The Poker Triangle

Many of you are familiar with the game Rock Paper Scissors. In Rock Paper Scissors two players simultaneously make hand signals that denote a rock, paper, or scissors. A fist denotes a rock. A flat hand denotes paper. Two fingers pointing out denote scissors. A rock dulls scissors. Paper covers a rock. Scissors cut paper. This is how one of the players wins the game. 

Poker is similar in that the three exploitable player types beat each other. They are:

• Maniac – Maniacs beat nits.
• Nit – Nits beat calling stations (heretofore known as ‘stations’).
• Station – Stations beat maniacs.

Your goal as a solid player is to adjust your normally optimal, balanced strategy to be more similar to that of the player type that beats a player you have encountered in your game.

You shouldn’t normally play a Game Theory Optimal (GTO) – approved strategy very often. The goal is to determine how an opponent deviates from GTO strategy and then craft a strategy that deviates from GTO strategy in a way that get optimal results for you. This is how you exploit an opponent’s strategy.

A solver such as GTO+ can show you how to squeeze every last penny from an opponent if you force one of the simulated solver players to play like that opponent. This is known as a maximally exploitative strategy. It involves adjustments at every decision point, in order to maximize the number of hands you play against the opponent and then exploit every decision node.

Whenever you deviate from GTO strategy to exploit an opponent, you risk counter-exploitation. Maximally exploitative strategies are usually easy for your opponent to detect. Just because an opponent plays suboptimal poker doesn’t mean he’s stupid. When your exploitative strategy is counter-exploited, it’s more costly for you than the benefit you gained from your exploitative.

A better plan is to use what is known as a minimally exploitative strategy. When you use a minimally exploitative strategy, your opponent must become a better poker player inside of his mind to detect what you are doing, much less develop a counter-exploitative strategy against you. In the long run this is more profitable, especially if you expect to encounter this opponent for many hands in the future.

A minimally exploitative strategy deviates just enough from optimal to go undetected by the opponent, sometimes for many years.

As the old saying goes: You can shear a sheep a hundred times but only skin him once.

Maniacs bet and raise more often than is optimal. They play an unbalanced strategy weighted heavily in favor of bluffing. They may also be value betting more thinly than optimal. There is actually a case for playing this way.

Lower stakes players tend to overfold, allowing the maniac to profit directly from bluffs. Bluffs should not make much direct profit in a GTO strategy. Their purpose is to force opponents to pay off your value hands. But maniacs make money from them because of the opponents’ overfolding.

Maniacs goad their opponents into calling them down lighter than they normally would for big pots when the maniac actually has a premium hand.

Nits play tighter preflop ranges than what is optimal. They are risk-averse. They overfold if they miss the flop. Nits are often limpers too. They want to see flops as cheaply as possible. Once nits finally get a hand they like, they play it aggressively, and want to go the distance with it.

Many nits are slightly profitable. This is because they usually win at showdown, and don’t get that far with marginal holdings. But they leave a lot of money on the table.

You exploit nits by adjusting your strategy to something that more closely resembles a maniac. Don’t be an actual maniac. Just be a little more aggressive than GTO would suggest.

One way to do this is when in late position, bet into their blinds mercilessly. You can steal their blinds with any two cards. Fold once in awhile so the nit will not become incensed with your larceny. This way you can keep profiting without being counter-exploited.
 

Stations hate folding. They like to see flops. They call flop and sometimes turn bets with any kind of draw, even if they aren’t getting a good price for it. They think of Texas hold’em like gin rummy. They are hoping to hit sets, straights and flushes, and then win big pots with them.

First of all, don’t be the one at your table to find out a new opponent is a station. This information is expensive. Let someone else find that out the hard way about him.

You exploit a station by adjusting from your optimal strategy to something a little bit more like a nit. Don’t be an actual full-blown nit. Just tighten your play somewhat.

The way to exploit the station is to avoid bluffing them without a big draw. You can merge your betting ranges to add more thin value hands and remove the bluffs that are in the polarized part of these ranges. Because the station calls more often than optimally, you can increase your profit by betting bigger than usual. If the draw they’re chasing gets there, you’ll have to give up.

One special subset of stations is stabbers. They think of themselves as sharks in the water that can smell blood.

Stabbers call you in position preflop with an excessively high frequency, hoping you will show weakness by checking the flop. If you bet the flop, they call, hoping you will show weakness on the turn. If you show weakness on the flop or turn, they try to bluff you with all kinds of trash. I’ll go into more detail about stabbers in my next blog.

The poker triangle is a nice little tool for your toolbox. It can help to remind you how to adjust your strategy against the different types of suboptimal play you find.

 
Good luck out there, and happy fishing!