New year, new book

This week saw the publication of my sixth collaboration with esteemed poker writer Barry Carter, or seventh if we count ‘Milestone Satellite Strategy,’ the short ebook that has now been incorporated back into ‘Poker Satellite Strategy.’

picks up where our fourth book, ‘GTO Poker Simplified,’ left off

The latest addition to the O’Kearney/Carter household is ‘Beyond GTO: Poker Exploits Simplified.’ In a sense, it picks up where our fourth book, ‘GTO Poker Simplified,’ left off. That book attempted to explain game theory to a lay audience and how it can be applied to poker. Essentially, it sought to answer the question:

“If two players are playing perfect optimal unexploitable poker, what would their strategy look like, and why?”

This is, I believe, a vital question to understand how poker works. Even if we (and more importantly our opponents) will never be playing perfectly, having a good fundamental idea of what strategy should look like is vital to not just understand how to avoid being exploited, but also how to exploit opponents who are exhibiting leaks we can clearly identify.

Going beyond

This new book goes a step further by answering the question:

“If we identify a specific leak in an opponent, what’s the absolute best counter adjustment we can make from GTO strategy that maximally exploits that leak?”

This is something players have long debated. Sometimes the answer is blindingly obvious, like for example if a player bluffs too much just call all your hands that beat bluffs. Sometimes the exploit is less obvious: for example, if our opponent doesn’t check raise as much as they should, should we bet more frequently (to make them fold when we have nothing), or less frequently (to try to get more on future streets when we have something)? And when we do bet, should we use a smaller size (to make our bluffs cheaper) or bigger (to extract more value with our strong hands)?

This is something our new friend, the solver, can answer better than any human ever could through a feature called “node locking,” this essentially means telling the solver: “Forget the GTO strategy our opponent should be playing, if instead they are playing this particular strategy (bluffing too much, not check raising enough, etc), then what strategy should we switch to that exploits them to the maximum?”

The solver will then compute the new strategy. In some cases, the exploits are unsurprising and just confirm what old school exploitative players thought and did, but in others they are quite surprising and occasionally something no human would ever think of.

the core of the book is 21 chapters on these specific leaks, all solver approved

We started the process with a session where I brain dumped all the most common leaks I see weaker players make, primarily live but also online. We then whittled the list down to the most important ones. We whittled it down further by removing most of those where the exploit is blindingly obvious. That left us with 21 leaks, so the core of the book is 21 chapters on these specific leaks, all solver approved, on the best way to exploit your opponents.

Andy Black approved

As self publishers, Barry and I rely on lots of others to help with the books themselves, and their promotion. We are very happy with this latest book. We both think it might be our best yet or at least our most useful, and a lot of that is down to our great advance readers.

The advance reader whose feedback I was most anxious about was Andy Black. Given he is pretty much the master of the exploit, I was nervous he wouldn’t find much value in this book, or might even question the whole approach of using solvers in this way. Andy and I started a deep conversation of GTO versus exploitative poker almost two years ago. Over the course of this conversation both us have moved our positions closer together, but some gaps still remain, at least in emphasis.

In the event, I needn’t have worried. Not only was Andy fulsome in his praise of the book, he spontaneously wrote this foreword:

“Having just boarded a flight from the Emerald Isle to the US of A to play at the WPT World Championship in Las Vegas, I am tingling with a nervous excitement of anticipation for the battle ahead. Thousands of different players with their own unique styles of play all starting with the same amount of chips regardless of their history or maybe trying to pick up some cash in the side games. Hometown heroes and superstars, young and old, rich and poor. It’s epic.

Indeed every poker game is like this. The core question for all of us is how to play better so we can win.

Dara and Barry’s book has shifted the goal posts to allow the lucky readers to stretch their imagination to understand and find weaknesses that are apparent to the greats of poker.

it allows the reader to go deeper into the truth of poker, more deeply than basic GTO does

By establishing where chips are commonly won and lost by either frequency, magnitude, or both, it allows the reader to go deeper into the truth of poker, more deeply than basic GTO does. It both keeps you honest and pushes you to not just sound like you are a good poker player.

All poker is exploitative, trying to find ways to get easier chips as much as possible is the true heart of poker.

Phil Helmuth is the greatest exponent of the “easier chips” philosophy. His entire being is bent towards having as much certainty as possible in as many hands as possible so he can both stay alive and thrive. He often avoids marginal situations because he so frequently finds more clear cut ones.

Beyond GTO is similar in significance to Doyle Brunson’s Super System in that it starts a more detailed codifying of how the greats take advantage of those who are recreational…

Phil ain’t going to like playing you so much if you have read this book and Doyle is maybe looking down appreciatively, enjoying a shared moment of the love of the beauty of poker’s never ending reach for the as yet unknown celestial bodies.

If you’ve come this far why not go a little farther and really incorporate the wisdom between these covers and start to dream a little bigger and not be the butt of the joke:

What is the difference between a poker player and a cheese pizza ?
A cheese pizza can feed a family of four.”

‘Beyond GTO: Poker Exploits Simplified’ is now available on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon (others outlets to follow shortly). Barry and I are also making a bunch of videos on specific exploits that are available free on our YouTube channel.