Pot Limit Omaha: Should You Go GTO or Exploitative?

Since the introduction of poker solvers to No-Limit Holdem game theory optimal (GTO), it has been the hottest buzzword in the poker community. Nowadays, almost every player either has some idea of how GTO looks (according to them) or at least has heard about it, and it sits at the centre of any serious PLO strategy.

What Does GTO Mean in Poker?

Whenever we talk about the game theory optimal strategy in the context of poker, we refer to the unexploitable strategy. A fully GTO strategy assumes all of your decisions are optimal, and the best result your opponent can achieve against such a strategy is to tie (considering an infinite number of hands). That being said, while GTO can't lose, it is not the highest-EV strategy either.

After all, if you're almost sure your opponent never bluffs, there's no point in bluff-catching.

While we're getting better and better at understanding the GTO, poker is so complex that humans won't ever be able to play optimally. The first solvers created were designed to help people learn No Limit Hold'em, and even that game is far too complex ever to be played perfectly by a human being. PLO not only include many more preflop combinations (which makes preflop much more challenging to master) but also flop spots are often played multiway, which only adds another layer of complexity.

Simply put, playing GTO won't make you achieve the highest possible win rate.

What Is an Exploitative Approach in Poker?

The exploitative approach assumes that your opponents have inevitable leaks in their game, and you aim to identify them and take maximum advantage of their presence. That's a very traditional approach to the game, which was the foundation of most pre-solver strategy. While it is a very effective strategy, today, we know there are better choices than playing entirely exploitatively (at least against skilled players).

So, what should you do if striving for GTO is not the highest-EV strategy and an exploitative approach won't work well against tough competition? You should learn how the optimal strategy works and adjust what you've learned to what your actual opponents do.

As we've hinted above, if you're playing low stakes against opponents who hate folding, there's not much sense in bluffing. For example, looking for the best combos with a nut flush blocker to bluff with won't be the best idea against a person who won't fold any flush on a river.

Common Myths About Optimal Poker Strategy

We can't stress it enough: nobody, including the best poker players in the world, can play GTO. Even they deviate from the optimal strategy and, as a result, become exploitative. And you should always remember that whenever you think there's little to no edge to gain!

GTO is a term thrown around frequently, leading to many misconceptions in the poker community. It is very easy to fall prey to them.

One of the most common myths is that if you don't play GTO, other players will exploit you, and it will be hard to be a winning player. Poker (in any format) is a game of constant exploitation and counter-exploitation. And since nobody can play "perfect", you shouldn't worry about being unable to do it yourself. You should focus on understanding how certain situations "should" play out, how players you play against daily deviate from the theory and how you should design your exploitative counter-strategy.

Another misconception is that if a play is not solver-approved, it is 100% bad. Unless we're talking about opening the absolute worst hands, like quads, or stacking off with terrible preflop combos like J742, there's some wiggle room for adjustments.

Opening a little looser than you're supposed to doesn't necessarily mean you've made a mistake since you must consider what your opponent does. Do they defend appropriately against a raise? Do they 3-bet a lot? If not, you can likely open a little looser than GTO dictates, and those opens become +EV.

The last myth is that the games are super tough nowadays, and everybody studies GTO strategies day and night. While admittedly, the average level of a poker player is higher than a few years ago, PLO is still far less studied than Hold'em.

Pot Limit Omaha is a game full of nuances which allow you to generate more significant edges than No Limit Hold'em. To enable people to do so, we've created PLO Genius, a PLO solver with preflop and postflop solutions.

Understanding how GTO works will help you find the lines with the most considerable expected value. Be aware of how the spot is supposed to be played and adjust accordingly to what happens.

How Do You Translate Theory into Practice?

How can you use your theoretical knowledge to exploit your opponent in Pot Limit Omaha cash games? If you have some experience playing against a similar level of players over time, you're very likely to observe certain tendencies.

Exploitation starts with observation. Whenever you construct your own game plan, you divide it into universal categories: your opening ranges, the hands you 3-bet, how you react to 3-bets, how often you c-bet in and out of position, and so on. Think about your opponents the same way. Preflop, the first questions are simple: how wide do they open, how often do they call, and are they 3-bet happy or more of a calling station? Another important factor is how they play from the blinds: do they defend aggressively, refuse to fold most holdings, or fall somewhere in between? Remember that solver ranges describe an equilibrium where everyone plays GTO; the opponents at your average PLO table won't be close to that level of accuracy.

Postflop, one of the first areas to focus on is how your opponents c-bet and react to c-bets. You'll still meet players who bet almost their entire range without much thought, as well as those who call c-bets with nearly any hand that has some equity. Then comes their approach to bluffing: do they bluff frequently, do they use Ace-high flush blockers to apply pressure with larger bets, do they stab at missed pots? Or do they have other leaks, like overplaying Aces on bad boards?

While evaluating opponents according to predefined terms helps capture their tendencies, stay open-minded and don't go too far with your assumptions. If someone calls every raise preflop, does it necessarily mean they will go out of line bluffing rivers? Often, the opposite is true: people who play too wide preflop are calling stations on the flop and hardly ever bluff rivers. A far-fetched assumption will cost you dearly if you miss a piece of information you could have observed earlier.

The more often you play against the same opponents, the more a simple system of notes or labels pays off. The exact way of labeling is up to you, since different systems work for different players; a good starting point is tagging recreational players as passive or aggressive and marking the obvious leaks you spot at first glance. Many poker apps let you build your own color-code system, and if your software tracks opponents' stats, use it: with a decent sample, you can draw conclusions that would be hard to reach otherwise.

A few trends that you're likely to notice in micro-low stakes (both in online poker and live games) are:

• players are especially cold call-happy preflop
• players do not 3-bet as wide as they should
• 4-bet ranges are extremely AAxx heavy
• there is not much leading going on

How can you adjust to exploit such tendencies?

Whenever you're in a game with a lot of cold calling going on, there will be many multiway pots. As a result, you won't have as much folding equity as you should, according to GTO, when you raise preflop. How can you adjust? You should play tighter preflop, as it's the best way to set up "cooler" scenarios in your favor.

Subsequently, when it comes to 3-betting, most of the lower-stakes population will prefer calling pre rather than 3-bet, so their 3-bets will be much more value-heavy than they should be in theory. To exploit that, you can fold more than you would against balanced opponents without fearing that you overfold.

This trend is even more apparent regarding 4-bets, likely to be almost exclusively AAxx hands. When that's the case, you can relatively easily choose hands to continue with, given the SPR in your exact situation, while folding hands that play very poorly against Aces.

Lastly, contrary to No Limit Hold'em, leading into the preflop raiser is a much more viable strategy in PLO. Since your average opponent won't be up to date with that, you have to assume their range is more robust than the solver would assume. How do you react to that? You must check back more often since you face a solid range of hands.

Outsmarting Your Opponent Is the Most Fun Aspect of Poker

Not only is it a great feeling, but it's also the foundation of your win rate. Remember, to outsmart anybody, you must know what they are doing wrong and what they should be doing.

PLO Genius shows you how a spot is supposed to be played. With many preflop scenarios and a constantly updated postflop database, you'll improve your PLO skills quickly, especially if you structure your study. The free Starter plan covers 100bb preflop for heads-up and 6-max, in four-card and five-card PLO, with the trainer and no time limit.