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5 Reasons to Routinely Study GTO as a Poker Player (at ANY Level)

Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Bryn Kenney, Charlie Carrel. Just to name a few. These are all great players; well-known, likable, highly successful. They have all, in one way or another, diminished GTO's value in the eyes of the public or in their own. Some (the guy with the open shirt) even started swearing at it!

Now, should you listen to them, just because THEY'RE elite? A better question might be: would these people beat a heavily studied GTO-based player? Let's get into 5 reasons why you should routinely buckle down and develop yourself in the realm of GTO poker.

1. Building an indestructible foundation you can count on

Think of your poker game like a company. You can't control everything that happens in the world (the world now being the world of the poker game). The tree of possible scenarios that can happen is so gigantic that you can't fully be king; you will have to balance and maneuver.

If a company starts aggressively attacking other companies or goes for full exploitation of the market (customers and competitors included), time has taught that this company will ultimately fail and go bankrupt. People will catch on and fight back. It may go on to be successful for a while, maybe for years, but if a company is valuing long-term stability and success, a more balanced approach seems more viable. A company needs to build its foundation—one of balance and robustness—and that means sometimes taking the road of stability and safety (first) with just a hint towards exploitation, until it knows it can totally crush and take over that other company, or beat it into the ground!

2. Gain unbreakable confidence

If a totally exploitative player (like Charlie Carrel) encounters someone better than him, even though he may think it wouldn't happen, he's in trouble. His confidence might dip, and if he's running bad on top of that, his mood might shift into tilt. He has nothing to lean on now. He can try to get out of tilt, and he can think that he's the better player as much as he wants—he's just going to get crushed more than ever because he's lost his confidence, his ego, even. The poker genius has turned into a puddle of misery, not knowing what went wrong. "What happened, Charlie?"

If, on the other hand, a heavily-studied GTO player were playing against that same opponent—EVEN if that opponent were still better than him—the GTO player would gain control. Not over his opponent, but over himself, and that is what's most important.

3. Study your exploits

And sure, all these elite players named throughout this article do have a point. Real poker is ultimately about exploiting, because nobody, in fact, plays GTO. GTO is then not something to strive for WHILE PLAYING, but that's not what this article is about. The argument is that STUDYING GTO is the right thing to do for any player (at any level).

It's true that all these GTO deniers have awesome games, a great arsenal of tools that they can use against weaker players. In most situations, they will outperform GTO-centric players who DO NOT adjust. So again, this article doesn't say you should not adjust to exploit; it is saying to TAKE studying GTO SERIOUSLY.

The core idea is that you can systematically study your exploits with solvers by nodelocking, which means adjusting the GTO strategies to make them more like your real opponents' strategies and then letting the solver calculate the best response.

4. Fuel your ambitions

Every poker player has their own ambitions. Some want to make $100K; some want to reach a 5bb/100 win-rate; others just want to be able to compete with the best. No matter what your goals are, trying to fully grasp GTO is a goal you'll likely never reach, which makes it a great goal to strive for. The thought is that if you reach a goal in poker, you might get complacent if you don't set another goal. Complacency in poker is the recipe for the road back down. If you don't have something to strive for, you don't care that others are surpassing you.

Trying to fully grasp GTO is like trying to have a deep personal relationship with every single human on planet Earth—impossible in one lifetime, yet a noble and worthwhile goal to strive for.

The idea is that you'll never be done. Your life will never end—your poker life, that is—IF you strive to fully understand poker, because you will not reach it in your lifetime. If you want to continue playing poker all your life, studying GTO is key because it fuels your ambition: you'll never reach your goal, so you always keep striving.

5. GTO is life

GTO is the concept of the ultimate balance within a competitive and selfish society, and poker is just that. To each their own, while respecting the other.

Now, what is the goal of a competitive society in and of itself? Balance? Resolution? Should we always fight? GTO is an answer to peace: a society in peace.

Now, within yourself, there's a constant battle and warfare going on as well, especially during a poker game! If you see yourself as its own society, you could come to the conclusion that the goal within yourself (especially during a poker game!) is peace: GTO within yourself.

Poker is a beautiful representation of a competitive society like the one we're living in. We need the money; we want to win. Then, at times we let loose and donate, sometimes we go through bad periods and 'tilt', and we have our upswings.

Balance within yourself is balance in life. Balance in your mind translates to balance in your 'poker life'. Balance at the table translates to peace. If you look at Triton Super High Roller final tables, the 'society' at the table looks much more peaceful than some random $300 donkament. Is this (GTO) something to strive for at the poker table? Only from a societal level. If you truly want to win, you should NOT strive for GTO while playing.

Conclusion

I hope it becomes clear now what the purpose is of studying GTO off the tables. It is NOT to be able to play GTO at the tables per se, but it is to build a solid foundation within your poker brain, giving you confidence, a strong intuition for exploitative tactics, and a better understanding of how a competitive society (like within yourself or the external one we live in) can reach a state of balance and 'peace'.

GTO is just a lever to elevate a chaotic competitive society into a state of balance and peace. Embrace the concept, accept the situation. Poker is war; a highly competitive and selfish game, and it's about MONEY. If everybody would play GTO, the tables would dry up, but it can be an incredibly effective tool to (try to) become 'the indestructible one', the one that dominates, because it is he who can be both unbeatable AND a complete crusher like Charlie Carrel and the guys, who is king of the poker world, forever.