Exploiting the Unexploitable: An Exercise

Quick update: PLO cash has been rocky. 1 good session, 4 bad. My main takeaway is to size down my thick value bets. I don’t look like someone who fucks around. Secondary takeaway—think about river bluffing more (inverse of the main takeaway). Tertiary takeaway—the basic strategy is sound. Wait for equity & then press it hard.

On to exploiting the unexploitable. In the previous post I asked whether a GTO player could be exploited in a field containing exploitable players. I think the answer is yes. Here’s a toy game & the game tree.

We have a winner-take-all 3-person tournament: Gee (GTO), Ex (exploitive), & Fish (obvious).

Here is the game tree of outcomes.

What are the weights on the branches? (Making up numbers to sharpen intuition here.)

• Fish goes out first 50%.

• Ex has been accumulating more of Fish’s chips than Gee but losing to Gee. Which effect is stronger? Is this a net gain for Ex? It depends on how bad Fish is. I’d guess, given recent experience, that exploiting fish is higher EV than playing GTO versus an exploiter. Assuming this, Ex goes out first 20%.

• Gee goes out first the other 30%.

Now what happens? Heads up:

• Fish loses to Gee maybe 65% of the time.

• Fish loses to Ex maybe 70% of the time.

• Ex loses to Gee—this is the interesting node. Ex ended with more than their share of Fish’s chips. Is the chip lead more valuable to Ex than the skill edge is to Gee? Let’s say it’s 50/50.

And the winner is 🥁:

• Ex with 46%

• Gee with 38%

• Fish with 16%

Take all this with a massive grain of salt. The weights are totally made up. Make up your own numbers. Change them around.

I didn’t perform this exercise to find “the answer”. I wanted a model that would explain Mr. Matusow’s observation that GTO player win in fields where everyone else is playing GTO but lose in larger fields with more exploitable & exploitive players.

(The superior strategy is to exploit the exploitable & break even with the GTOers, but I’m having enough trouble learning one style.)

Psychology

I’m going to leave you with a parallel between GTO/Poker and my work life, which mostly involves given advice to geeks about programming. My life’s mission is to help geeks feel safe in the world. I’m nervous publishing about GTO because the reactions to any discussion of GTO quickly get emotional. Why does that happen?

When I started applying GTO to poker it was with a great sense of relief. I had been playing by the seat of my pants & getting crushed. Here was a way to play where, if only I could learn all of it, I never had to worry about making a mistake! What a relief 😅.

Critiquing GTO is akin to taking away that security blanket. I felt anxious. I learned this thing & I felt better. Now you’re telling me that thing wasn’t actually making me safe? 😖

The same thing happens in programming. A geek feels unsafe, learns a technique & feels safe, then discovers the limitations of the technique. What happens next? Pretend those limitations don’t exist & go back to a state of bliss? That doesn’t work. You’re smart. You know you’re fooling yourself. There’s no going back.

The path I try to take is feel those feelings of disillusionment. No the technique isn’t perfect. Yes I feel afraid again. No I don’t “like” that feeling but that’s what’s happening now. Breathe. Let it pass. It will. On the other side I’ll be even safer than I was before.

Posture

Off to work on my posture & breathing some more. See you at the tables.