Tournaments Demands Exploitive Play
I've been thinking about this for a while but have not found any literature about it. Anyhow, my thinking is that playing exploitively is an absolute must to succeed in tournament play -- so much so that a perfect GTO player is likely at a substantial disadvantage to someone who plays a great exploitive game.
My thinking stems from the fact that the object of the tournament is to win everyone else's chips and to be the last person standing -- or at least to get as close to that as possible. This really pressures us to identify and exploit the bad play/players we see before the other players do. We need to get their chips before the other players do. Likewise, we need to preserve our own chips when we identify a situation to exploit (for example, we know that bluffs by certain types of players will be really rare in certain situations, even if they happen with much more frequency in the GTO world). If we play perfect GTO without modifying it, we are passing up chances to win more chips or lose less. Our better competitors will not pass these up, and they will be at an advantage. This is different than a cash game, where we can play perfect GTO and still turn a profit in the long run (although admittedly less profit than using correct exploitive play).
Anyhow wondering if anyone has the same thoughts or counterarguments.
5 Replies
there is zero rational financial reason to play in a game where you have no incentive to ever exploit on account of there not being a single opponent who never mis-populates ranges nor miscomputes strategies nor makes bad assumptions about their own opponents nor does wacky things due to human behavioral biases: its a zero sum game and youre already in a hole due to rake and the opportunity cost of potentially wasting your time next in a smoky sunless casino or glued to a screen for 55 out of every 60 mins
The goal is to be as highly, justifiably (on the basis of data and behavioral economic insights) differentiated from your opponents as possible. That will necessarily mean exploiting as much as possible, as often as possible, and accepting that this necessarily means taking on greater risk in exchange for potentially higher rewards: its a zero sum game
personally IDGAF if I do something thats -EV bc I know ill identify the faulty assumption and/or computation. The only thing I dont wanna be is breakeven. That means Im just doing exactly what everyone else is: its a zero sum game
yeah ICM will distort equilibria and also induce more irrational decisions which can be exploited
Eggs,
I see what your saying ... and both cash and tournaments is technically less than a zero sum game given the rake/entry fee.
But I feel that if you played as a perfect GTO bot in a cash game, you would come out well ahead in the long run. This is because there is a significant population in the player pool that is playing sub-optimally and habitually making mistakes. (Indeed, even the best players cannot play perfectly all the time -- and I would guess they often play less than perfect, just more perfect than others).
I am thinking that the GTO bot would have significantly less success in MTTs, because smart exploitive players will take a much bigger share of chips from that sub-optimal population than will the GTO bot. And since, unlike cash, you need to end up with all the chips at the end, that is a giant advantage.
Anyhow, these are just my musings and would not be surprised at all if I am wrong here.
well antes being sucked away from other players is extra juice to be squeezed from the table
I think people really struggle with "awkward" sprs and dont realize how wide they gotta defend. You get those a whole lot more with 30bb stacks than 100bb stacks. On the other hand, bigger bets and bigger sprs tend to see people overfolding less (you can only fold up to 100% of the time so at some point a large enough sizing you just run out of room to get extra folds; no one posts up ranges which theyll fold 100% of the time)
icm creates more opportunities for mistakes
basically what youre musing about it: can you win more bb/100 in tourneys vs cash. I think you probably can!
I think exploitative play is a must.
But if you recognize a GTO/Solver type then it should change everything because you can't exploit. My strategy against GTO/Solvers is typically not to call balanced large bluffs with raw bluff catchers because typically it will fail 67% of the time. In a cash game it doesn't matter because it will even out in the long run but in tournaments it can be crushing. But once you don't call a potential bluff, all bets may be off in terms of the GTO/Solver's balance.
One of the things I have found funny is that people who are hyper aggressive, young, and GTO/Solver types often size their bets wrong. Because solvers have different bet sizes for so many different situations I believe that in spots where somebody can't remember exactly what to do they size up on their stronger hands and size down on their misses.
I've been thinking about this for a while but have not found any literature about it. Anyhow, my thinking is that playing exploitively is an absolute must to succeed in tournament play -- so much so that a perfect GTO player is likely at a substantial disadvantage to someone who plays a great exploitive game.
I mean, it depends what you're playing, yeah? If you're in the weekly GG $10k, then you probably aren't getting much chance to exploit anybody.
My thinking stems from the fact that the object of the tournament is to win everyone else's chips and to be the last person standing -- or at least to get as close to that as possible. This really pressures us to identify and exploit the bad play/players we see before the other players do. We need to get their chips before the other players do. Likewise, we need to preserve our own chips when we identify a situation to exploit (for examp
Again, it depends who you're playing. If you're playing against sharp, GTO-studied opponents, there won't be many opportunities to exploit them. If you are playing lower stakes where people are looser, fishier, and make obvious mistakes, then sure, you should exploit them.
Dara O'Kearney recommends sticking to GTO even at lower stakes if you want to move up, because even if you cost yourself a little in the short term, you develop better habits and GTO play scales up much better than exploitative play, since the higher you play the fewer mistakes opponents make. I don't necessarily agree, but I do think learning the GTO fundamentals is important. I've said it before, but: If you're going to deviate from the GTO lines to exploit a player, you need to know what those lines are in order to deviate from them.
I certainly use exploitative play myself when I identify a weakness in a player, but I also try to have my GTO fundamentals down, because when you're multi-tabling online you can't always figure out who's making mistakes (unless they're egregious), and you want to at least have a baseline of play that's going to be profitable no matter what.
