You can't exploit a GTO range
Despite what some people might think, the only way to respond to a GTO strategy is to also employ a GTO strategy.
Last week I came across a tweet from Allen Kessler where he thought he had discovered a way to exploit a GTO range:
This "GTO" strategy with 10bb utg seems easy to exploit.
It looks like my hand is usually Aces or Kings, so just fold if I min open utg off 10 bigs. https://t.co/QQa5l55Qzo
— Allen Kessler (@AllenKessler) February 25, 2023
A lot of people dunk on Allen, but this is a teachable moment and I think a lot of players would agree with what he said on the surface.
Allen suggested that it is obvious when you have a strong hand in this range. If the player open shoves it is going to be one of the more vulnerable hands in the range like AJs or 99, but if the player min raises it is probably the nuts, so you can fold.
It is true that if you always folded to the min raise here you would avoid AA and KK 100% of the time. That is only one part of the story.
Rock/Paper/Scissors
Look at the other hands that min raise below JJ, they are all essentially bluffs. These hands will print money by getting you to fold much stronger hands, 100% of the time. Allen might have thought he was exploiting the AA/KK hands by never giving them action, but he was getting exploited by folding hands like TT and AKs too often.
If I offered you a guaranteed way of making AKs fold to A6s, and making TT fold to A9o, but you could only take down the blinds with AA, you should take it. This was a 10BB range too, so winning the blinds and antes gives you a massive return on your money.
A quick side note if you are unfamiliar with GTO ranges. The bluffs in this range are ATo/A9o/A8o/A8s/A7s/A6s/KJo/QJo/88/55/44. With the exception of A6s they are all min raised some of the time, but AA/KK are bet all the time. In terms of the frequency of bluffs and value they will balance out so that you get the ratio where a GTO opponent is indifferent to calling. The reason the solver picks so many bluffs is for board coverage. When called, you potentially can hit any runout other than the ones with a 3 or a 2 in it.
To use an analogy most people are familiar with, imagine if you played Rock/Paper/Scissors 999 times against a GTO opponent and 500 of those times you picked Rock. You would crush Scissors, you would destroy Scissors in fact. But the gains you made against Scissors would be mitigated by all the losses you would make against Paper. Therefore, the only way to play Rock/Paper/Scissors against a GTO opponent is to randomly pick each option 1/3rd of the time.
This is the point of GTO ranges, the only way you can play against them is to also play GTO ranges. Fold too much and the GTO range makes money by bluffing, call too much and the GTO range makes money by value betting. The GTO range doesn't care how it makes money, it is happy to get it from bluffs or value.
Could you exploit this range? Let us know in the comments:
