[Closed] Redefining "The Levels of Thought"

hi, i am highly interested. can you post some hand histories where you apply this amazing new knowledge so that we can all learn from it?

I have been dealing with players suffering from cognitive dissonance for a long time, and I'm a pretty good strategist too. So, even if the final few words of your post didn't sound sarcastic, I still would have noticed that you are trying to discredit what I have just explained. It's obvious that you are suffering from cognitive dissonance. You can't even grasp what I just said, your mind has gone into spew mode. Mate, I just said that this is the natural way everyone considers their plays, and then you want me to show you some examples lol. Look at any play (apart from a GTO play) and you will see this thought-process in action.

In my experience, it takes a few years to teach someone like you to get past this thing, and so I am not going to bother. If I humour you, you will simply give me jip. No matter what I say, all you will do is try to discredit me and my logic in any way you can.

Let me ask you a couple of questions instead:
- Why do experienced players say that Level Four is "What you think the opponent thinks that you think that he holds", when they could just say "what the opponent is pretending to hold"?
- Why do they say that this level is only for the elite, when it is clear that a beginner can guess what their opponent is pretending to hold?

fine, you got my sarcasm. so, in all seriousness now...

as far as i can see, the logic in your post is sound.
i also don't object to your definitions of the levels. you are totally right - a beginner can successfully level a strong player.

however, at this point in time, it is very well known that "good poker" has a sound mathematical foundation.
instead of just "leveling" when they "feel like it", very strong players know their ranges and the opponent's ranges in most spots and adjust their frequencies accordingly. it's also somewhat well known that the correct way to exploit opponents is to make relatively small adjustments - as an example, the correct adjustment to "he bluffs a bit too often on the river" is not to call every single bluffcatcher, but just call a bit more bluffcatchers than usual.

and now, from theory to practice... the a very good way to show that what you are trying to say actually works is to just show some examples of the knowledge being applied. so yes, i was sarcastic, but there was also some legitimate interest on how you would follow up to that request.

i don't even apply the concept of leveling too often when i play, so i don't think i am seriously interested in what you have to offer. still, you are free to present your points to anyone that might be interested.

Well, I did say that sarcasm wasn't the only problem here. Unfortunately, it is clear that you didn't, in these last few minutes, overcome your cognitive dissonance. In fact, you just gave away your understanding of exploitative theory. I can now tell which peices of logic you are happy to approach and which you are not. And so, I will try to stick with logic that you will be capable of understanding...

To exploit using these Levels you don't just "feel out" the best play. At Level Two you look to the past and make a decision based on the inbalances you have previously recognised in your opponents strategy. You find a leak, and then exploit it.

To do this you need to put your opponent on a range, (Level Two), and then you can design your own range (Level One) to maximise your profit from your opponent. I don't think I need to explain to you the math that is involved in making this kind of decision. You need to be able to calculate your expected winnings in one way or another. You need to know the odds of your hands beating your opponents, you also need to know the implied odds which includes future betting opportunities, etc etc.

As you are a player who uses GTO as his base strategy. You probably feel that you need to consider your own range when exploiting so that you can understand how far you can profitably adjust. This is not true. Instead, in that last paragraph, you could replace "your own range" with "your hand". You will still be able to calculate the profit from the exploitative play, and, if you cannot find any profit, you fold. To exploit perfectly efficiently you don't need to know anything about GTO. I only wrote "imbalances" and "find a leak" because this is language that you will understand. All we NEED to do is look to the opponents range and work out whether or not our current hand is going to be profitable against it. We don't need not consider all the hands that we could possibly hold when we're exploiting, those hands will look after themselves when we hold them. Considering only our actual hand is a far simpler way of calculating our hands playability. GTO players are familiar with considering their actual range, and it wont hurt to do that when exploiting, but it is not needed. Our actual range is only important when we are calculating our entire strategy. A strategy like GTO.

This all make sense so far? I think I might have pushed it, going against GTO is always dangerous ground. But, I do think you'll be able to see that you can calculate the profit of your current hand, alone, to see whether or not you can play it.

As a side note: I can actually tell you the exact method used by our mind to calculate a sum such as this - In our minds, we simply weigh up the options. We weigh up betting vs calling. Calling vs Raising etc. We also weigh up our winchance against our price. We weigh up our winnings vs our losses to see if the play will be profitable. We don't need to put it into a mathamatical equation, our mind can do this without turning everything into numbers, but there is no reason why we wouldn't make it into a sum for added accuracy.

EDIT... I see you edited your post at the end by adding that this is not important to you. Which was just a move to discredit the importance of this logic. You say you are not interested in it, that you dont use it, but you also say in the same post that my logic is correct, that all beginners naturally use these Levels, that this is the natural way we make our decisions. My friend, you are making no sense. It's just your cognitive dissonance. We all use all these levels. The poker worlds understanding of them, this whole "Leveling" thing, is completely wrong. But yeah, please do leave if you like, to be honest, I am quite impressed by the way you have handled this psychological issue. Most people get real angry when I explain that stuff to them.

i may be toxic, but i consider myself as someone who is willing to listen.
you've shown that you aren't just an idiot - there are many of those, you know...

i used to think like you, but i eventually ran into some practical issues. we all know that to exploit, you must be exploitable.
the main problem is that when you just exploit obvious leaks in a "current hand" basis, the opponent will eventually adjust back, because your frequencies against them will just be way out of line - and even your frequency against the player pool overall can get out of line, which can lead to an obvious leak appearing on you instead.

the bluffing spot is specially interesting, because if a player has a "folding too much" leak, the best exploit in vacuum is to just bet with literally any hand (100% frequency).
example - if someone seems to be folding to 3bets 80% - the best exploitative decision at that point will be to 3bet him with literally any hand (and do some kind of exploit with top range like smaller 3bet sizing or flat calling) and that will print money... for a bit.
if they're not too dumb, they will realize what's going on and "level up" and adjust (which doesn't necessarily mean going super out of their way to fight back, could be just defending at a better frequency).

then a few problems with the completely exploitative strategy arise - when they adjust back, they will be the ones printing money instead.
how do you notice when they adjusted and adjust back as quickly as possible? while a 100% frequency exploit is rather easy to notice, a smaller counter-adjustment on the opponent's part might be not.

so "exploiting the GTO way" just recommends to ramp up your 3betting frequency by an amount that is proportional to the size of the opponent's leak (so, not actually 100%). that's also harder for them to notice.
that said, strictly speaking, just by increasing your frequency to exploit the opponent, you're already deviating from GTO to try to play one level above your opponent. and you still want to be one level above him when he happens to adjust back, even if it's just to tell yourself to go back to your standard strategy... so yeah, there is leveling involved.
but i feel that the concept of "leveling", as it is commonly presented, is misapplied and misrepresented, so you do have a point.

[late edit: i feel that your main point is that "good leveling" is the foundation of all good exploitative play, and all exploitative play involves leveling by definition. i can agree with that, and that there was some cognitive dissonance involved]

Interesting posts but I have to admit that I don't completely get the point.
For me these levels are only a way to describe how advanced a player is. When players get better they will start thinking in a more complex way because their knowledge and experience allows them to. Before a beginning poker player can start making good plays and exploits I believe he should have solid understanding how the game works, what ranges are reasonable on each position and how he&his villain will likely play his hands.

We weigh up betting vs calling. Calling vs Raising etc. We also weigh up our winchance against our price. We weigh up our winnings vs our losses to see if the play will be profitable. We don't need to put it into a mathamatical equation, our mind can do this without turning everything into numbers

I believe this is probably true. Our mind can quickly determine if a play is profitable. But that again requires a lot of experience and training. If you ask a beginner what he should do with OESD when he faces a pot size bet, I believe his brain doesn't automatically come up with an answer. He doesn't know what odds and implied odds are, and so on. And then there are several mental leaks, biases and so on. For example inexperienced players might really think they always lose with AA because their brain just remembers all the bad beats a lot better. So in some cases we should rely more on the math than our brain that can be doing tricks.

I'm coaching microstakes players but I have no idea how can I quickly teach them to exploit me at the tables without first telling them what my strategy is exactly and how it can be exploited. But I would like to understand how that can be done. It just seems a bit difficult. If you are an experienced poker player and you have been thinking about these levels for months and still don't completely understand them, how can I make my coachees master exploiters in one session?

Tomoloc... Many say that exploiting is a problem because it leaves you exploitable. If you exploit, the opponent could exploit better than you do and so you will end up losing more than you won. This is a problem. However, if instead you only use GTO, and the opponent is better at applying it than you are, you will also lose. This is bad too. And so which is better? The profit margins are bigger when exploiting, but the losses are smaller when using GTO. It does seem that it doesn't matter a great deal which option you choose, but, if you understood exploitation theory in its entirety you would realise that it is not such a close call after all.

When you understand all exploitative theory, you will be ready and waiting for your opponent to adjust. The second he does, you rinse him in a different way. Once the opponent then re-adjusts (not many people realise this) we can no longer take advantage of their initial leak. The exploitation is complete. The best line we can take from then on, in that situation, is GTO.

All exploitation eventually leads to GTO. The only reason we dont use GTO is because there is extra profit in the exploitative line. To say that we should miss out on all the profit from exploiting, out of fear of being exploited ourselves, and apply GTO as standard, is only something someone would say if they didn't see the whole picture.

You argue that the maximum exploitative line is one that is easy to counter, and I completely agree! Thats why I would never Cbet 100% of the time against a guy who folds to them 80% of the time. You have to understand, that when exploiting, the only thing that is going to stop us making the extra money is the opponent realising what we are doing. And so, we disguise our exploitation as best we can to lengthen the time it takes for the opponent to notice. We check fold on many of the boards we expect the villain has hit, some of those that we expect will fall into the 20%, to make it seem as though we are not taking advantage.

We want to lengthen our exploitation for as long as possible to maximise our profit. Again, we dont want to simply apply GTO all the way! That is what we do when we cannot exploit!! We should never be happy to apply GTO because that is when our profit margins disintergrate.

...I wrote that much before reading your last paragraphs where you describe almost exactly the same strategy as I just did. I applaud your exploitative strategy, the smaller adjustments rather than the maximum exploitative line. We are pretty much on the same page here. This is how to exploit. However, this is just how to exploit at Level Two. I havent yet touched on the stuff that you are not going to like. The stuff that, I expect, your own mind will desperately want to discredit. Your mind will play all kinds of tricks on you to stop you understanding what I am about to say. I can give you a training method which will overcome this, and in turn, will make you a shed load more money. This is the big Level. The all important one. I know you are capable of completing my training method, it wont take long to finish, and it will be massively beneficial to you, but, you will almost certainly find some reason not to do it. I think I have prepared you as much as I can. So, shall I go on?

Ia55I...

The players advancement through the Levels is the main thing that determines their ability to exploit. These Levels are Poker theory. The better the player understands the theory the better they can play. The thing you dont seem to understand is that, experience and knowledge do not enable them to advance through these Levels. In actual fact, it is experience and knowledge that hinders their ability to exploit at the higher levels. The human mind is already capable of making the complex calculations required at each Level, but, as we learn to trust in strategies and plays it becomes more difficult for the mind to advance as it begins to block off conscious access to unrecognised theory.

To maximise the effiency of your training, you have to teach your students everything in a very specific order. Displaying this order is the most profound thing about my book. I honestly believe that it will revolutionise the way that all strategy books are written. If the player learns all the factors from all the Levels in the correct order, for any game, they will find it extremely easy to understand all the theory for their game. Provided they are competent at math, they will find it very easy to translate these Levels, the theory, into equations for extra accuracy. They will also find it very easy to understand strategies and plays. It is this order that is the key to maximising the players advancement. If any step is missed, the player will take far longer to advance.

You say that you think it is important for the players to understand respectable ranges in the early days. This is true, but before teaching them any strategies, you first need to make them conciously aware of all the Levels. They need to be introduced to all the theory, which will only take a few minutes. You dont need to get their math perfect, they dont need to be comfortable with all the equations before learning strategies, but, they do need to be consciously aware of every factor from every Level. If they learn this first, when you do come to teach them ranges to use, they will not trust in the ranges because you said so, they will trust in the ranges because they make sense. The place they assign this trust is all important. It is the trust that is a problem to overthrow, or re-assign in their minds. Provided your players have consciously recognised all the Levels, they will gradually develop their accuracy and mathamatical ability as you explain different strategies and plays. If, on the other hand, you teach them strategies first, it will be more and more difficult for you to teach them the more complex theory.

To give you an idea of this order. I'll give you an overview of Levels One and Two. These Levels need to be learnt in chronological order. And each Level is broken down into sections which again need to be learnt in the correct order. The past, the present, the future, and the future-present define each section of each Level. (At Level One these sections a little hard to define, but in the higher levels they become more clear). Once the opponent understands each Level in relation to the past, present, future and future-present, they will understand the Level -

Level One - Most people think that it is only these Levels are only based on the cards, but this is not true. We have three things that make up ourself in poker. Cards, chips, and a seat. To teach a player Level One for Poker they need to learn the strength of these three things.

The player needs to learn the strength of their hand.
They need to know where their hand sits in a full range of hands. So, they need to know how often they might hold AA, how often they might hold 7,2... AA comes up 0.4% of the time. 7,2 comes up 1.4% of the time. (I just teach them to rough it at 0.5% and 1.5%).
They then must learn how strong these hands a likely to become in the future. They need to understand how to calculate their outs. And, as that is far too complicated a sum to calculate pre-flop, they also need to learn how often they would expect to see different flops.
That is Level One in respect of the cards finished. The player doesnt need to be perfectly capable of making those sums. They just need to understand them. Then you are ready to move on to the next step.

The player needs to understand the strength of his seat, or his position. You just have to explain to them that the last person to act has an advantage.

And finally, the player need to learn the strength of their chips. Which is easy. More chips, more better. It is important that they know that making chips are the sole goal in Poker. If they cannot see profit in an exploitative play they cannot make the play.

You could also say that the human body is an attribute belonging to the player in Poker, but online this isn't much of an issue. I wont go into it here. (I'm predominantly an online player, so you wont learn a lot about this from me anyway).

Level Two - At Level Two we start making our decisions. We make these decisions by comparing the strength of our attributes, (Level One), to the strength of the opponents attributes (Level Two).

We assign the villain a range (cards/present) based on all that we have learnt about them or players like them (cards/past). We then need to calulate the chance of our hand remaining stronger than the villains (cards/future). We need to learn our odds of beating the hands in the opponents range.
We then add the chips to the equation. We compare our winchance to the odds given to us from the price to see if the play will be profitable. Implied odds (future-present) comes in at this stage.

That's pretty much all their is at Level Two, and again, all you need to do is make sure your players understand this stuff and then you are free to move on.

At Level Two we are simply comparing our strength to the opponents, we are only reacting to changes in the opponents range. We are only shooting for value and we are only defending. To learn level two we need to learn how to calculate our value and learn how to stay ahead of the opponents range. This is all that goes into a Level Two decision in Poker, and it's easy to match these factors up to those considered by all creatures as they make Level Two decisions. Things like insects, all make their decisions based on knowledge gained from past experiences. They have learnt to compare their strength to their opponents to make an assumption as to whether or not they will be successful given a certain action. Insects operate only at Level Two.

At Level Three we dont just make our decisions based on that which we have learnt in the past. We are not just reacting to our opponents strength, or weaknesses, (his leaks). At Level Three everything changes as we become capable of planning our offensive...

The human mind is already capable of making the complex calculations required at each Level

So you are saying that a beginner poker players' brain can determine whether a call with a draw is profitable without him having the knowledge how odds&outs, implied odds and so on work? Or they know how much and how often they should be cbetting OTF without knowing what is villains fold to cbet% and without knowing how big bet sizes start generating auto-profit for him? Or they know when to overfold vs super value heavy line without having done a good population analysis first to see how value heavy the line really is?

I don't really understand how that can be true. And why total beginners without any knowledge make tons of mathematical mistakes then? Or why they call so much vs river raises when population analysis shows it is super value heavy. I believe what you are describing is unconscious competence where we have so much practice that decisions come automatically and our gut feeling takes over.

So this just sounds quite weird to me and I don't understand it. Maybe if you showed me a beginner who really can do that, it might help me accept this

they do need to be consciously aware of every factor from every Level. If they learn this first, when you do come to teach them ranges to use, they will not trust in the ranges because you said so, they will trust in the ranges because they make sense.

So after I have taught my students those levels, they are capable of thinking about raw equities, importance of position, blocker effects, board coverage, balance and so on? Because otherwise they probably don't know what really makes sense and what doesn't? At least for me it took a long time before I was able to start thinking about how to construct ranges, what makes sense and what doesn't and why. But then again it might be just because I didn't know the levels...

Okay now I managed to read your post till the end and I have to say that I am amazed. Now I understand your levels.....
So basically what you have done is that you have taken the basic things about poker that every coach and training site tries to teach players first. The rules of poker, hand strengths, odds and so on. I do completely agree with you that those things should be taught first and I'm already doing it. Probably even in that order. So you just re-invented the wheel and made it sound like a formula giving superhuman powers made by a mad scientist? So these levels really are a coaching/teaching plan.

And I still think that your first levels conflict with your statement that our brain can make those decisions without practice. Of course beginner poker players can start making those decisions after you teach them everything you mentioned in those early levels. But even after they have been taught how the game works, they know importance of position and how often they hit board sit different hands, even then it takes a lot of work to be able to quickly and accurately make decisions at the tables when playing.

Am I missing something?

The only part of the theory that is essential to learn from scratch are the Level One factors. If a person with a perfect mind was taught Level One, some kind of vegan snake-charmer, yes, they could perfectly calculate all that they must to make the decision. For instance - The person would need to be aware that in Poker there are 52 cards in the deck, and that there are 4 streets of betting, we all get two cards etc etc, and then they would be able to put the opponent on a range of possible hands, they would be able to work out their odds of beating the opponent, they would realise that the odds would change once future bets are made and so would be able to estimate their implied odds. The perfect mind could do this perfectly accurately, but obviously we dont all have the perfect minds, and so realistically, we need to be shown these things. What I'm saying is that beginners already have the ability to plan the future and predict their chance of success. These are things that we can all do. "If I speak to that girl, will she reject me?" When considering something like this we wouldn't put it into numbers, we wouldn't make an accurate guess, but we would be able to estimate the chance of our success to some degree of accuracy. I'm not saying that beginner in Poker will be able to calculate these factors accurately without any training, but, that their mind is already capable of calculating it. They are capable of all the Levels.

To know the villains fold to cbet% you need to look to the past and calculate which hands in the villains range he usually folds. I am not saying that a beginner will know the villains fold to cbet%, Im just saying that they will naturally know that to find this number they need to assign the villain a range of possible cards and look to information gathered in the past. I am not saying that the beginner will naturally know exactly which strategies to play at which times, just that in their mind they constantly make this sort of calculation.

Beginners make mathematical mistakes because they do not have the perfect mind. They miss out many factors, concentrate too heavily on others. They are not using their mind as efficiently as a vegan snake-charmer might. The beginner will have other issues which stop them from using their mind perfectly. For instance, they might find it difficult to admit defeat in general, which at the poker tables is translated into them calling the river far more than they should.

Whether or not im describing unconscious incompetence is complicated, because as children we develop an unconscious competent grasp of the strategic processes used by the mind in the Levels. For instance, Level Three is all about empathy. We develop empathy at a very young age and all have developed an unconscious grasp of it. We use it when making all our decisions. Then, when we come to apply it to Poker, are we now incompetent or competent? Perhaps both. I think, perhaps, to develop unconscious incompetence for anything, first we need to develop an unconscious competence with these Levels of thought. But, this is one for the psychologists out there, i'm just a poker player.

You ask for me to show you a beginner that can do this and I can show you that all beginners can do this. Deal the cards leaving yours face down, then, immediately ask a beginner what they think you hold. They will say that you could hold anything. They dont say that you have 100% of hands in your range, but they have reached the same conclusion without being taught anything. This is Level Two. They are already capable of Level Two.

Originally posted by la55i
So after I have taught my students those levels, they are capable of thinking about raw equities, importance of position, blocker effects, board coverage, balance and so on? Because otherwise they probably don't know what really makes sense and what doesn't? At least for me it took a long time before I was able to start thinking about how to construct ranges, what makes sense and what doesn't and why. But then again it might be just because I didn't know the levels...

Unless you first explain to your beginners all the factors involved in the Levels, factor like outs, blockers, position, your players will have to trust in your advice when you say that they should 3bet lots of their Ax. If, instead, you do teach them the theory found in the Levels, they will understand that they 3bet those Ax because they have blockers, and they will have many outs, etc etc. If they are trusting in you, they will have to overthrow that trust when they come to understand the real reason for their actions.

Yeah, the exact reason you and I both struggled to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, to start thinking in ranges etc, was because we were taught the information in the wrong order. I have explained all of this theory to beginners in minutes many times. They dont have any real problem learning it, and have very few issues applying it to all decisions. I do have to remind them of factors at times, reinforce certain things etc etc, but it takes a fraction of the time for them to learn than it did for us.

These Levels do work as a coaching plan. I advertise the book as a step by step guide for all those who want to know how to play Poker. I wouldn't say that I reinvented the wheel but yeah, as I said, the most important thing that I have done is put all theory in this correct order. This allows the beginner to learn extremely quickly, ridiculously fast. And the reason why they can do that is because this is the way that the human mind naturally learns all games. You seem to think I have done nothing new, but don't forget, I've only explained Level Two in this thread so far. I have gone all the way up to level infinity in this book. There is plenty of new stuff in there. I have mapped out exactly how to think through your decision at all of the levels. Upto Level Two is all standard, but once we get to Level Three we start seeing factors that most players are uncomfortable with. A beginner who reads my book will learn it as quickly as they did Level Two stuff. When it comes to Level Four, theorists previously said that it is only for the elite, but I have explained it in such a way that a beginner can grasp how to use it in mere minutes. Yes, the best thing that I have done is map out all the poker theory that we all know and trust, this is what I set out to do. I have explained not only which factors need to be learnt first, but also which need to be considered first when making a decision. That is huge! But whilst working on that I have also discovered all kinds of other things too.

You seem to be missing one key thing here - If I explain Level Three factors to the vast majority of poker players they will go completely insane as their cognitive dissonance makes it almost impossible for them to accept the simple logic. These guys have stunted their growth as players by learning strategies and plays before learning ALL the theory. They already have this theory built into their mind, and so their development is stunted when they learn to trust in strategies and plays before consciously appreciating what they already have an unconscious grasp of. This causes cognitive dissonance. Their built-in strategic thought process clashes with the plays they have come to trust, and as a result, the conscious ability to recognise the theory is blocked. Now that I have mapped out all the theory, this is not a problem anymore. I can teach a beginner to appreciate all the Levels in mere minutes, which will give them a huge advantage over the vast majority of players.

Now I think I understand your coaching plan a little bit better. So basically you want beginners to first learn how the game works in theory so they can then really understand the strategies we use and start using their own brain to make decisions. I do agree with that. I have mentioned many times that even though GTO is not necessary at the micros it should be studied at some point because it really deepens our understanding of the game.

Yeah that's basically it. I think it can be disastrous for the mind if a strategist learns strategies before all the theory. This happens because our mind already has an unconscious understanding of all the theory involved in strategic decisions before we ever sit at a poker table, and so, if we learn strategies for Poker before appreciating the logic already known unconsciously, we will experience cognitive dissonance and the mind will block off our access to theory which we could have learnt in mere minutes.

In relation to Poker, if a player is only capable of applying Level Two theory, we can repeatedly apply Level Three against them to completely obliterate them. These Level Two players will slowly learn to contend with us, one situation at a time, but we will be applying this logic to all situations and we will rinse them.

But that's just Poker, and I see no reason why this wouldn't apply to other games too. I read Sun Tzu's Art of War, and he seemed only capable of Level Three in respect of war. "All warfare is based upon deception". This is not true. At Level Three all warfare is based upon deception. Level Three is all about deceiving our opponent. But at Level Five deception is thrown out the window. Sun Tzu didn't didn't seem to be capable of Level Four and above. He didn't describe any Level Four factors through-out his entire book. And, he made a clear mistake. A mistake a Level Four player would never make. Here, check it out for yourself -

"If the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in"

Do you think we could destroy his entire army by leaving a door open that led off a cliff?? Obviously not, because Sun Tzu, like everyone else, had an unconscious grasp of Level Four. He would quickly realise that in this situation he had been deceived and he would not force all his men to jump to their death. However, I do wonder how many times I could leave different doors open before he realised that his logic was flawed. This man struggled to consciously recognise ways to defend against his opponents deception. He was incapable of recognising Level Four theory, and so has given some terrible advice. Many people will have died due to his inability to appreciate Level Four.

I think that this could be a huge problem all over the world. Especially now that people are learning GTO plays before learning exploitative theory. If you know GTO, and can see no exploitative line, what do you do? Apply GTO, which sucks all the potential for profit from the game and hurtles it towards its death.

When we were kids, my brothers and I would play a game that went something similar to:

Me: "I know"
Bro: "I know that you know"
Me: "I know that you know that I know"
Bro: "I know that you know that I know that you know"
Me: "I know that you know that I know that you know that I know"

We could play this for HOURS -- and keep track of who knew who knew what.
This would go on until my older sister would threaten to dismember us.

The point is that "levels of thinking" involves more than just the levels -- it involves analysis and deception detection at every level. Furthermore, there are non-quantifiable inputs at work here. At some point, it makes more sense to "go with your gut" than to try to think one more level higher.

Your point about GTO play is well taken -- it makes a great starting point, but if you know your opponent plays that way, you can take his money be exploiting him. AND VICE VERSA.

Oh wait -- we're back to levels.
VS

I understand exactly what you're saying, but, good sir, you are missing pieces of the puzzle...

When you look at the Levels from the perspective of one situation it does seem like an endless journey leading to nowhere. After we have seen this one situation many times we will find that we have little advantage over the opponent.

However...

When I looked at these Levels in general, not only in one specific situation, but instead how they work in relation to the players ability over all situations, I realised that for the first four Levels you can indeed hold an advantage over your opponent. This may appear to be a small advantage, but there are trillions of situations in Poker and for each situation we can take an advantage from the opponent until they are capable of playing in all situations at the fourth Level.

It's only at Level Five is where this thing turns into an endless path of nonsense.

1 - At Level One we play straight-forward.
2- At Level Two we account for the opponent playing straight-forward.
3 - At Level Three we start deceiving the opponent.
4 - At Level Four we realise that the opponent may be deceiving us.
5 - At Level Five the opponent realises that we may be deceiving him. At Level Five, both we and the opponent understand that one another is capable of deceiving each other, and so the advantage we gain from the ability to deceive, is over.

Sun Tzu said that all warfare is based upon deception. This isn't quite true because at Level Five deception dies. From then on, you might aswell just use GTO.

Once you realise that not only are there trillions of situations in Poker for us to exploit but also, that the players usually suffer from a psychological problem which stops them from being able to use certain Levels in general, you then realise that there is a huge window of opportunity to rinse each player. Again, this advantage ends at Level Five. Once you have unlocked the first four levels in your mind, this psychological problem is cured. Once you unlock Level Four, ALL the exploitative Levels are unlocked in your mind and you will be able to use all of them in all situations.

You seem to be looking at things from the perspective of one individual situation. To be able to understand this clearly, you need to realise that human beings have the ability to deceive before they ever meet any poker player. If they lose this ability, at the poker tables, we can destroy them.

In all of life this applies.
Most people have this figured out by the end of high school, some by the end of college.

When people are learning poker, it takes them a while to apply the general principles to the situation at hand.

It appears that you have figured this out -- congratulations!

Peace,
VS

According to all the strategists before me it takes years to apply these general principles to poker situations... I can teach a beginner in minutes.

And dude, nobody else in the world could have written my last post accept me. Have some respect.

We indeed need to give you the master strategist title.

Originally posted by la55i
We indeed need to give you the master strategist title.

Dont insult us with such shiet. Give us a nobel, man. I'll take three though.

So you're replying to this with some meaningless mockery La, but your not replying to the other thread where I showed you that your super moderator has gone against the argument you've been pushing for the last week...

So this website doesnt search for the truth regarding poker strategy, what you do here is beat down and humiliate anyone who doesnt agree with the strategies you have laid out for them.