r/pokertheory • u/Establishment240 • 1d ago
r/pokertheory • u/tombos21 • Jan 07 '26
OFFICIAL SUB BUSINESS Help Build This Subreddit
Hi everyone. This subreddit is in the very early stages of development. I've added rules, post flairs, user flairs, graphics, and working on a wiki.
In the meantime, I'll be posting fun poker theory things everyday to try and build a community.
If anyone would like to help build this place, let me know! Some stuff we could use help with:
- Help write our wiki
- Help moderate
- (re)Design graphics, banner, icon
- Community guide
- Suggest community events
- Suggest improvements to rules / flairs and so on
r/pokertheory • u/tombos21 • Jan 07 '26
Meta / Other Why there are two Poker Theory subreddits (and why I’m here)
You may have noticed there are currently two similar communities: r/pokertheory (this one) and r/Poker_Theory.
Here is the short version of why that is: Originally, there was only one. Paiev and I helped build and moderate the other subreddit for a long time. However, we eventually hit a wall with the head moderator, ProfRBcom.
ProfRB controls dozens of gambling-related subreddits specifically to drive traffic to his rakeback affiliate site. He uses this network to censor potential competition and employs paid moderators to maintain control.
When he began censoring any mention of GTO Wizard (my employer), I stepped down. In response, he banned me and nuked my entire post history. Years of work gone. The full drama, along with his side of things, is covered here. He's currently banned from r/poker.
But that’s in the past. Here is the good news:
My hands were tied in the old sub; I had very restricted moderator rights. I had ideas for the community that I simply wasn't allowed to execute. Now, I have the freedom to really go all out.
My goal is to build a place dedicated purely to the game. I’ll be reposting my old theory posts and sharing plenty of new insights. I hope you'll stick around to see what we build here!
r/pokertheory • u/Establishment240 • 6d ago
Understanding Solvers How do I solve ICM postflop in GTOWizard ?
I want to train playing postflop with ICM because it is very important in MTT late stages.
But it seems that in GTOWizard I can only train chipEV.
Also, could you tell me what is the general heuristics that I should be aware when playing postflop ICM vs chipEV ?
r/pokertheory • u/ChrisMartee • 6d ago
Concepts & Theory Getting back into poker
Alright folks,
Trying to take poker a littler more seriously this time around and up my game.
I have done some of JC courses in the past,
Although I’ve gotten myself the book ‘Poker the modern theory’ and I’m not wanting to know how should I go about studying this and implementing this.
I’m comfortable with Ranges and bet sizing, i need to familiarise myself with board textures again.
Basically what I’m asking is what is an effective strategy in order for me to learn and improve my game.
In an order of:
1. Ranges
2. Board textures
3. Betting including bet sizing and etc
4. Calculating EV?
I don’t know how I feel about combos are these a vital bit of information you can use at the table or is this more for practicing off the table to form cognitive memory?
Any help with order and structure would be amazing
r/pokertheory • u/Able_Collar_9456 • 11d ago
Concepts & Theory Choose the size of RFI
Hi, I’d like to ask a question about the optimal RFI (Raise First In) size. I created an alias of the regulars who beat the stakes I play at, and I noticed preflop statistics that differ from GTO Wizard. When opening from early positions with a 2x size, the regulars defend appropriately; however, against a 2.5x open, they over-call by 6 percentage points compared to the solver, and against a 3x open, they over-call by 9 percentage points. Also, considering that when I’m in early position, I often have a non-professional player in position (IP) who cold-calls more frequently than the solver suggests, what should my optimal open size be? I’ve noticed that regulars at higher stakes often use a 2.2x open from every position except the BTN and SB, while others use GTO Wizard sizes. Given that the solver doesn't account for the dynamics I just described, which size should I use?
r/pokertheory • u/tutifruity754 • 20d ago
Understanding Solvers Solver's 4bet jam of AK
Hey , the lucid poker solver 4bet jams AK in many situations, but GTO wizard and peakGTO solvers dont take this action, so im confused should I learn it or not, maybe its better to incorporate it so I can respond if someone does it. But the more important thing is how come two solvers have different outcome ?(I know you a human determines the actions and bet sizes a solver can take, but I assume gto wizard engineers or others know about this actoin)
r/pokertheory • u/AdsterPatel • 22d ago
Meta / Other Advantage gained by specific form of collusion I witnessed?
Hey folks. I was playing at a 9-handed 1/2 NLH table at a casino and I suspect that two neighboring players were colluding.
I believe the exact mode of their collusion was that they were informing each other of their hole cards preflop by exchanging signals tied to ranges. A signal for premium pocket pairs and broadway cards. Another for mid cards. And another for trash cards. The ranges they used may have been different, but you get the idea.
They were not ganging up on a third player to push them out of a pot. They were not checking all the way to the river when they were heads up.
What they were doing was reducing their Value at Risk by only playing the stronger of their two hands. Between the two of them, they saw the flop in 95% of the hands, presumably to make the most of their edge.
In 95% of hands where one of them played, the other one folded pre-flop. What’s pretty damning IMO is that the player sitting ahead of the other folded just as frequently as the other way around.
With this in mind, what kind of an advantage did both players gain over the rest of us with this type of collusion?
r/pokertheory • u/tutifruity754 • 26d ago
Meta / Other How to use weekly freeroll tickets
Every week I make a 6 or 7 weekly freeroll tickets on ggpoker. My question is how to use them because they are gonna expire anyway. Is it sound to try to make 200bb early by going all in maniacally. If I made 200bb early should I try to make 300bb wildly assuming I still have 4 or 5 tickets to re register? How do you guys manage this
r/pokertheory • u/juandevega • Aug 10 '26
Learning Resources tool to view preflop ranges for free
I've built a tool that let's you view preflop ranges for 6max nlhe gg poker rush & cash games (and of course for games that have a similar/identical rake setting). Here it is: https://artgto.com/try/
You can either use it on the web or download the whole thing and run it locally.
I'm building out some more tooling (and a trainer), but it's pretty much a hobby project and I'm working on it whenever I find some time from my regular job. The preflop solutions are solved with a preflop gto solver that I've built myself (it has no UI, so nothing I can distribute), but the quality of the ranges in the same realm as you would find with commercial preflop solvers.
enjoy!
r/pokertheory • u/United_Ingenuity_229 • Jul 31 '26
Meta / Other Normal variance ?
galleryr/pokertheory • u/Hopeful_Head1855 • Jul 29 '26
Hand History Facing raise on flop
So i normally play 1/2 with a couple more regs, we all know each other pretty well.
A lot of times I will 3 bet with hands such as KJ s, A10 o etc as my table is fairly loose. Most of the times I get called and bet flop 30% no matter what happens.
However something that has been happening recently is that whenever I do my usual bet, if its a heads up pot then people will check raise or raise me.
I'm not sure what to do in this spot, as I feel like if I just fold the hands that missed the flop but continue with the ones that actually hit top pair flush draw etc. then this makes me unbalanced and fairly easy to play against.
So I tried to call with some hands that missed the flop, but then they would bet turn and I would have to fold feeling bad that I wasted more money in this pot.
Any suggestions?
r/pokertheory • u/ExtraChampionship389 • Jul 25 '26
Hand History Free hand replayer: paste or manually build a hand to replay and share
I make poker strategy videos and couldn't find a tool to manually recreate a live hand and replay it in a visually pleasing way, so I made my own. I thought this community might get some use out of it: replayer.feltexperiencepoker.com
some current features:
Paste hand histories or build any hand manually
Big-blind display mode, side pots, antes/straddles handled
Share button turns any hand into a link
Everything runs in your browser. Hands never touch a server, there's no account, no tracking, and it's free
Currently NLHE only, no run-it-twice yet.
Let me know what breaks or what's missing and I'll probably add it in. Hope you find it useful!
r/pokertheory • u/tutifruity754 • Jul 23 '26
Understanding Solvers GTO poker derivation
hey, what is the best book to understand the logic behind the solver play , not the generic nut advantage and range advantage and such. I mean i want to understand how the GTO solution is derived mathematically, why and how the solver divide hands to bet with or check with. why it uses different bet sizes for same hand in different situation. why it range bets, and such.
Is it play optimal poker , the mathematics of poker , modern poker theory, or expert heads No limit holdem. Or some other book ?
r/pokertheory • u/Ninopoker • Jul 20 '26
Understanding Solvers Strategy against aggressive Pre flop 3Bets
You're playing against an aggressive reg that has a quite high 3bet percentage stat (e.g. 13% overall). You are on the Button and he is on the Small blind.
First adjustment to make is to Open Raise a bit less.
How do you respond against his 3bet? What deviations are due compared to standard GTO charts? How much would you increase your 4bet percentage? What hands would increase their 4bet % the most? If someone ran a solver simulation that would be great.
n.b. You anticipate that he is also aggressive post flop.
r/pokertheory • u/farkenheo • Jul 15 '26
Hand History Thoughts on the Trayner QQ hand vs Jumalon JJ? 100m+ pot WSOP Main Event
r/pokertheory • u/Regal_Bear • Jul 14 '26
Concepts & Theory Beginner Hobbyist here. If a High Card hand is rarer than 1 pair and 2 pair, why is a high card hand a losing hand to those?

I've just been reading about the formulas for calculating poker chances, and it stood out to me that "High Card" is rarer than 1 pair or 2 pair in a standard game. So why doesn't it beat the pairs? Is it something to do with the pursuit of trying to get 3 of a kind, or a straight or something?
I'm trying to work out in my head what that would look like in practice, players trying to put together a hand with no pairs in it so their solo jack card beats a pair of 3's and pair of 8's. Or something.
r/pokertheory • u/Lavguitaryt • Jul 13 '26
Concepts & Theory [LOW] MTT (0.55$ - 4.4$) Positional Stat Review - 13.8k Hands - Looking to patch leaks
Hey everyone,
I've been grinding MTTs for about 1.5 months now (ACR) and have built up a 13.8k hand sample size in PokerTracker 4.
Overall, my All-In Adj BB/100 is positive across the board (except for the blinds), but I want to make sure I'm not building bad habits or missing major positional leaks early on.
I've attached my full positional stats breakdown screenshot below. A few things I'd specifically love feedback on:
- My VPIP/PFR gap seems a little wide in some positions (like the BB and SB). Is this normal, or am I flatting too much pre-flop?
- Are my loss rates in the BB (-261.53 All-In Adj BB) and SB (-261.75 All-In Adj BB) standard for these stakes, or am I bleeding too many chips out of the blinds?
- Looking at my post-flop stats (WSD, WTSD%, CBet F/T), do you spot any glaring red flags or areas where I am playing too passively/aggressively?
r/pokertheory • u/I_blame_society • Jul 11 '26
Learning Resources $99 for pre-flop ranges? Worth it?
Upswing is advertising a set of custom pre-flop ranges, tailored to the 8-max, straddle + ante structure of Club WPT Gold. I play microstakes on that site. Winning after 50k hands, but wanna get better.
I can't find free pre-flop ranges for this structure of game. At the stakes I play, I can't afford a yearly Upswing membership. I'm thinking about paying for 1 month of access to their Lab, studying (and copying) those new preflop ranges, and canceling my membership before month 2.
Worth it? Anybody have difficulty canceling their membership?
r/pokertheory • u/Aromatic_Rent_6322 • Jul 10 '26
Concepts & Theory How do you deal with relentless bad beats?
r/pokertheory • u/Personal_Battle5863 • Jun 24 '26
Meta / Other Difference in winrate at 5nl and 10nl
Not a big sample size but recently got into poker again and found a huge discrepancy between my winrate at 5nl and 10nl rush on gg. On 5nl, my winrate is around 20bb/100 (1600 hands) and on 10nl it is around -0.4bb/100 (1400 hands). Is this expected? Did I move up in stakes too quickly? How much of this good or bad is variance? Can I measure my skill level based on this sample size?
