and vampires, monsters in poker don’t necessarily cause stress. With a monster hand, you’re virtually guaranteed to win the pot, so the question of just how big a pot you win can feel secondary. But don’t get complacent! The question of how big matters enormously, especially when you’re playing with 200bb+ stacks. Deep-stacked No Limit Hold ‘em is a game of big pots. Really big pots

GTO Wizard·Open-raising on the bubble into players who cover you is scary. Savvy opponents will recognize how dangerous it is for you to play a big pot on the bubble and look for opportunities to pressure you both before and after the flop. Yet, there are hands strong enough to warrant contesting a pot on the bubble against covering players. Doing so profitably requires walking a fine line between getting value, protecting equity, and protecting what remains of your stack. Above all, it requires an awaren

GTO Wizard·When first beginning to study cash game poker strategy, there is a common refrain that you might often hear: “Just play 3-bet or fold from anywhere but the BB.” Benefits of 3-Bet Only - There is a good reason for this; it prevents (over)calls from positions where you shouldn’t have any, with hands that should probably just be folded. This piece of advice is the simplest way to cut that bad habit out, but, as we will soon learn, it removes the play too in spots where it is appropriate. Additiona

GTO Wizard·As I often like to remind readers, I am not a professional poker player; I am just a writer who is well-versed in solvers. My writing at GTO Wizard is very much colored by the perspective of a student trying to plug leaks in his own game. With that in mind, today I am writing about a big leak I fixed in 2024. My coach, Dara O’Kearney, got me on the right track initially by explaining the error of my way, and since then, I have used GTO Wizard to really hammer the lesson home. The leak was relat

GTO Wizard·In a single-raised pot (SRP), a BB caller should almost always check when out of position (OOP) to the preflop raiser (PFR). This is especially true in MTTs, where the ante incentivizes an especially wide and weak BB calling range. However, there are specific flops where BB’s equilibrium strategy includes a fair bit of donk-betting. How can you, as the preflop raiser, best exploit an opponent who misses these bets? It’s more complicated than you might think, as the answer depends on: Why they m

GTO Wizard·Playing the river may seem scary. Pots, on average, have been swelling up big time at this point, and even small mistakes can mean a substantial loss of big blinds. But do not panic because after digesting this article, you will be ready to outplay your opponents and maneuver as the preflop aggressor (PFA) from out of position (OOP) through all kinds of challenging river spots in 3-bet pots. Let’s get our feet (and hands) wet by immersing ourselves in the world of rivers! - Impact of Earlier St

GTO Wizard·It’s scary to contest a pot against a covering stack when you have a high risk premium, such as on the money bubble or at a final table. Position is a big help, making it easier for you to control the pot size, take free cards, and get to showdown. A savvy opponent, however, will attempt to undercut your positional advantage by betting into you on exactly the sorts of flops where you’re likely to want free cards and pot control. You can’t prevent them from denying your equity with this tactic a

GTO Wizard·When you think of balance in poker, what comes to mind? Most likely, you were introduced to the concept by the relationship between bluffing and bluff-catching. If your betting range is imbalanced—if you bluff too much or not enough, relative to the number of value hands you could have in a given spot—then your opponent can exploit you by bluff-catching more or less. Conversely, if they bluff-catch too much or not enough, you can exploit them by bluffing less or more... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·One of the many valuable aspects of GTO Wizard’s new postflop ICM feature is that we can use it at any stage of the tournament. This means that we can get a sense of how significant ICM is, even in the early portion of an MTT. I thought exploring this in the context of late registration would be interesting, given so many regulars do it. We have already written about the ICM benefits of late registration (note) and the instant equity boost we receive. A $100 buy-in might be worth $110 in equity

GTO Wizard·In this two-part series, I am going to look at how we can identify and fix leaks in our game. I feel uniquely qualified to write this, not because I am a brilliant player, but because I have a lot of leaks in my game. I’m by no means a professional poker player, but I have become quite good at fixing leaks, in part because I have worked with excellent pro players and mental game coaches as part of my job. In the next article, we are going to look at the mental game side of fixing leaks, but tod

GTO Wizard·In the first part of my series on fixing leaks, I looked at the many technical ways in which GTO Wizard can support your efforts to plug a hole/leak in your harness/game. In that article, I used a leak of my own to have a practical context for the ideas discussed. (My leak was to bet too big postflop when effective stacks are shallow, thereby giving my opponents easy decisions). Today, I am going to continue my exploration of leak fixing from the perspective of learning science and mental game.

GTO Wizard·4-bet pots (4BP) can be scary because the stakes are high, but with 100bb stacks, they are not really tough to navigate. The narrow ranges and extremely low stack-to-pot ratio (SPR) make it relatively simple to assess the strength of your hand compared to, say, a single-raised pot. With deeper stacks, things get a bit trickier. The SPR is still low, but not quite as low. Both players’ ranges are a bit more diverse, which makes it trickier to assess which flop favors which player and by how much

GTO Wizard·4-betting in position (IP) is a totally different phenomenon from 4-betting out of position (OOP). 4-betting reduces the importance of position, either by ending the hand preflop (if the 3-bettor folds or shoves) or by dramatically reducing the amount of money remaining to be wagered after the flop. This makes it a more appealing prospect for OOP, as it promises to mitigate or eliminate entirely their positional disadvantage. By the same token, 4-betting is less appealing for IP, whose favorabl

GTO Wizard·I fell in love with the game of poker when I saw the best players outplay their opponents. From the old school bosses like Ivey or Negreanu to the newer generation of crushers like Linus, I watched hours and hours of them working their craft, fascinated with the idea of making money by playing a card game. After winning a couple of hundred dollars, I felt pretty confident, thinking I could beat everyone until I got crushed and lost it all back. Getting that reality check was an essential first

GTO Wizard·Welcome back to part 2 of our series on how to become a winning poker player in 2025! In case you missed part 1, check it out here! In this follow-up piece, we will cover the second and third cornerstones of becoming a profitable poker player. ... 2. Study – Improving off the Felt ... Playing (any game) at a high level implies that the player has gone through a process of improvement. What does this specifically look like when it comes to poker? This second chapter will examine three important

GTO Wizard·Just how costly is it to play a Chip EV style when ICM is significant? We always knew it was a mistake, but we now have an answer thanks to this recent article from Tombos21. He started his search by mapping out the stages of a tournament. Via the data of single-raised and 3-bet pots, it’s possible to empirically demonstrate the average $EV loss of sticking to a Chip EV strategy. It turns out that doing this can cost you as much as 30% of your buy-in in EV. It’s likely much more though, as only

GTO Wizard·The new postflop ICM feature from GTO Wizard is a game changer. Previous incarnations of postflop ICM solvers have been challenging to use and are slow. When you factor in that GTO Wizard also allows bounty calculations and nodelocking with this feature, it might be one of the biggest strategic steps forward in poker technology for quite some time. As somebody who has previously analyzed postflop ICM spots the ‘old’ way, here are some pitfalls to avoid when using this powerful new feature. ...

GTO Wizard·Solver-derived preflop charts for both cash games and tournaments have historically assumed small raises on the part of the original raiser, usually two to three times the big blind. There are good reasons to use such small raise sizes at a table full of savvy, studied players. In tournaments, small preflop raises are indeed the norm, both live and online. In live cash games, however, it is quite common to see open-raises of four or more times the big blind. This makes the aforementioned charts

GTO Wizard·After calling a 3-bet as the out of position (OOP) player, you should expect to see a flop continuation bet from your in position (IP) opponent. In a 100bb CO vs BTN scenario, for example, BTN c-bets more than 80% of the time at equilibrium. The 3-bettor, having taken on more risk preflop, arrives at the flop with a stronger range. On most flops, they will possess both an equity advantage and a nuts advantage, the combination of which facilitates aggressive continuation betting. As the caller,

GTO Wizard·I don’t spend much of my study time checking whether specific hands I played are “solver-approved.” After all, those hands are over and done with, and I’ll probably never encounter those exact spots again. I find it more valuable to study big-picture trends: Who has the equity advantage in various spots and why? What makes a flop better or worse for continuation betting? In spots where you rarely bet, what are the exceptions and why? … If you read my articles here on the GTO Wizard blog, you’ll

GTO Wizard·The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is one of the most recognized tournament series in the world, with even those unfamiliar with poker knowing the brand itself.  Each year, tens of thousands of players come for events throughout the series, some attracting 20,000 or more participants.

GTO Wizard·In traditional no-limit Hold‘em cash games, calling an open-raise is rarely appealing unless you are in the BB. With no dead money in the pot, you’re never getting good enough odds on a call, so you should mostly fold once someone else has raised.

GTO Wizard·Poker is a complex game that requires a diverse skillset from someone who wants to excel at it. Think of emotional disciplinef, accurate hand reading, and a firm grasp of board texture dynamics. But in the pursuit of advanced strategy, we often neglect the fundamentals, such as extracting maximum value with our nutted hands.

GTO Wizard·“Hero,” as an adjective, is most commonly applied to calls in poker. Calling a big bet with a weak hand is the riskiest play you can make at the poker table, arguably riskier even than making a big bet with a weak hand.

GTO Wizard·Today, we’re shipping a massive update to GTO Wizard. At its core: Single Size postflop solutions, the highest-EV solutions of their kind ever built, each using only one optimal size per spot.

GTO Wizard·In this roundtable series, I have been asking GTO Wizard content creators about some of the software's best and most surprising features. In an attempt to see what world-class coaches prioritise and to find hidden gems that provide us with more bang for our buck when we study. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Game selection is not something immediately associated with tournaments because the seat draw is random. In a cash game, you can pick the exact table you play based on the people at the table. A lot of the time, you can even pick the seat. There are even private cash games where half the skill in poker is getting invited to them. I prefer MTTs partially because they do away with that aspect of poker entirely, but there are still considerations to make regarding game selection in tournament poke

GTO Wizard·Blocker/unblocker was a concept my coach, Dara O’Kearney, showed me in relation to bluffs. It is one of those things that you cannot unsee once you have been shown it. It applies to pre- and postflop, and it really helps you identify good bluffs when you’re in the midst of a hand. A good bluff should simultaneously block very strong hands and unblock the hands that we want to fold out. Blocker/unblocker is a useful heuristic for picking powerful bluffs. It is particularly pertinent preflop and

GTO Wizard·You’re in a heads-up pot and you’ve made it to the river. Your opponent has check/called two streets, so you’re relatively confident their range is at least somewhat capped. There’s just one problem; you have a really weak hand that can’t win the pot without bluffing. How do you figure out whether you should bluff or give up, when you have no information about how your opponent plays? While this can be a very tricky spot to navigate, especially in larger pots, there are plenty of theoretical co

GTO Wizard·Contesting a pot against a player who covers you at a final table (FT) is one of the most stressful situations in poker. The stakes are high, and the worst-case scenarios are frighteningly plausible, considering how bad they are. Your treasonous brain may flash memories of every time you’ve been coolered or sucked out on, providing an unwelcome reminder that you may be about to experience the same at one of the most important moments of your career. That anxiety is only heightened when you are

GTO Wizard·The good news is you’ve made the final table (FT). Better yet, you’ve made it with a big stack, good for second place out of eight players remaining. The bad news is the chip leader is on your left, and they cover you by a lot. This is their table, not yours, so despite your relatively big stack, you’ve got to sit tight. You’re handcuffed, mostly folding and waiting for other players to get eliminated while you watch the chip leader hoover up the blinds you’d really like to be stealing yourself

GTO Wizard·Turning a made hand into a bluff might initially sound counterintuitive. In the pre-solver days, holding a weak pair was often associated with checking, “We don’t want to bloat the pot and are happy to reach a cheap showdown” was a common saying. Solvers helped us understand that betting weak pairs outperforms checking in some situations. The line between randomly betting pairs and precisely knowing what you are doing can be blurry. But fear not! In this article, you will learn everything you n

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard provides a wide variety of tools to help you become a better player, from perfecting preflop ranges to using AI to find the optimal postflop line. Today, we’ll be looking at one of the most powerful tools GTO Wizard has to offer: Practice Mode. This feature allows you to set up a game scenario and play through it as if it were a real game, based on a wide array of parameters, and then evaluate your performance. Additionally, you’ll have the opportunity to study each spot in-depth aft

GTO Wizard·In a recent conversation with Andrew Brokos, he made the comment, “The fish were onto something,” when describing a particular solver strategy. At the end of last year, Liv Boeree made the final table of WSOP Paradise after a long break from the game, and she made a similar comment, saying, “It feels like the game has gone full circle, and it turns out everything the fish were doing back in 2008 was kind of OK.” A lot of strategies that were deemed fishy a decade ago are now considered the game

GTO Wizard·As an avid strategy game enthusiast, I’ve spent a large portion of my life trying to analyze different types of systems in games to learn about them and gain insight. From the beginning, this process looks something like the following: Learn the rules of the game. For example, how pieces move in chess or how hands are ranked in poker. The value of chess pieces and poker hands. And so on. Find educational material on basic but central concepts and try to grasp why they’re important. Practice a l

GTO Wizard·GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·No-limit Hold‘em has not traditionally been played with both a straddle and an ante, but this format is growing in popularity. The larger starting pots incentivize all players to contest the pot with wider ranges, which many consider a welcome change from deep-stacked cash games without antes, where correct strategy entails rather tight play from out of position (OOP).

GTO Wizard·The most important thing to understand, when it comes to playing the later streets, is the range dynamics created by your flop overbet. What did your overbet tell your opponent about your range? And what did their call tell you about theirs?

GTO Wizard·It’s exciting to flop a flush draw; when you do, you have a fairly high chance of having a strong hand by the river. It’s a lot less exciting, however, when the river arrives without your flush and you’re left with air or a weak pair, especially when you’ve invested a lot of chips on previous streets.

GTO Wizard·In this article, we will look at another key feature: “Range Builder.” The Range Builder has you construct your entire strategy for any (preflop or postflop) spot. Your strategy will be graded based on how well it matches the GTO solution. This tool forces you to think globally about how you approach poker, revealing blind spots and common weaknesses that are tough to notice when playing a specific hand locally.

GTO Wizard·As is often the case with my articles for this blog, what I am writing today is not something I consider myself an expert in. I use GTO Wizard to answer the questions I have about poker, and I am lucky enough to be able to write about it. As is often the case with my articles for this blog, what I am writing today is not something I consider myself an expert in. I use GTO Wizard to answer the questions I have about poker, and I am lucky enough to be able to write about it.

GTO Wizard·Heads-up (HU) poker at shallow stack depths is unforgiving. Did you know that small differences in stack size can drastically change optimal isolation (iso) strategies? Learning how your iso frequency and sizing change as stacks decrease is vital if you want to keep your edge sharp! This article provides a platform to identify and exploit opponents who deviate from optimal play, giving you the confidence to dominate short-stacked heads-up play.

GTO Wizard·Wizards, today we have another significant update for you! We’re releasing hundreds of new ICM solutions! Check out the new mid-stage MTT spots to get an edge on the competition. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Greetings Wizards, we have a major update for you today! You will now have access to a customizable dashboard and over 50 interface enhancements to provide a top-notch poker training experience. In addition to these UI/UX improvements, we are excited to announce brand new Progressive Knockout MTT (PKO) solutions as well. Get ready to take your skills to the next level with these updates! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·We have another fantastic update for you today! We’ve added a completely new sets of high-accuracy Spin & Go solutions (also Spins with ante). We have built Study Plan designed to equip you with all the tools you need to crush low-stakes competition. We’ve also added several useful UI improvements, such as an EV comparison feature, new Trainer settings and more! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Greetings, Wizards! We have an exciting update for you! The interface has been completely redesigned with new customization options, allowing you to study in style. Cash game players will be happy to learn that we’ve added new ultra-accurate Simplified cash game solutions featuring easy-to-learn bet sizing trees. In addition, we’ve uploaded thousands of preflop cash solutions covering 12 stack depths, 11 rake structures, and 4 opening sizes. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Today, we roll out the feature you’ve all been asking for: Unleash the power of Nodelocking with GTO Wizard AI. Nodelocking is a powerful new feature that allows you to define player’s strategies and craft exploits to crush the competition! You can set strategies by combo, hand category, or action frequency, then compare how the response changes with our new Compare Nodes feature. We’re adding over 2250 new solutions for Cash and MTT players! Cash game players are getting a big upgrade to the p

GTO Wizard·Here at GTO Wizard, we’re always pushing the boundaries to create the world’s best poker training tool, and today is no exception. We’re proud to announce another great update to your training arsenal: Custom Raked Solutions! Now, you can use GTO Wizard AI to solve raked postflop spots quickly! Raked GTO solutions work with all of our other features, such as nodelocking, arbitrary ranges, and stack depths, using whatever bet sizes you prefer. In addition, we’ve launched some great UI enhancemen

GTO Wizard·As 2023 draws to a close, GTO Wizard invites you to explore your poker journey through our Year in Review. This personalized retrospective showcases your growth, highlighting key metrics like total hands practiced and performance improvements. It’s a perfect opportunity to reflect on your progress, set new goals, and share your achievements within the poker community. Log in now and celebrate your year of hard work and dedication! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Greetings, Wizards! Today we’re proud to announce the release of our new free eBook, ‘Daily Dose of GTO‘. This interactive eBook, featuring over 300 quizzes, goes beyond just GTO strategies—it will deepen your understanding of why the solutions are optimal. Designed to help you seamlessly integrate GTO concepts into your game through short lessons you can cover in just 5 minutes per day. ‘Daily Dose of GTO’ is now available to everyone at dailydoseofgto.com. We’re also pleased to announce many

GTO Wizard·During the past decades, given its direct relationship with real-world applications such as negotiation, auctions, cybersecurity, and more, poker has served as a challenging problem for the fields of game theory and artificial intelligence (AI). Indeed, no other popular recreational game captures the challenges of hidden information as eloquently and effectively as poker. The poker industry has always lagged behind its scientific counterparts when it comes to implementing academic technological

GTO Wizard·Greetings, Wizards! We’re excited to bring you our latest solutions updates, inspired by your feedback from our Discord community. Today we’re adding comprehensive cash game solutions for unique game formats, and new MTT solutions, including ICM and PKO situations. Check them out below to see which apply to your games! ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The most monumental advancement to MTT study in the history of poker solvers is now here. GTO Wizard is thrilled to announce a revolutionary upgrade: Custom ICM Solving with GTO Wizard AI, which allows you to solve any heads-up postflop situation for any poker tournament format—including KO, Freezeout, PKO, Satellites, and Mystery Bounties. This breakthrough will fundamentally transform how MTTs are studied and shift the meta of poker tournaments! ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Get ready to experience the next evolution in poker with GTO Wizard Play Mode—a new way to play poker with friends for free! Now, you can gather your friends, set up private games, and dive into a completely seamless experience, right from your browser. With no downloads, no sign up, and no delays, the future of poker is at your fingertips. Whether you’re playing for fun or polishing your skills, GTO Wizard Play Mode gives you everything you need to create, host, and enjoy poker games—anytime,

GTO Wizard·Hello Wizards, today we’re excited to introduce innovative updates designed to transform how you study and play poker. At the heart of this release is Analyzer 2.0, featuring a revamped interface, advanced stats, customizable filters, and saved reports to take your hand history analysis to the next level. We’ve also upgraded the GTO Wizard AI engine, now delivering even sharper and more consistent solutions for maximum precision in strategy refinement. In addition, we’re launching two brand-new

GTO Wizard·New Year, New Poker (Re)Solutions! As 2025 approaches, we are setting the stage for an incredible year. With the largest database of pre-solved solutions and a relentless drive for innovation, GTO Wizard is raising the bar once again. Today’s update brings you many precise solutions, solved to the highest standards of accuracy. Cash game players can now refine their strategies for Straddle, Straddle with Ante and Shortstack games, with solutions spanning various stack depths, rake structures, a

GTO Wizard·Over the last decade, the world of poker has witnessed a systemic change, not just in the way the game is played but in how it’s studied. The shift from intuition-based strategy to data-backed strategy has redefined how poker is approached at every level. But the most exciting changes lie ahead, driven by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) game theory. At the core of this revolution is GTO Wizard’s AI engine team, responsible for the research and development of GTO Wizard AI and drive

GTO Wizard·Today we are proud to introduce GTO Reports, a game-changing addition to our training suite. This innovative feature directly compares your stats against optimal GTO frequencies, using color-coded visualizations to highlight deviations instantly. Whether you’re under-bluffing, over-folding, or misapplying aggression, GTO Reports pinpoint your leaks with surgical precision. Currently available for cash game preflop, GTO Reports will soon expand to cover additional formats and postflop analysis.

GTO Wizard·We’re excited to announce a groundbreaking new approach for solving optimal poker strategies: Quantal Response Equilibrium. QRE represents the natural evolution of optimal poker solving.

GTO Wizard·In the late 1990s, the introduction of the hole card camera revolutionized televised poker, letting fans finally experience the hidden drama and brilliance behind every hand. Now, GGPoker, the World’s Biggest Poker Room, together with GTO Wizard, poker’s leading educational platform, is proud to announce the next great leap in live poker broadcasting. In the late 1990s, the introduction of the hole card camera revolutionized televised poker, letting fans finally experience the hidden drama and

GTO Wizard·We kicked off 2025 with a lot of new ICM FT solutions, and we are not stopping there. We’ve just added 7,000 new Final Table ICM solutions to the GTO Wizard solutions library. This means that we now offer a huge database of ICM Final Table solutions, so you can always find a close spot that happened in your game and learn within seconds. Additionally, we’ve introduced specialized Mississippi Straddle and Double Straddle solutions designed specifically for live cash game players, featuring real

GTO Wizard·Learning Game Theory Optimal (GTO) poker strategy represents a challenge, but even more so when the optimal strategy includes mixing between multiple different bet sizes. In such cases, the strategy can quickly become too complex to execute well in-game.

GTO Wizard·Forget renting expensive servers and waiting months for solutions. Now, with one click, you get the optimal strategy across all 1755 strategically distinct flops, solved in minutes, fully customizable, and displayed in a clean, intuitive interface.

GTO Wizard·Want to get a real poker rating/ranking and climb leaderboards against other players and your friends? Want to know how much of your “real” poker play is GTO? Or maybe you just want to fire some bluffs off at your friends and have fun?

GTO Wizard·This is another step towards our ultimate goal of building the ultimate poker ecosystem. Table Wizard is a clean, reliable tool built for grinders who want elite control. No more scrambling with windows or misclicking at the worst time.

GTO Wizard·Today’s update is the biggest we’ve ever released at GTO Wizard, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with you! 3-Way Solving, Nodelocking 2.0, 50k+ ICM FT Sims, and more!

GTO Wizard·Playing “OK” from the Button in Spins often comes relatively naturally. Our relatively tight preflop range makes almost all boards favorable for us against the much wider range of the BB.

GTO Wizard·New solutions, Aggregation reports. Hello Wizards, another week and another update just hit the servers. Let’s take a look at what new has arrived in GTO Wizard. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·NL50 preflop ranges completed. Now all the NL50 preflop spots are available and browsable entirely for free for anyone! We have solved them on a powerful server to high accuracy, and we tested multiple sizings to ensure we are solving with the GTO preferred sizings in each spot. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Back in August (2025), we announced the introduction of 3-way postflop solving for raked cash games and chip EV solutions. You can now instantly solve custom 3-way postflop spots, with full control over stack sizes, bet sizes, ranges, rake, and even opponent tendencies.

GTO Wizard·The immediate positive impact on ROI of late registration can be quite significant. This article analyzes real-world tournament examples to study two variables related to late registration, with a focus on maximizing profitability:

GTO Wizard·Today’s update is the biggest we’ve ever released at GTO Wizard, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with you! 3-Way Solving, Nodelocking 2.0, 50k+ ICM FT Sims, and more!

GTO Wizard·We're rolling out an update today that we think you're seriously going to love: Player Profiles, a new approach to studying exploitative poker.

GTO Wizard·Another month, another set of updates we're excited to share with you. This month, we're giving you complete control over opponent modeling with Custom Profiles and kicking off PokerArena Season 5!

GTO Wizard·At GTO Wizard AI, we’re proud to release our state-of-the-art preflop multiway solver! It supports up to 9 players, any cash game spot (chip EV and rake) and all our usual features (tree edits, nodelocking, profiles, etc.) – with the same speed and accuracy that we always aim to deliver.

GTO Wizard·At GTO Wizard, we’re proud to introduce to our application Frequency Locking 2.0, a new algorithm that allows you to more accurately model exploits and opponents’ deviations from equilibrium. While studying GTO strategies is necessary to understand the underlying mechanics of optimal poker, poker is ultimately played by humans - and learning how to maximally exploit humans is key to maximizing your EV.

GTO Wizard·When we were brand new to poker strategy, many of us learned about concepts like equity, outs, and pot odds. When drawing, we were taught to count our outs, use those to estimate our equity, and then call or fold based on whether we were getting the right pot odds for the equity we had.

GTO Wizard·In the strategic world of poker, achieving a Nash Equilibrium, often referred to as Game Theory Optimal (GTO) strategy, is widely regarded as the pinnacle of unexploitable play. Its primary appeal lies in the defensive guarantee it provides in two-player settings.

GTO Wizard·In this article, we will discuss the key strategic differences between this scenario and one where you face a continuation bet in a heads-up pot, how those differences factor into the GTO responses to these bets in 3-way pots, and when those differences are more or less salient.

GTO Wizard·3-way postflop custom solutions are finally out! For the first time ever, you can solve Chip EV and raked 3-way solutions in seconds. In this article, we’ll provide comprehensive benchmarks of our 3-way solver’s precision and speed so that you know what to expect when using GTOWizard AI.

GTO Wizard·Parts 1 and 2 in this bounty theory series describe how total risk premiums are lower across the board in bounty tournaments than in non-bounty tournaments. They also discuss how a number of factors impact the in-game value of a bounty, with the primary factor being how much of the entry fee goes into the bounty prize pool as a percentage of the total buy-in (minus rake). The higher the percentage of the entry fee assigned to the bounty prize pool, the more bounties impact our strategies in eve

GTO Wizard·Poker is sometimes described as a battle for information, and there is much truth in that. Deducing information about your opponents’ cards and intentions is critical to success. So, it must also work the other way around by concealing information about your own cards and intentions.

GTO Wizard·In this era of game theory and solvers and poker games running at a huge variety of stakes at venues all around the world, as well as on dozens of apps and online poker sites, it’s easy to forget that, for the majority of its existence, poker has been a game of hustlers.

GTO Wizard·Poker theory offers many conceptual tools for answering the question, “What is your hand worth?” You may be familiar with equity (EQ), expected value (EV), and equity realization (EQR), which are essentially different methods of taking a snapshot of a hand’s value.

GTO Wizard·To frame today’s article, let’s start with a question: “What is the principal characteristic that differentiates the river from the flop and turn?” Hint: It’s something that’s marked by a feeling of anticipation. One of the major things to anticipate when you find yourself on the

GTO Wizard·In poker, we often face a wide variety of opponents. One common type we encounter, especially at low- and mid-stakes, is the player who doesn’t study GTO ({{tooltip-title: Game Theory Optimal}}) strategies. With the rise of solvers, many players formed and held onto the belief that studying theory is

GTO Wizard·Cash games with an ante are becoming increasingly common, particularly online. Fortunately, GTO Wizard has recently released preflop simulations for these ante games, making it easy to study how strategies change with these extra chips in the pot. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Most PKO experts, including those who have written about late registration and PKOs for the GTO Wizard blog, advise not to register late for PKOs. But just how -EV is it to register or re-enter late at various stages of the registration period?

GTO Wizard·‘Defending’ in poker is a more complicated concept than it may seem at first. It raises the question: “Defending against what?”

GTO Wizard·In poker jargon, domination refers to one hand being heavily favored against another, not just because it is stronger, but because some of the cards that would improve the dominated hand would also improve the dominating hand.

GTO Wizard·“Think ahead” and “Always have a plan” are phrases we hear all the time in poker, but this sort of advice is easier said than done. How exactly are you supposed to plan ahead for 1755 strategically distinct flops followed by 2162 turn and river combinations?

GTO Wizard·This guide will explain, in detail, how to upload your hand histories.

GTO Wizard·How we solved our solutions. In November we have released GTO Wizard, an advanced GTO tool where you can browse the entire game tree for 6 Handed Cash Game poker. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·6 Gründe Warum Du GTO Wizard Nutzen Solltest GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In 2022, Philippe Beardsell and Marc-Antoine Provost, a team of Canadian programmers from Quebec, developed the most advanced poker solver, Ruse AI. This technology combines the speed of predictive AI with the power of traditional solvers. Ruse beat Slumbot – a superhuman poker bot and winner of the most recent Annual Computer Poker Competition – for the highest win rate ever recorded, a massive 19.4 BB/100. In 2023, GTO Wizard acquired Ruse AI. Their revolutionary technology now powers GTO Wiz

GTO Wizard·6 Reasons Why You Should Use GTO Wizard. The primary problem with running your own solves is that it takes a massive amount of time, energy, and computation to run your own sims. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Hello Wizards, in August, we announced a themes competition, where we gave you a chance to win a 1-month Premium membership on GTO Wizard. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Poker is a game of small edges and big swings. Every hand is an investment into your edge. But the tidal waves of variance can easily overwhelm even the most seasoned players. In this article we’ll discuss the root causes of tilt, emotional awareness, and how to improve your mental game. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·You’re probably accustomed to thinking of bets as either value or bluff. In this taxonomy, value bets are hands whose value comes from getting called, and bluffs are those whose value comes from getting folds. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Leverage refers to the risk of future betting. When you call a bet on the flop or turn, you are not guaranteed to see a showdown. Leverage can make it correct to fold despite getting a good price on the current street, because you might face a difficult decision and lose EV on a future street. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·GTO Wizard’s range vs range equity distribution graphs are an excellent tool for visualizing which player has the stronger or nuttier range and the distribution of equity across each player’s range. Whether a player has mostly medium-strength hands or a more polarized mix of very strong and very weak hands has huge implications for their preferred betting frequency and size. These graphs display that information clearly and concisely. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Game theory, or GTO (for Game Theoretically Optimal), is best understood not as a rigid set of rules to be accepted or rejected but rather as a framework for thinking about poker, predicting your opponents’ actions, and improving your own decision making ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·This guide will teach you everything about how to use our automatic hand Analyzer.

GTO Wizard·Tools like GTO Wizard and other solvers should not be used to memorize specific strategies. There are simply far too many scenarios to memorize. Instead, these tools are best used to understand big-picture concepts such as stack depth, range advantage, nut advantage, bet sizing, and position... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The central strategic implication of stack depth is the question of how much equity a player must expect to have to wager their entire stack profitable. It is not the sheer size of the stack, as measured in currency or tournament chips or even big blinds, but rather the stack-to-pot ratio that determines this. The lower the SPR ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·A Game Theory Optimal solver is an algorithm that calculates the best possible poker strategy. But how exactly do these solvers work? What makes their strategy “the best”? This article will take a deep dive into how solvers work, what they achieve, and their limitations ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Tournament poker is not as different from cash game poker as people sometimes assume. Most of what you learn about poker strategy – big concepts like hand reading, value betting, and hand classes – will apply in both formats. If you understand the theory of poker, there is not a lot you need to do differently to adapt from one format to the other, except for understanding ICM, which is a hugely important concept at certain stages of a tournament... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In poker, a PKO (Progressive Knockout) tournament is a type of tournament where a portion of the buy-in goes toward a bounty on each player's head. In PKO tournaments, when a player eliminates another player, they typically receive a cash prize for half of the eliminated player's bounty. The remaining half of the bounty is added to their own head for other players to try to claim. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The Independent Chip Model (ICM) shows us the real money implications of tournament chip decisions. Most players on how tightly or how aggressively they should play. Calculating ICM in real-time at the tables is impossible. Thankfully we have a way of making informed decisions on the fly in the late stages using a concept called Bubble Factor. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Most players understand how the Independent Chip Model (ICM) in poker impacts their strategy preflop, especially at shallow stack depths near the end of a tournament. But what about postflop ICM? What do the GTO solvers teach us about playing the flop, turn, and river when at final tables or near the money bubble of a poker tournament? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·GTO solutions are designed to be unexploitable, performing reasonably well no matter how your opponents play. They achieve this by assuming that when there is a best option with a given hand, your opponents will make that play. Thus, the GTO approach is to play in a way that minimizes the amount and profitability of good options available to your opponents. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·The river offers the least complicated strategy of any betting street. With no further cards to come, hand values are fixed and future board coverage is no longer a consideration. Bets can be straightforwardly classified as either value, seeking calls from worse hands, or bluffs, seeking folds from better. As a result, river bets tend to be big and polarized, especially when made by the in position player. What many players find tricky about river play stems not so much from the complexity of t

GTO Wizard·One of the most frequently asked questions in poker is how to calculate the size of a raise as a percentage of the pot. Fortunately, it's a relatively straightforward calculation that can be done using a simple formula. Here's how to do it. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·If you have read The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments you already know why we can play wider ranges in PKOs than in regular MTTs. In particular, this effect is most pronounced at the start of PKOs where Bubble Factor is below 1 (something you don’t see in regular MTTs). This is because the upside of winning bounties is more than the downside of losing chips, so much so that we can play looser multiway than in heads-up pots. But what about when the payouts are looming in PKOs? How does

GTO Wizard·A Cold-call refers to the act of calling a preflop raise when you don’t close the action and have not invested any money in the pot. This article will focus on playing the BTN postflop after calling an EP open, 40bb deep in an MTT. The cold-callers range is typically condensed, containing less trash and less nutted hands. You need a stronger hand to call than you would need to open due to the Gap Concept. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In the world of poker, the flop is a crucial stage of the game that sets the tone for the rest of the hand. C-betting as the aggressor is one of the most profitable spots and, therefore, an essential skill to master for any successful player. In this article, we will delve into the world of flop heuristics and explore the strategic trends that can be derived from aggregate flop reports. Specifically, we will focus on IP (in position) continuation betting (C-betting) in multi-table tournaments.

GTO Wizard·The field of Game Theoretically Optimal poker is extensive, and thus, to simplify our strategy, we frequently rely on heuristics or "rules of thumb." In this article, we will utilize GTO Wizard's aggregate reports to create heuristics that aid our defense of the blinds in tournaments. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Most people’s first introduction to the Independent Chip Model (ICM) is not from studying bubble play or endgame ranges; it is their first time making a big final table. This is when deal-making is proposed and ICM is first introduced. Understanding ICM is particularly important when making final table deals, and making an error in this department can be very costly. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Solver outputs such as those provided by GTO Wizard are models of no-limit hold ‘em, not a perfect blueprint for what you should actually do in a real poker situation. They are best thought of as instruments, tools with which you can study the game and better understand its underlying strategic principles. When studying with solvers, it is essential to grasp not only what they recommend doing with specific hands but why they recommend those actions. When studying with solvers, it is essential t

GTO Wizard·Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller from the blinds. You should not expect to enjoy the sort of range advantage you would against a caller from the blinds. Depending on your position and that of the caller, you may not have an equity advantage at all, and being out of position puts you at a significant disadvantage. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Why do so many professional poker players register late for tournaments when they clearly would enjoy a big edge with deeper stacks? It is because you can enjoy an ICM equity boost that is on par with a good win rate in a tough tournament field. In this article, we explain why late registering in most poker tournament formats can be profitable. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·When I first started working with preflop solves, one of the features I found most striking was large preflop all-in bets into relatively small pots. Though not unheard of in the pre-solver era, these huge shoves were widely considered fishy, a crude compensation for lack of postflop skill. And in that era, they often were. The underlying principle is correct, however: in the right spot, with the right kind of hand, a big shove preflop is the optimal play, in no small part because of the diffic

GTO Wizard·Our never-ending quest for money and fame leads us to the flop. We open the button, the big blind calls and the dealer throws out three community cards. After a twenty second on KT3r, action is kindly checked over to us. Now what? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·When you have a lot of chips at a final table or in another situation with extreme bubble factors, you are in a great spot. Not only is your stack worth a lot because of the raw value of your chips, but covering other stacks enables you to accumulate more chips by winning pots against opponents who wish, quite appropriately, to avoid risking elimination by getting all-in against you. This is sometimes referred to as “bullying” the table, but in reality, playing a big stack is more about subtlet

GTO Wizard·The mathematics of poker holds a little-known secret: the first bettor enjoys better bluffing odds than someone who raises by the same amount. This article delves into the calculations behind this phenomenon and discuss how this plays into theoretically optimal strategies. Let’s start with an example to illustrate this principle. Blind vs Blind, Single-raised pot ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·ICM incentivizes more conservative play, which means that at stages of the tournament where risk premiums are highest, action is more likely to fold around to the blinds. Consequently, it is especially important to learn how to navigate blind versus blind confrontations under ICM pressure. Even when one player covers the other, both are incentivized to realize their equity without provoking a big confrontation. There are two ways to do this... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·This is a companion piece to this article on the SB’s strategy for blind vs blind play under ICM pressure. In that piece, we saw that, though ICM incentivizes both players to avoid big confrontations, the BB has more leeway to grow the pot on early streets. Their position enables them to bluff, control the size of the pot, and realize equity more effectively than the SB, making it less dangerous for them to start growing the pot pre-flop. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·As far as rules of thumb go in poker, “check to the raiser” is a pretty good one. The aggressor on the previous street generally has the more polar range and so more incentive to bet, while players who just called the previous street have mostly medium-strength hands and less incentive to grow the pot. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·This is a companion piece to Probe Betting. It stands on its own, but understanding how to play these scenarios from both sides will enhance your overall understanding of the underlying concepts. A “delayed c-bet” means checking the flop as the preflop aggressor, then betting the turn. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·We are thrilled to announce that Hand History Analyzer is out after months of work! What is it capable of, and what are our plans with it? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·You can now upload files with your session or even your whole database. This feature was quite complex to test for all the sites, so please let us know if you run into any issues. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Our best solutions, chart view and more, today we are completing the best solutions we ever had, adding a new chart view for Flop reports and more! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Today we are releasing multiple new solutions for a Cash game, MTT, Spin & Go, and HU SnG. And guess what! We are giving them away completely for free for a limited time! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Wizards, today we are releasing new solutions, aggregated reports, and Cash General solutions for HH Analyzer! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Wizards, today we are releasing new solutions, speed improvements, significant improvements to the Range builder, iPoker support & more! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Wizards, today we are releasing one of the biggest updates so far. A lot of new MTT postflop solutions, a new Breakdown view, and a lot of your requests. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·8Max Cash Game Straddle/Ante! We’ve also doubled the speed of the Hand History Analyzer and introduced several improvements to the GTO Wizard interface. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Wizards, today we’re releasing many new Cash and MTT solutions, including a brand new 6max Straddle + Ante format! We’ve also introduced several improvements including new hand category filters, upgrades to our trainer, and more! GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Multitabling & New solutions. Wizards, today we’re releasing Multi-tabling, great improvements for Trainer, and new solutions. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·A Button straddle, also known as a Mississippi straddle, changes the preflop incentives of all players. If you’re interested in learning more about exactly how those incentives change, you can read about opening ranges and responding to opens in Mississippi straddle games. In this article, we will investigate the consequences of those changes for postflop play, specifically for continuation betting into a BTN caller. That may sound like a niche topic, but the single biggest change to preflop in

GTO Wizard·“Donk betting”, or betting from out of position into the player who was the aggressor on the previous street, is a derogatory term originating in poker’s younger days, when such bets were considered the hallmark of a bad player, or “donk” (short for donkey). That stereotype is not without basis in reality: betting into the previous street’s aggressor is rarely correct, so when it is done, it is often done incorrectly. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·MTT confrontations between the small blind and big blind force no-limit players into uncomfortable situations, compelling them to play extremely weak hands, often with a high stack-to-pot ratio. In this unfamiliar territory, intuition is a poor guide for valuing hands or thinking about which player should drive the action and why. In this article, we will explore the flop strategy for the Small Blind in limped pots: which flops are best for betting, which hands are best for betting, and which b

GTO Wizard·A “chopped board” in poker is one where the community cards make up the best 5-card hand for the majority of hands in both players' ranges. This is often called “playing the board”. Chopped boards lead to fascinating, often counterintuitive strategies. In this article, we’ll dive into the absurd mathematics of chopped boards. Before we get started, watch this video by Qing Yang to learn more about the theory of “Playing the board”. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Playing out of position is tricky, but it’s an essential part of tournament play. With so much already in the pot from antes, you cannot afford to give up your blinds easily to small raises. When stacks are conducive to it, solvers often respond to late position raises by moving all in from the blinds with strong but especially tricky hands like small pairs and offsuit Ace-X rather than playing them after the flop from out of position. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Although most commonly analyzed on turns and rivers, flop overbetting can be a devastating weapon that generates massive amounts of EV at equilibrium while also having tremendous exploitative merit. This article will equip you with the tools to build out polarized flop strategies. Please note that this article is aimed towards advanced players, so if you’re relatively new to poker, I would highly recommend reading this article on flop c-betting first. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·I am fortunate enough to have worked for many years with the mental game coach Jared Tendler, whom I co-wrote The Mental Game of Poker with. Of all the advice he had given me, the one I remember the most related to periods when I did not know what to study. This was way before the time of solvers, so there weren’t the tools we have available today to drill down on leaks. His advice was... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Perhaps the most important strategic consideration in Progressive Knockout Tournaments (PKOs) is making sure you cover your opponents. You cannot win a bounty if you don’t cover your opponent, which means sometimes you have to take big risks to put yourself in that position, as well as occasionally passing up profitable spots to hold onto a chip lead. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·You open raise, someone calls, and the BB squeezes. How should you construct your strategy? Once there has been a raise and one or more calls, re-raising is an appealing option for the BB. Although they are unlikely to take the pot down immediately, they have a good chance of folding out at least one opponent, trapping a lot of dead money in a pot they can then contest heads up. Consequently, it behooves you to learn how to defend against BB squeezes, whether you are the original raiser or one

GTO Wizard·With only fourteen players remaining in the 2023 WSOP Main Event and blinds of 400K/800K/800K, Joshua Payne opened to 1.6M from the LJ with KK. Action folded to Jose Aguilera, who three-bet to 4.5M with QQ on the BTN. Daniel Weinman, waking up with JJ in the SB, found himself with a tough decision, and his choice to move all in for 29M set off a chain of events that would make this one of the most talked about hands of the series. If you’re concerned about spoilers, you should watch the action

GTO Wizard·Paired flops present unique challenges to both a preflop raiser and a BB caller. The difficulty of flopping pairs or draws forces both players to bet, raise, and call with hands that have no obvious coordination with the board, plays that do not feature prominently in continuation betting and check-raising strategies on other board types. As we will see, however, “paired flop” is a broad classification that conceals a lot of nuance. The stack depth, the position of the preflop raiser, the size

GTO Wizard·This is a companion piece to Attacking Paired Flops from the BB; you will get more out of it if you read that article first. In that article, we found that BB’s optimal response to a small continuation bet on paired flops involves a lot of check-raising, even more so than on the average flop. In this article, we will examine how the original raiser should respond to those raises. The BB’s check-raise presents difficult decisions not only about whether to fold but also about whether to raise. A

GTO Wizard·When people talk about game selection in multi-table tournaments (MTTs), they invariably talk about the number of recreational players there are and/or the prize pool that is being guaranteed. What doesn’t get as much attention is the field size itself. The number of runners in the tournament is actually the most important metric to consider where game selection is concerned. Field size also plays a significant role in guiding endgame ICM strategy decisions. Before we go further, let’s define w

GTO Wizard·Dynamic Sizing is a revolutionary new poker algorithm that automatically simplifies your strategy with the highest EV bet size(s) at each decision point! A simple strategy executed well will invariably outperform a complex strategy executed poorly. Learning from GTO solutions with too many bet sizes has been a significant challenge for poker players since the introduction of browser-based study tools. Complex GTO strategies are challenging to interpret and virtually impossible to implement. Sim

GTO Wizard·Last time we discussed the ICM considerations in game selection, we looked at field size, which has major implications regarding profitability, variance, and just how tight or loose one should play. Today, we will look at ICM considerations where the payout structure is concerned. Whether a payout structure is standard, flat, or steep is relative, but for the purposes of this article, let’s make some assumptions. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·In my last two articles, I wrote about the effect field size and payout structure have on ICM. There is another factor outside of your control that I wanted to discuss that significantly changes your strategy in endgame spots, and that is the stack size of the other players in the tournament. Not the effective stack size of your opponent in the hand, I’m referring to the impact some outlier stack sizes can have, even when they are not involved in the hand. It can even be players on another tabl

GTO Wizard·In a previous GTO Wizard article, I asserted that “Playing against an in-position cold-caller is dramatically different–and dramatically more difficult–than playing against a caller from the blinds. You should not expect to enjoy the sort of range advantage you would against a caller from the blinds. Depending on your position and that of the caller, you may not have an equity advantage at all, and being out of position puts you at a significant disadvantage.” Thanks to new features that enable

GTO Wizard·If you have read my previous GTO Wizard articles and my books, you’ll know I am a fan of ICM. I think the Independent Chip Model is something that gets needlessly ignored by a lot of tournament players, which is remarkable since it is likely the most important guiding principle in the biggest money decisions of tournament players – whether that is a tough final table spot or a final table deal, ICM errors heavily influence win rates. But even though it is highly impactful, ICM is by no means pe

GTO Wizard·So what exactly is a GTO strategy? What makes it “unexploitable”? What does it try to achieve? To understand this, we need to first understand the concept of Nash Equilibrium. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Understanding Nash Distance. One of the most common questions when studying with solvers is “Why does the solver take this action when that action is higher EV”? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Pot Odds and MDF are foundational mathematical formulas in poker. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from the GTO Wizard PKO library. Somebody asked me whether it was correct because it involved a very surprising range. 75% of the field remains in this Progressive Knockout (PKO) Tournament. Action folds to the CO with 69bb and a $75 bounty. The BTN has 37bb, the SB has 13bb, and the BB has 21bb. All of these players behind the CO have $50 bounties. The CO opens with this range: ... GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·How many times has it happened to you that you make a mistake only to realize immediately - perhaps even while you’re putting the chips into the pot - that you should have known better? How many times has your performance at the table failed to live up to the knowledge you know you possess, based on all your off-the-felt study? Away from the table, it’s easy to nod along and convince yourself everything makes sense when you read articles as beautifully written and explained as this one. GTOWiza

GTO Wizard·In poker, overcalling refers to calling a bet or raise after another player has also called. Should you call an open raise wider or tighter once another player has called? One common misunderstanding around pot odds is that it is more profitable to call preflop raises with weak hands if others have already called before you because there is more money in the pot. While it is true that you are getting better odds on a call, you also need better odds because multiway pots are harder to win. Getti

GTO Wizard·A “calling station,” someone who is seemingly willing to consider calling down with any pair, can be a source of frustration for many players. This article will explore ways how we can exploit those stationery tendencies, transforming any potential frustration into excitement.

GTO Wizard·BB 3-betting is fundamentally different from 3-betting from any other seat, even the SB. Calling at a discount and closing the action is such an appealing option that many hands that may seem like "natural" 3-bet candidates have higher EV as calls. This is even more compelling when taking ICM into account, because growing a pot from out of position (OOP) is such a risky proposition.

GTO Wizard·How significant is ICM at the start—as in the very first hand—of a tournament? Have we been learning the wrong way all this time by using Chip EV ranges to study spots when stacks are deep and few players have been eliminated?

GTO Wizard·One of the criticisms of ICM is that it is boring and robotic. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. ICM has created some of the most interesting strategic scenarios I have seen in poker and for me personally, it was my gateway drug into learning about game theory. What follows are a number of very counterintuitive scenarios involving folding AA (or never folding Ace-x) that were my springboard into learning other poker concepts. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Today, we’ll examine one of the most epic final table battles I’ve ever witnessed! Our adventure begins during the Triton Super High Roller Series in London. The world’s most elite players gathered to compete in the $40k Mystery Bounty tournament. With over $5,000,000 in prizes, this was an event to be remembered. After a hard-fought battle, only three players remained: Phil Ivey – The GOAT, Stephen Chidwick – The MTT Endboss, Espen Jørstad – 2022 WSOP Main Event Champion GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·Picture this: We’re playing a NL500 6-max cash game, and we’ve won a few pots, now sitting 150bb deep. We look down at the beautiful K♣Q♣ in the BB, a suited match of royalty. The CO raises. It folds to us and we comfortably 3-bet to 12bb. Our opponent responds by flat-calling our 3-bet, and we take a flop. 854 rainbow - No backdoor clubs. - No backdoor straight draws. - No big cards to represent, and a flop that helps a lot of the hands our opponent called with preflop. What now? Don’t panic.

GTO Wizard·Greetings from GTO land. In today’s article, we will use the Turn Reports feature to gain a macro view of what turn cards are good and bad for us in a single-raised pot where the preflop raiser (PFR) is in position and made a flop c-bet, which out of position called. For an in-depth view, we’ll look across a few rainbow flops to see if we can spot any patterns that would benefit our big-picture learning. These studies are 100bb cash games, although some patterns will also apply to tournament si

GTO Wizard·In a past Discord post, one of our members noted that an upside of implementing a limping strategy is that not many players know how to respond to it. The downside is that no one knows how to implement one properly. While this is a deep topic from an exploitative perspective, this article will give you an idea of how to respond to a ‘Limp First In’ (LFI) strategy based on custom solutions. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard·“They always have it!” is a common, semi-joking expression in poker to describe the tendency of a certain type of player to never bluff. It is used whenever a seemingly passive player makes a surprisingly aggressive play. Thanks to the new Nodelocking feature, we can see what a solver would do when a player indeed “always has it” when they are aggressive. I’ve actually studied this in depth because a book project I have just completed is all about nodelocking. The writing process would’ve been

GTO Wizard·The first public version of the GTO Wizard announced AI upgrade already has some useful features to explore. In particular, I think the first iteration of this product can show us the importance of board coverage in poker. All the postflop ranges you have seen on GTO Wizard so far are designed with board coverage in mind. What we mean by “board coverage” is making sure all of our ranges, whether they are opening, defending, or 3-betting, can potentially hit any board type. We want to be able to

GTO Wizard·Suppose Paul the Protector is in a 200bb cash game and opens A♠A♣ in the SB. The BB calls, and the flop is 8♥6♦4♥. He might be tempted to fire a 75% pot c-bet here, as betting allows him to “charge flush draws on a wet board” and “protect his hand against some straight draws,” both of which his hand unblocks. Additionally, he might not want to allow his opponent to check behind and see a “free card,” which could be an unfavorable turn like a heart, 7, or 5. Paul might be surprised to learn, how

GTO Wizard·Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash game pot. After calling the raise, the flop is dealt: T72r. This board is neither particularly good nor bad for either player. We start with a check, expecting a continuation bet. Against this bet, we can choose to fold, call, or raise, depending on our read on the situation. Instead of c-betting, our IP opponent elects to check back the flop. In HUD terminology, you would see this statistic labeled as ‘Missed C-B

GTO Wizard·The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted our study habits. In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift in the science of learning that can enable us to redeem ourselves. We now know more about the most effective way to acquire new knowledge and improve skills. Thankfully, GTO Wizard is positioned well to harness the benefits of this new field of effective learning. This article aims to apply some of the new research on effective learning to poker st

GTO Wizard·In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve their check-raising, bluffing, value betting, and decision-making ability in general. More surprisingly, I’ve also helped many of them improve their relationships with people who aren’t that familiar with poker. At some point, I realized that a non-trivial amount of what I was doing as a poker coach felt more like marriage counseling. When I asked about challenges they faced in poker, my clients often reported t