Stop balancing your ranges

Bencb thinks it is a mistake to try to play balanced when it is almost certain your opponent's won't be.

The term “balance'' is probably the most butchered term in poker.

Across poker streams, reddit threads and even poker instructional videos, time and time again this term is misused.

What does being “balanced” really mean, and should that ever actually be the goal?

Balance seems to be the holy grail for players first learning about GTO.

In GTO world, "balance" basically means that for all the good hands you can have in range, you should have a certain percentage of bad hands (weaker call-downs or bluffs) to remain unexploitable.

Many players hype up game theory, balance and unexploitability as the optimal way to play poker. However, this is the wrong way to look at things.

There is no value in balancing your range for the sake of balancing.

The ultimate goal of a truely optimal player should be to maximize their EV while minimizing their opponent’s EV.

The Myth of Balance

The need for balancing your ranges occurs when two equally skilled or perfect opponents play against each other.

Becoming unexploitable and balancing your range becomes the result of the situation (two perfect opponents), but rarely should it be the target.

Most of the time, you’re playing against extremely exploitable players yourself, and balance should in all likelihood be thrown out of the window.

The myth of balance is that we must balance all of our ranges with strong and weak hands.

The goal of this strategy would be for our opponent to never know whether we have a strong or weak hand, because we can have both in our range.

This is utter nonsense, the vast majority of the time..

Being unforeseeable isn’t the target, winning the most chips possible is.

If we want to be “GTO” poker players, we need to care about finding the best strategy, not balance.

GTO vs Exploit Misconception

When it comes to the “GTO vs Exploit” debate, most people are utterly lost and confused. It really shouldn’t be a debate at all.

For example, say you find yourself on the river with an opponent betting into you.

You know he rarely bluffs, and he’s just fired three barrels.

You want to fold, but you’re holding the absolute best bluff-catching hand you can have, and the GTO “devil” on your shoulder is telling you that you have to call here.

“What do we ever call with if we fold THIS?” he says.

However, playing optimally involves taking in all the information and then making an informed decision, not just blindly following a preset strategy.

We want to maximize our EV while minimizing our opponent’s EV, remember?

We should never stick to any strategy if we have information that gives us a good reason to deviate, period.

Stop flipping a coin and letting fate decide your calls and folds. Rather, put your thinking cap on and use all of the information you have at your disposal.

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