Do you need to use solvers in 2025?

Dara O'Kearney answers the question on whether using solvers is a necessity in the modern game.

In many ways, my books and private coaching could be boiled down to me showing people who don't use solvers, what the solvers show me. 

Solver technology has taken over poker, poker study and poker language. Yet it is very daunting for many.

In the modern game, you don't need to use solvers, but you do need to understand their outputs, even at low stakes.

Solvers have changed the way poker is played, if you ignore them, you will get left behind.

But you don't need to use them yourself.

Don't get left behind

There are players who crush Tritons that don't use solvers. There are many professionals who do not use solvers. But they all learn what the solvers are teaching the rest of us.

I know a high stakes pro who gets his horses to run solves for him and then explains the outputs. I personally coach some of the biggest crushers in the game, and what I essentially do is run sims for them and boil down the key heuristics.

For some players, this is a much better option. They might do more harm than good if they ran the solutions themselves and misapplied what they saw.

If you are on the fence about solvers, then your better option, at first, might be to get solver interpretations from a coach or friend who understands them. It doesn't matter how you learn from solvers, but ignoring them is not an option. 

You can get Dara's free book on effective poker study by joining his mailing list.