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GTO Wizard

GTOを軸にした分析とトーナメント戦略。GTO Wizard公式ブログから収集した記事です。

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Website: https://blog.gtowizard.com/

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GTO Wizard

How to solve toy games

Poker is a complicated game. It’s impossible to calculate GTO strategies on the fly. By reducing it to a toy game, we can solve it by hand, and learn the fundamental incentives of game theory optimal poker. GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard

Exploiting Profiles: Episode IV – The TAG

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

Maximizing Value on Monotone Flops

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

The Theory of Bounty Tournaments - Part 1: Prize Pool Fundamentals

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

How to Defend Against Turn Donk Bets

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

How and Why You Should Use Turn Donk Bets

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

Playing Limped Pots as the BB in MTTs

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

The Power of the Hypergeometric Bet

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

Overchoice: Making Sense of Multiple Sizings

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

Multiway strategy in Progressive Knockout Tournaments

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

10 Tips for Multiway Pots in Poker

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 in Japan

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

GTO Wizard

Supporting Operators in Protecting Online Poker

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

Combinatorics Poker Puzzle

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

ICM MTT, 9Max Cash Solutions & Great Improvements

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

GTO Wizard

Roundtable: Aha! Moments in 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

Exploiting Profiles: Episode III – The Maniac

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

Playing Under 10bb – Part 2: ICM

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

Punish the Unstudied: Capped Ranges & Bluffing Imbalances

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

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

Mastering PKOs With Custom Aggregated Reports

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 AI Benchmarks

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

The 5 Levels of Trainer Mastery for Cash Games

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

Introducing GTO Wizard AI Heads Up Preflop Solver

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

How Do Bounties Impact Our Flop Ranges When Covering?

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

Preflop Button Mastery in PKOs

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

PKO Versus Classic: Responding to 3-Bets

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

How Stack Sizes Change Your Range

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

C-Betting OOP in 3-Bet Pots

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

C-Betting IP in 3-Bet Pots

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

Should You Ever Cold Call a 3-Bet?

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

Mastering Three-Bet Pots In Position in MTTs

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

Mastering Three-Bet Pots Out of Position in MTTs

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

What Factors Impact Ranges the Most in PKOs?

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 and info about our solutions

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

The Magic of Equity Buckets

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

Preflop Strategy in Straddled Pots

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

PKO vs Classic: Postflop Play

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

Mastering PKO Final Tables

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

A Poker Player’s Guide to Conquering Cognitive Biases – Part 2

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

Understanding Blockers in Poker

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

Poker Staking Essentials

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

Facing 3-Bets From Covering Stacks at the Final Table

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

How Pros Use Solvers To Crush Pool Leaks

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

Crush Calling Stations With These 3 Solver-Approved Strategies

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

The 3 Biggest Leaks Killing Your Winrate

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

PLO Just Changed Forever

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

GTO Wizard

PLO Upgrades: Custom HU Solving, Postflop ICM, Nodelocking & More

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

Probing in 3-Way Pots

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

The Art of Learning Poker

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

PKO Versus Classic: Responding to a Preflop Open

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

Donk Betting As the Covering Stack in MTTs

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

Playing Under 10bb – Part 1: cEV

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

GTO Wizard at the 2026 World Series of Poker

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 Benchmarks

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

The Four-Point Checklist for Calling Turn Barrels

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

Introducing Multiway Preflop Solving

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

GTO Wizard

What is GTO in Poker?

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

Preflop Range Morphology

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

How to Upload Your Hand Histories

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

GTO Wizard

3-Way: How to Exploit a Calling Station?

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

GTO Wizard

When does ICM become significant in MTTs?

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

Theoretical Breakthroughs in ICM

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

INFORMATION ON THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA

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

Introducing GTO Wizard AI

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

Common Poker Sayings That Ruin Your Winrate

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

Exploiting Profiles: Episode II – The Nit

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

Navigating BvB OOP After Check-Calling the Flop

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

How GTO Wizard Solved PLO

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

When to Open Shove vs. Different Player Profiles

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

“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

What is Valor in poker?

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

A Beginner’s Guide to Poker Combinatorics

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

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

Equity Realization

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

Poker subsets and abstractions

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

The Three Laws of Indifference

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

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

GTO Wizard

How to Become a 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

Exploiting Profiles: Episode I – The Calling Station

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

Where To Get Your Hand Histories

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

How to Upload Your Hand Histories

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

GTO Wizard

Does your range affect your strategy?

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

GTO Wizard

MDF & Alpha

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

What are Pot Odds in poker?

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 Value of Fold Equity - Experiment

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

Visualizing implied odds

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

ICM Basics

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

GTO Wizard

What is Equity in Poker?

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

Range Morphology

“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

What is Expected Value in Poker?

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

Why doesn't my solution match 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

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

Short-Stacked Play in MTTs

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

Where To Get Your Hand Histories

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.

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How to Leverage GTO Wizard's EV Comparison Tool

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

Mastering Thin Value Bets in Checked-Down Pots

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

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Releasing many improvements & GTO Wizard is now multilungual!

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

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GTO Wizard AI Explained

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

Watch & Learn: Replay Legendary Final Tables!

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

Thousands of New Solutions & Interface Updates

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

The Next Era of Poker Broadcasting With GTO Wizard and GGMillion$

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.

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What the future holds for 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

The Limitations of Nash Equilibrium in ICM Spots

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

Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by OOP

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

Exploiting Excessive C-Betting by IP

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

The Art of Bluff Catching

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

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C-Betting Against ICM Preflop Ranges

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

C-Betting IP vs Passive Poker Players

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

Adjusting on Later Streets After Exploiting Flop

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

Small Blind, Big Problems: When to Size Up From OOP BvB

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.

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How To Improve Your Heads-Up Game

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.

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How ICM Reshapes 3-Bet Pots (And Why You Can’t Trust ChipEV)

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.

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How Payout Structures Reshape Postflop Strategy

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?

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Are You Leaving Value on the River?

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.

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Poker Concepts You’re Using Wrong (And How They’re Hurting Your Winrate)

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.

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Opening Strategy When the Button Straddles

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.

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Mississippi Straddles: How to Defend vs Raises

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.

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Turn Barreling in 3-Bet Pots

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

River Refinements: When Your Opponent Won't Check-Raise

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

C-Betting As the OOP Preflop Raiser

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! Exploiting SB’s Preflop Mistakes

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.

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Defending Against Tiny 3-Bets

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

Is Limping Preflop Viable in Mississippi Straddle Games?

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?

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The Art of the Flop Overbet (And Why You’re Probably Doing It Wrong)

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.

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Poker Growth in Action: GTO Wizard’s Breakthrough in Japan

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Cleaning Out Sticky IP Callers

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

The Curious Case of Open-Limping Buttons

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

I’d Rather Be Drawing

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

Disciplining Big Blind in Limped Pots

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

Do Solvers Have Targets?

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

Protect Equity and Prosper

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

Check-Raising a Single Pair

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

Do Multiple Sizes Matter?

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

Crack the Shell of Nut Draw Strategy

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

Why Not Shove?

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

Limp-Called Pot as BB

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

Aggregate Flop Strategy: SB C-Betting in SRP

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

Turn Check-Raise Heuristics

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

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Pushing Equity With Small Bets

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

How Confirmation Bias Impacts Poker Study

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

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Buying the Showdown

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

Attacking Aggressive Opponents When They Check Back Flop

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

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The Theory of Bounty Tournaments - Part 2: ICM and Equity Drops

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,

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When Is Bluffing Profitable? The Key Factors You Need to Know

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

How to Use The Hand History Analyzer

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

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Analyze Mode

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

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Principles of Turn Strategy

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

How To Analyze Turn Textures In Poker

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

Using the 80/20 Rule in Poker

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

How To Review ICM Preflop Ranges

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

A Poker Player's Guide to Conquering Cognitive Biases - Part 1

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

Calling Down Over-Bluffed Lines in Lower Limits

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

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Poker Insurance: Reducing Variance or Wasting Money?

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

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The Mechanics of C-Bet Sizing

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

The Math of Multi-Street Bluffs

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

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Crush 3-Bet Pots OOP in Cash Games

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

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From Gutshots to Airballs: Choosing Your Bluffs

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

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Rake & Rakeback Explained: Optimize Your Poker Earnings

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

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Bounty Models Explained: Solving Knockout Tournaments

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

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4-Bet Pots OOP as the Preflop Caller

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

The 5 Levels of Trainer Mastery for MTTs

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

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MDF vs ICM: Rethinking Bluffing & Defense Strategies in MTTs

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

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Slow-Playing

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

Why So Much? An Exploration of Larger-Than-Geometric Bet Sizing

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

PKO Versus Classic: Preflop RFI Range Comparisons

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

Barreling as IP Cold-Caller

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

Exploiting Cold Callers Who Stab Too Much

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

The Five Imbalances of Exploitative Poker

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

Mastering Turn Play in 3-Bet Pots OOP

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

Leading Hands That Should Check-Call

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

A Comprehensive Guide to Playing Mystery Bounties

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

A Comprehensive Guide to Playing Satellites

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

Bullying the Blinds With Continuation Bets

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

Maximizing Monsters in Deep-Stacked Scenarios

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

Short Stack Stealing on the Bubble

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

Playing Calls From the Button in Cash Games

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

Picking the Right Semi-Bluffs

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

Exploiting BBs Who Never Donk Bet

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

Dominate the River in 3-Bet Pots OOP

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

Responding to Donk Bets at Final Tables

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

The Many Faces of Balance in Poker

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

How Significant Is ICM During Late Registration?

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

Fixing a Poker Leak Part 1: Spotting and Correcting Errors

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

Fixing a Poker Leak Part 2: The Mental Game

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

OOP 4-Betting in Deep-Stacked Cash Games

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

IP 4-Betting in Deep-Stacked Cash Games

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

How To Become a Winning Poker Player in 2025 – Part 1

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

How To Become a Winning Poker Player in 2025 – Part 2

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

What Happens When Playing Chip EV and ICM Is Significant

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

Mastering Postflop ICM: Avoid These Common Mistakes

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

How To Respond to Large Preflop Raises in Poker

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

The Art of Turn Probing: Exploiting Checked Flops

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

How To Get the Most out of Your Hand Reviews

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

How To Prep Like a Pro for WSOP

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

Cold-Calling in Straddle + Ante Games

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

When Checking the Nuts Beats Betting Them

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

The Case for the Hero Check: Why Great Players Know When Not to Bet

“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

Single Size Solutions Are Live. New Pricing. 50x More Solutions.

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

Top GTO Wizard Features the Pros Prioritize (and What They Leave Out)

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

The Art of Game Selection for MTTs: Finding Soft Fields & Extra Value

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

Blockers & Unblockers: The Secret to Picking Great Bluffs

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

We're At The River. Our Hand Can't Win. Now What?

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

ICM Survival Guide: How To Play OOP vs. a Covering Stack at the Final Table

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

ICM Strategy: Playing IP Against the Chip Leader on the Final Table

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

Should You Ever Bluff with a Pair?

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

How to Use Practice Mode in GTO Wizard to Improve Your Game

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

The Fish Were Right All Along

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

The Learning System That Separates the Best From the Rest

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

When To Just Shove Post Flop in ICM Spots

GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard

Opening From the Blinds in Straddle + Ante Games

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

How to Exploit Human Mistakes After a Flop Overbet

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

Why You’re Bluffing the River Wrong With Bricked Flush Draws in Cash Games

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

How To Use Range Builder in GTO Wizard To Improve Your Game

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

How To Construct a Squeezing Range

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

Isolating Limpers in Short Stack HU

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

New Blocker Scores & Drill Management and ICM Solutions

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

PKO Solutions & New Dashboard

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

New Spins solutions, Study Plans & EV Comparison

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

Simplified Solutions and a New Interface!

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

Introducing Nodelocking

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

Customizable Raked Solutions With GTO Wizard AI

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

GTO Wizard 2023 Wrapup

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

Your Daily Dose of GTO is Here!

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

Pioneering Poker AI Research

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

Live Cash Solutions and 4,000 New Scenarios for Cash & MTT Formats

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

Revolutionizing MTTs: The Ultimate ICM Solver Upgrade

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

Introducing GTO Wizard Play Mode: Play Poker, Study Effortlessly

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

Redefining Precision: Introducing HH Analyzer 2.0 & Much More

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

Kick Off 2025 With New Cash Game and ICM Solutions for MTTs

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

AI and the Future of Poker

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

Major Upgrade: GTO Reports Have Arrived – Plus Tons of New Features!

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

Introducing Quantal Response Equilibrium: The Next Evolution of GTO

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

GGMillion$ x GTO Wizard: A New Era for Poker Broadcasting

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

Final Table ICM Just Leveled Up – 7,000 Sims Added!

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

Introducing Dynamic Sizing 2.0

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

Introducing Custom Aggregated Reports: A New Era in Poker Analysis

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.

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Enter The PokerArena: A New Era of Competitive Poker Has Begun

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

Introducing Table Wizard: The Ultimate Table Management Software

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.

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Now Live: 3-Way Solving, Nodelocking 2.0, and 50k+ ICM FT Sims!

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

The Art of Value Bluffing From the Button

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 and other improvements!

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

New update - Folder upload, Preflop shortcuts and more!

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

Playing In Position Against Two Callers

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

Register Late, Win More: The Math Behind Smarter Tournament Entry

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

Redesigned Analyzer & Upgraded GTO Reports

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

Profiles Explained: Modeling Exploitable Opponents

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.

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Custom Profiles Go Live + PokerArena Season 5

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

GTO Wizard AI Custom Multiway Solving

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

Announcing Frequency Locking 2.0

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

The Trouble With Implied Odds

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

Quirks of Nash Equilibrium in Multiway

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

Monkey in the Middle: 3-Way Pot Heuristics

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

GTO Wizard AI 3-way Benchmarks

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

The Theory of Bounty Tournaments - Part 3: Key Calculations

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: The Battle for Information

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.

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Tournament Poker's Hidden Stakes

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

What’s Your Hand Worth? From Thin Value to Playing for Stacks

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.

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Building Better River Strategies (and When to Ignore Equity Advantage)

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

Punish the Unstudied: Preflop Mistakes & Sizing Tells

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

How to Crush Ante Cash Games

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

The Hidden Cost of Late Reg in PKOs

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

Round Out Your Defense: The Power of Raising

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

GTO Wizard

Understanding Domination: The Hidden Logic Behind Every Bet

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

Why Your Poker Range Is a Team

“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

How to Upload Your Hand Histories

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

GTO Wizard

All you need to know about our solutions

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

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

GTO Wizard

Crushing a Top HUNL Poker Bot

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

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

GTO Wizard Themes Competition Winners

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

The Science of Poker Performance

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

Reasons for value betting in poker

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

What is Leverage in poker?

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

Interpreting Equity Distributions

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

Principles of GTO

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

How to Use The Hand History Analyzer

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

GTO Wizard

How to Study GTO Solutions

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 Most Powerful Play in Poker

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

How Solvers Work

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

Poker Strategies: Tournaments vs. Cash Games

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

The Theory of Progressive Knockout Tournaments

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

What is the Bubble Factor in poker tournaments?

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

How ICM Impacts Postflop Strategy

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

Exploitative Dynamics

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

Principles of River Play

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

How To Calculate Raises In Poker

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

How Does ICM Impact PKO Strategy?

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

Flop Heuristics: IP Cold-Caller in MTTs

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

Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in MTTs

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

Flop Heuristics for Defending the Blinds in MTTs

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

How To Negotiate Final Table Deals

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

Counterintuitive Calls

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

Flop Heuristics: OOP C-Betting in MTTs

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

The ICM Benefits of Late Registration in Poker Tournaments

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

How ICM Impacts Restealing From The Blinds

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

Flop Heuristics: IP C-Betting in Cash Games

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

Mastering the Chiplead: The Scalpel and the Sledgehammer

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 Initial Bettor’s Advantage

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 and Blind Battles: The Small Blind

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

ICM and Blind Battles: The Big Blind

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

Probe Betting

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

Delayed C-Betting

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

Hand History Analyzer is here!

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

Files upload, Premium tier, and free ranges! A major update is here

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

The best solutions we ever had and other improvements!

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

Introducing MTT, Spin & Go and HU SnG postflop solutions! (For free!)

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

New Cash Game & MTT solutions, Aggregated reports and new solutions for HH Analyzer!

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

GTO Wizard

Range builder improvements, 200BB Solutions, iPoker support & more!

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

GTO Wizard

MTT Postflop solutions, New Breakdown view & Many improvements!

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 is here!

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

New solutions filter + Trainer Improvements

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

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

GTO Wizard

Mississippi Straddles: Building a C-Betting Strategy vs. BTN

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

Is Donk Betting for Donkeys?

“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

Playing Limped Pots as the SB in MTTs

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

The Absurd Game Theory of Chopped Boards

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

Flatting Ace-X Hands Shortstacked

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

Overbetting The Flop in Cash Games

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

Understanding Which Mistakes Cost You the Most Money

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

Table Management in PKOs

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

Responding to BB Squeezes

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

KK vs QQ vs JJ at WSOP Main Event

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

Attacking Paired Flops From the BB

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

Defending vs BB Check-Raise on Paired Flops

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

Understanding The Impact Of Field Size On ICM In Poker

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: A GTO Breakthrough

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

How Payout Structures Impact ICM

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

When To Ladder in Tournaments

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

OOP C-betting vs Loose Cold-callers

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

When ICM Breaks Down

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

What does GTO aim to achieve?

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

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

Mathematical Misconceptions in Poker

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

GTO Wizard

When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs

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

Using New Skills at the Poker Table

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

Overcalling From the BB

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

Betting Draws in Position: The Real Rules

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

ICM vs. ChipEV: The Hidden Logic Behind BB 3-Bets

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 ICM Quietly Shapes Postflop Strategy From the Start

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

When Is It Correct To Fold AA Preflop?

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

The Greatest Final Table in Triton History

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

Navigating Range Disadvantage as the 3-Bettor

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

The Worst Turn Card

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

Is Limping Pimping?

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

How To Adjust When Villain Has No Bluffs

“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 Importance of Board Coverage

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

The Right Way To Think About Protection

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

The Turn Probe Bet

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 Science of Learning Applied to 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

Relationships and Poker

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

GTO Wizard

An Introduction to Spin & Gos

I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first child was born, I searched for an alternative format because I couldn’t play all night anymore and needed something more flexible. I remembered a friend telling me about a new format called Spin and Gos. Back then, I thought it was pure gamble and probably not profitable—a weird invention by the poker sites. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s a wonderful game, full of action with highly underrated strategic

GTO Wizard

Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos

As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make, affecting their performance and profitability. It’s surprising to see that not just beginners but also advanced players fall into these traps, which can cost them a lot over time. Today, I’m eager to share the top 5 mistakes to avoid when playing the Spin and Go format. 1) Playing Too Loose From the Button ... This mistake is particularly prevalent among players transitioning from Tournaments to Spin & Gos. I

GTO Wizard

How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers

Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance for responding to limpers. This is because players are generally not incentivized to limp from any position save the SB, and even when they are, the ranges with which a solver would limp are quite different from those employed by recreational players and sometimes even professionals who didn’t study these spots. With the help of custom solutions, however, we can actually investigate how a solver would play a

GTO Wizard

Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors

It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I still haven’t mastered the most fundamental spots. I’ve made millions of preflop decisions about whether to contest the pot, whether to do so by raising, and how much to raise. I had reasonably good approximations but was constantly adjusting them based on experience and solver work. What I had was more a result of trial and error (and, if we’re being honest, groupthink) than a deep theoretical understan

GTO Wizard

Navigating Nasty Rivers Out of Position

Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. It’s fundamentally disadvantageous to act on each street without knowing your opponent’s action while they get to act with knowledge of yours. This disadvantage is especially acute on dynamic rivers. When the final community card makes new monster hands possible, it also devalues previously strong holdings. Hands with which you were happily growing the pot on the flop and turn may suddenly prefer a cheap showdown. Unfortunately, to get that cheap showdown,

GTO Wizard

Building Exploits From Showdown

Understanding how and when to exploit opponents at a live poker table is a delicate affair. It’s easy to get carried away based on appearance. For example, silver-haired Mister ‘Old Man Coffee’ is unlikely to be bluffing after 3-betting preflop and triple-barreling all-in on an AK-high board. Similarly, we may think that ‘Young Punk With Hoodie And Sunglasses’ may need to be called down a little lighter after check-raising the turn and shoving the river. These are often just guesses based on ce

GTO Wizard

What We Can Learn From Outlier Hands

The worst way to use a tool like GTO Wizard is to simply ‘line-check’ how your specific hand wants to play in a spot to give yourself an answer as to whether or not you played it optimally. Modern poker theory is all about playing your range, rather than your hand. This is the paradigm shift in the game that every poker player has to go through personally to reach a deeper level of understanding. There are times, however, when focusing on a specific hand teaches you a great deal. After having a

GTO Wizard

The Limits of Nodelocking

GTO Wizard’s nodelocking feature is where the theory meets the practical; you can study how to play optimally in real-life games where players will often deviate significantly from equilibrium (GTO). If you are new to nodelocking some recurring themes come up that may perplex you. Sometimes the strategic adjustment the solver provides might not make sense and other times you need to be aware of the best way to use nodelocking to avoid common errors. What follows is a quick primer on nodelocking

GTO Wizard

A Champion's Guide to Knockout Poker Formats

If you’ve opened any online poker client recently you will have seen an explosion of Knockout (KO) games in the schedule. With the variety of options available online, it can be daunting to figure out what games offer the best value to you and how to adjust your approach to these games, given their unique payout structures. Today, we will explore the current landscape of KO formats in poker and provide some strategy tips for each of them. _ Standard Knockouts (SKO) _ The Format This is the orig

GTO Wizard

Money Bubble vs Final Table Bubble

Is one bubble the same as another? Should we play more conservatively on the money bubble of a small-field tournament, a large-field one, or the final table bubble? Are there nuances based on the makeup of the event itself? GTOWizard, GTO Wizard

GTO Wizard

Towards a Safer Poker Ecosystem

Over the past years, many cheating accusations and scandals have surfaced in the poker world, be it online or live. From accused-rigged random number generator (RNG) to bots, real-time assistance (RTA), ghosting, and collusion, online poker integrity has always been controversial. The opacity of the security measures taken by poker operators and the rise of easily accessible study tools haven’t helped calm the growing suspicions about online cheating. GTO Wizard has maintained a relatively low

GTO Wizard

Confronting Monsters Under the Bed in Poker

Do you hide from things that go bump in the night? Does the sight of a monotone flop or board-pairing river card send shivers down your spine? You are not alone. Many deep-stacked cash game players—indeed, many poker players across all formats—do not put their stacks to full use because they are afraid of what could go wrong. This fear can take many forms, depending on the hand you hold: "What if my opponent has even stronger hand than mine? (when value-betting without the nuts) “What if I get

GTO Wizard

Bringing It All Together: PKO Review

Throughout the past year, our writers have presented nine unique articles and videos outlining how and when to adjust from a Classic MTT to the Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournament format. Given the sheer amount of information in these articles, how much do you recall? In this article, we will review some of the key concepts that were presented throughout the PKO series and open fire on your base of knowledge with a battery of quizzes. Can you Ace it? Note that you will be provided with links

GTO Wizard

Unwrapping GTO Wizard's Hidden Gems for 2025

A new year is upon us, which is classically the time that most people start thinking about their aspirations for the next 12 months. If you are a GTO Wizard customer, those plans will likely involve study-based goals. Rather than write something about S.M.A.R.T. goal setting or becoming more accountable, I was much more interested in discovering how I could get more out of GTO Wizard in the next 12 months. So I rounded up some of the brightest content creators in our roster and asked them a sim