Consider the following thought experiment: suppose you are playing heads-up no-limit Texas Hold’em against an opponent who has essentially identical skills as you. Setting aside any ethical concerns for the moment, let’s further suppose that you can choose one of two possible cheats:
- You always get dealt pocket aces, but after each hand, your opponent forgets that you had pocket aces on that hand, and assumes that you are getting two random cards on the next hand. Or,
- You and your opponent are each dealt two random cards. However, you get to see what your opponent has. They, however, do not know that you can see their cards, and they can’t see your cards.
Which option would you choose?
Pretty obviously, you’d take option #2 (again, assuming you could put your ethics on pause). It might not be intuitive to somebody who doesn’t play poker, but in hold’em, knowing your opponent’s hand is far more valuable than starting with the strongest hand in this version of poker.
Sometimes, You Can See Them
Playing against a GTO poker solver is difficult and frustrating. The machine works hard to balance its value bets and bluffs. A given bet size may represent strong value, a draw, or pure air. When it checks on the flop, sometimes it has nothing and is planning to fold, and sometimes it has nothing and is planning to check/raise.
In short, the machine goes to enormous lengths to hide the true nature of its hand from you.
Fortunately, we don’t play against the machine – we play against humans. And humans, man, if you’ll just be quiet and squint a little bit, they’ll all but turn their cards face up.
I Can See For Miles
I was playing $2/3 no-limit hold’em at the local club. There was a limp in front of me and I was on the button with K♣️2♣️. I made it $15 to go. The big blind, a fellow named Roger, cold-called the raise, and the limper called as well.
With $45 in the pot, the flop is 8♦️-4♠️-4❤️. Smashed it.
Roger immediately leads out for $25, and the original limper folds. So, having completely whiffed the flop, I quickly fold, right?
Well, no. Because now I have Roger’s hand narrowed to a very tight poker range. There are no reasonable draws he could have – Roger wouldn’t lead out with something like 6♦️5♦️. Furthermore, Roger would never lead out if he had a four. No sir, he’d check, with plans to check/raise me either on the flop or the turn.
That leaves just one possibility: Roger has an eight. I mean, sure, maybe he occasionally has 99 or TT (Roger isn’t one to do much 3-betting). But mostly, Roger has an eight.
Heavy Traffic Ahead
At this point, I’ve stopped caring about my cards. Because I know that most run-outs are going to leave Roger’s eight feeling sad and lonely. There’s an enormous possibility that there will be one or two overcards to that eight by the river. Furthermore, I raised preflop – I can have all the big pairs.
I call, with the intention of blasting Roger off that eight. Roger and I started $500 effective, so there’s plenty of stack depth for my shenanigans. If he checks the turn, I’ll bet small-ish to keep him in, but then on the river, I’ll just blast it. He’ll be looking at his 87 or whatever, and not even give a serious thought to calling my 1.5x pot bet on the river.
The point is that Roger made the mistake of announcing a key card in his hand. It wasn’t too different from literally turning over an eight and letting me see it. And with that information, my particular hand could be two Target gift cards – I am going to win the pot. This is cash game poker.
The Best Laid Plans
Right up until the turn is the 8❤️, making the board 8♦️-4♠️-4❤️–8❤️.
Roger’s entire posture changes. He sits up straighter in his chair, and confidently slides out a stack of $5 chips. I have no idea of how many it is, because I’m completely done with the hand. I toss my cards to the muck, 95% sure that my read on Roger’s hand is accurate. He now has a full house, and is never folding.
But Roger, he’s a generous poker player. Before he pushes his hand toward the dealer, he glances up and to his right, where the current leader for the hourly high hand promotion is displayed (a common promotion where the highest poker hand ranking made in a given time period wins a cash prize). His shoulders slump a little as he mucks his hand. I discreetly turn around and see that the current high hand is kings full. Sorry Roger, eights full win this pot but not the high hand promotion.
Humans Are Bad at Keeping Secrets
The solver – man, it could run a spy agency, the way it mixes up its value and its bluffs, its bet sizes, all of it. But humans are often giant tell boxes. If you’ll just pay attention to what your opponents are saying, and concentrate on their narrative rather than your own, sometimes – sometimes – it’s like they flipped up a card for you.
