You're not that exploitable
So much fear out there about being exploitable in poker... it's not as bad you think.
The main goal for Game Theory Optimal (GTO) is playing in a way where you can’t be exploited. You’re trying to balance your play so that obvious patterns can’t be detected, leaving your opponents with mostly neutral EV decisions (I’m going to cover what that means in our next newsletter!). If you happen to be playing against these guys…
…then by all means break out the GTO charts and do your best to not get run over.
But as I mentioned before, you’re just not very likely to be exploited when playing against low / mid stakes tournament opponents. This is partly because most of these opponents won’t know how best to exploit you even if they were detecting patterns in your play. But another part is because of a fairly subtle reason. Read on!
How often do you try to bluff a calling station? Or overbet against an overly tight player for value? Probably not that often (or at least I hope you’re not!). This means you are already playing in a way that tries to exploit other players’ tendencies, which is a good thing. So now the question is, can *your* opponents find any patterns that they can exploit when you’re doing this?
Not really! You are *not* adjusting your play based on the strength of your own hand, but rather on the tendencies of your opponents, and that really depends on your own reads of players and situations. So there isn’t too much your opponents can do with that information, unless:
They are in the pot with you and this other opponent at the same time, and the hand plays out in a way that allows them to take advantage of your tendency against this other opponent. This will happen so rarely it’s not even worth thinking about.
Pre-flop, your opponents know you are isolating a weaker player by raising when they enter pots. This situation actually does come up quite often, but part of the fun in playing poker is rising to this challenge and figuring out how to respond to those opponents trying to exploit you, while you try to exploit someone else. In pots against these better opponents, you should respond by playing more GTO in general.
They try to play differently than they normally do in pots against you, knowing that you are observant. If they are capable of doing this, they were probably going to do it anyway.
So you can see that playing in a way that exploits others, in actuality isn’t going to get exploited that badly.
Let’s take an example: you get to the river with a busted flush draw. Against a massive calling station, running a bluff here would be madness, especially against players who always think “you missed your flush draw”. But against a tight player, you might try to overbet pot to get them to fold. Similarly, if you get to the river with a set, you might try to overbet pot against the calling station, while betting smaller against the tight player, even if you think they have a strong holding. These types of adaptations are in reality not that easy to exploit.
But let’s think through some scenarios where you *should* be playing more balanced. One big mistake I see amateur players make is adjusting their open raise sizing based on the strength of their hands (and comically getting annoyed when everyone folds to their 5x open with aces). Playing in such a way allows players to play perfectly against you, and getting people to fold more when you have very strong hands is just the opposite of what you should be doing.
You can however adjust your raise size based on effective stack size. Early in a tournament when everyone is very deep (100bb or more), raising bigger is fine (typically 3x). Most other times, 2.2x is an ideal size. And when effective stack is very short (15bb or less), a min raise will usually do the trick. And when out of position (ex SB vs BB), a 4x open is fine, or 4x 3bet when raising out of the blinds, to discourage playing too many hands out of position. But keep your raise sizing consistent regardless of your position and hand strength otherwise.
Other examples I’ve seen are min-raising post flop with weaker, non-nutted hands, and betting a specific size based purely on the strength of your hand (usually bigger when stronger), or only 3betting with top 5% hands. These can all be easily exploited, and can be noticed by even beginner players. You can be costing yourself a ton of EV and not even realize it, as your opponents start playing perfectly against you while you play like an open book.
Remember, changing your patterns based on your own hand strength is a big no-no. Adapting to your opponents’ tendencies though is a winning formula, and one that will be exploited less often than you think. So go ahead and play exploitatively, and don’t be afraid of all the fear mongering while you’re playing low / mid stakes.
Laugh of the week
Caitlin with another gem
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Great tips from one of our GOATs for live play
