Responding to Donk-Bets at Final Tables
It’s scary to contest a pot against a covering stack when you have a high risk premium,…
Donk-Betting As the Covering Stack in MTTs
Tournament poker generally incentivizes stack preservation and more conservative play than cash game poker, and this is…
Dominate the River in 3-Bet Pots OOP
Playing the river may seem scary. Pots, on average, have been swelling up big time at this…
Exploiting BBs Who Never Donk-Bet
In a single-raised pot (SRP), a BB caller should almost always check when out of position (OOP)…
Picking the Right Semi-Bluffs
As I often like to remind readers, I am not a professional poker player; I am just…
Playing Calls From the Button in Cash Games
When first beginning to study cash game poker strategy, there is a common refrain that you might…
Bringing It All Together: PKO Review
Throughout the past year, our writers have presented nine unique articles and videos outlining how and when…
What Factors Impact Ranges the Most in PKOs?
In our article “How Does ICM Impact PKO Strategy?“, we contrasted how PKO and Classic preflop strategies…
PKO vs Classic: Postflop Play
In our previous articles comparing PKO and Classic tournaments, we reviewed how to adapt our preflop strategy…
How Do Bounties Impact Our Flop Ranges When Covering?
The previous articles in our PKO series showed how preflop ranges that are adjusted for bounties vary…
Short Stack Stealing on the Bubble
Open-raising on the bubble into players who cover you is scary. Savvy opponents will recognize how dangerous…
Maximizing Monsters in Deep-Stacked Scenarios
Why did Dracula quit the game when Wolfman insisted on a mandatory straddle? — Why? — Unlike…
Confronting Monsters Under the Bed in Poker
Do you hide from things that go bump in the night? Does the sight of a monotone…
Bullying the Blinds With Continuation Bets
A big stack in No Limit Hold‘em does not always carry a license to steal. In a…
A Comprehensive Guide to Playing Satelites
One of the most important inventions in poker that contributed to the growth of the game was…
A Comprehensive Guide to Playing Mystery Bounties
The Mystery Bounty format looked like a novelty event at first, but swiftly became a mainstay of…
Leading Hands That Should Check-Call
The most consistent leak I have encountered live and online, and at a variety of stakes, is…
Mastering Turn Play in 3-Bet Pots OOP
Playing the flop OOP in a 3-bet pot can be challenging. Turn play, however, is what gets…
PKO Versus Classic: Responding to 3-Bets
One of the keys to adapting to new game formats, such as Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments, is…
PKO Versus Classic: Responding to a Preflop Open
One of the keys to adapting to new game formats, such as Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments, is…
Preflop Range Morphology
Morphology in poker is the study of shapes/forms of ranges. This domain of poker study is particularly…
The Five Imbalances of Exploitative Poker
One of the great modern debates in poker is GTO vs Exploitative strategy. It can be a…
PKO Versus Classic: Preflop RFI Range Comparisons
One of the keys to adapting to new game formats, such as Progressive Knockout (PKO) tournaments, is…
Why So Much? An Exploration of Larger-Than-Geometric Bet Sizing
Via toy games, it is easy to demonstrate that a player betting a perfectly polarized range maximizes…
Slow-Playing
Slow-playing, like running a big bluff or making a heroic call, feels great when it works. It…
MDF vs ICM: Rethinking Bluffing & Defense Strategies in MTTs
Minimum Defense Frequency (MDF) is, strictly speaking, the calling (and/or raising) frequency that makes your opponent’s 0%…
The Magic of Equity Buckets
One of the most daunting aspects of learning the modern game of poker, especially with solver technology,…
Preflop Strategy in Straddled Pots
Many games allow “straddles,” where a player who is not in the blinds voluntarily posts a blind…
The 5 Levels of Trainer Mastery for MTTs
Studying poker can be a challenge to both new and seasoned players. Tournament poker, in particular, presents…
4-Bet Pots OOP as the Preflop Caller
4-bet pots are often uncomfortable to play. Some of the reasons include: — A lot of chips…
Bounty Models Explained: Solving Knockout Tournaments
We’ve just rolled out a revolutionary update! You can now find optimal postflop ICM strategies tailored for…
Theoretical Breakthroughs in ICM
Today, we’ll share one of the most significant theoretical breakthroughs in tournament poker since the invention of…
The Limitations of Nash Equilibrium in ICM Spots
In the complex world of poker tournaments, the Independent Chip Model (ICM) plays a pivotal role in…
Rake & Rakeback Explained: Optimize Your Poker Earnings
Rake is one of the main things that allows poker to distinguish itself as a skill game…
From Gutshots to Airballs: Choosing Your Bluffs
Whenever you’re running a bluff, it’s reassuring to have a backup plan like some draw equity that…
Crush 3-Bet Pots OOP in Cash Games
Did you know that 3-bet pots out of position (OOP) as the preflop aggressor make up roughly…
The Math of Multi-Street Bluffs
Bluffing is a fundamental skill in poker, blending deception with strategic calculation to sway the outcomes of…
The Mechanics of C-Bet Sizing
What factors influence c-bet sizing on the flop? Is it fold equity, SPR, draw equity, polarity, protection,…
Poker Insurance: Reducing Variance or Wasting Money?
Variance is what makes poker great. Without it, recreational players would not keep playing. Most players say…
Money Bubble vs Final Table Bubble
Is one bubble the same as another? Should we play more conservatively on the money bubble of…
Facing 3-Bets From Covering Stacks at the Final Table
The last thing you want when you have a nice stack at the final table of an…
Poker Staking Essentials
One of the great ‘through the looking glass’ moments for any poker player is when they learn…
A Poker Player’s Guide to Conquering Cognitive Biases – Part 2
In the past, I’ve written about gambling biases that can affect how you play and how confirmation…
The 5 Levels of Trainer Mastery for Cash Games
We’ve created over 40 custom drills for this article! Though all drills are accessible through the article,…
How To Review ICM Preflop Ranges
In a sense, tournaments could be considered the more complex format compared to cash games. The case…
Calling Down Over-Bluffed Lines in Lower Limits
If you are playing low stakes, chances are you have a plummeting red line in your tracker’s…
A Poker Player’s Guide to Conquering Cognitive Biases – Part 1
In my article on confirmation bias, I mentioned that there are many cognitive biases and fallacies that…
Exploiting Cold Callers Who Stab Too Much
In single-raised pots (SRPs) between an in position (IP) raiser and an out of position (OOP) caller,…
Using the 80/20 Rule in Poker
The Pareto principle, or the ‘80/20 Rule’, is an economic theory that, when you learn about it,…
Attacking Aggressive Opponents When They Check Back Flop
Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. Playing out of position against an aggressive opponent is even…
Buying the Showdown
This article was inspired by Mark, who submitted a question to my podcast about a concept he…
Barreling as IP Cold-Caller
You cold-called a preflop raise. That’s scary. You bet into a check from the preflop raiser, which…
How Confirmation Bias Impacts Poker Study
There are a great number of cognitive biases, mental models, and heuristics that I plan on writing…
A Champion’s Guide to Knockout Poker Formats
If you’ve opened any online poker client recently you will have seen an explosion of Knockout (KO)…
Pushing Equity With Small Bets
One of the most memorable pieces of poker wisdom I ever received came from my long-time podcast…
Turn Check-Raise Heuristics
Dealing with turn aggression is an area many players find difficult, which is an excellent reason to…
Aggregate Flop Strategy: SB C-Betting in SRP
Continuation betting from the SB does not follow the usual patterns for out of position (OOP) c-betting…
The Power of the Hypergeometric Bet
What size should we bet with our value and bluffs? When our range is perfectly polarized (with…
The Limits of Nodelocking
GTO Wizard’s nodelocking feature is where the theory meets the practical; you can study how to play…
Limp-Called Pot as BB
My favorite way to study with GTO Wizard is to approach it experimentally, using the scientific method…
Why Not Shove?
You’re in the money in an MTT but still a long way from the final table. The…
What We Can Learn From Outlier Hands
The worst way to use a tool like GTO Wizard is to simply ‘line-check’ how your specific…
Building Exploits From Showdown
Understanding how and when to exploit opponents at a live poker table is a delicate affair. It’s…
Navigating Nasty Rivers Out of Position
Playing out of position (OOP) is hard. It’s fundamentally disadvantageous to act on each street without knowing…
Crack the Shell of Nut Draw Strategy
Nut draws hold obvious appeal as betting and raising candidates. They benefit from fold equity, sometimes even…
Preflop Raise Sizing: Examining 2 Key Factors
It amazes me that, after nearly twenty years of playing no-limit hold ‘em professionally, I still haven’t…
How to Handle Loose-Passive Limpers
Solver charts and presolved solutions do not offer much in the way of explicit guidance for responding…
Top 5 Mistakes in Spin & Gos
As a Spin and Go poker coach, I regularly encounter common mistakes that players make, affecting their…
An Introduction to Spin & Gos
I was playing Tournaments for the first decade of my career. But after my first child was…
Relationships and Poker
In my more than 15 years of poker coaching, I’ve helped hundreds of clients improve their check-raising,…
Do Multiple Sizes Matter?
Should I work out the other tools or just stick to the crowbar? Solver results can appear…
The Science of Learning Applied to GTO Wizard
The way we were taught to study in schools was flawed and has negatively impacted our study…
Check-Raising a Single Pair
In this article, I will address a question raised by Twitter/X user ’Matt Riley’, who asks, “In…
The Turn Probe Bet
Imagine yourself defending as the BB caller vs BTN preflop raiser in a 100bb cash game pot.…
When To Encourage Multiway Pots in PKOs
I was recently shown this fascinating PKO hand from the GTO Wizard PKO library. Somebody asked me…
Protect Equity and Prosper
When we think about the best hands to bet in a given situation, we tend to consider…
Do Solvers Have Targets?
Targeting has long been a staple of exploitative poker thinking. When you’re value betting against a predictable…
Disciplining Big Blind in Limped Pots
When the BTN open-limps off a short stack, the postflop play against the BB should resemble that…
I’d Rather Be Drawing
Which is the better hand on a K♥8♦5♦ flop: K♠T♣ or 7♥6♥? OK, I’ll admit I didn’t…