Exploits
I asked for it, and you guys didn’t disappoint!
Based on the amount of emails I received, it’s clear you guys want to continue our exploration of our 4-Levels of Exploitation framework. Last week we covered levels 1 and 2. I told you that level 2 can already double the amount of money you can make with exploitative strategies. Now, levels 3 and 4 – which you will learn today – have the potential to 5x your already doubled returns. This is the path to making 10x more money with exploits. Let’s get into it. CONTEXT AND RECAP A Level 1 Type of exploit is about reacting to the opponent’s mistake. He acts, you react immediately after. He overbluffs, you overcall. He underbluffs, you overfold. He checks too weak, you overbluff. He checks too strong, you overcheck. This is the easiest and most obvious form of exploitation possible. Every reasonable player can implement Level 1 exploits. For that reason, it’s unlikely you’ll become a great player by simply executing level 1 exploits. There is little edge to be obtained by executing something so simple that all your competitors can (and will) execute themselves. So while Level 1 exploits are not the answer we need if we are trying to improve our poker game, the fact that almost everyone stops here presents great opportunity for edge generation – provided we are able to go deeper.
LEVEL 2 EXPLOITATION
This is what we covered last week. A Level 2 Type of exploit is about vision. It is about developing a fundamental understanding of the game of poker, which can be summarized in the following sentence:
| If an action is imbalanced, then all of it’s adjacents actions are also imbalanced
Adjacent actions are all of the actions a player can take when it’s his turn to act:
Betting is adjacent to checking, and vice-versa
Calling, folding and raising are all adjacent to each other
What our above expression conveys is that there is no way for a betting range to be imbalanced and the corresponding adjacent checking range to be balanced. If the betting range is imbalanced, so will be the checking range. The same can be said about calling, folding and raising ranges.
If a raising range is imbalanced, then the calling and folding ranges will also be imbalanced. If the folding range is exploitable, so are the raising and calling ranges.
Understanding this fundamental principle of theory changes everything in how you approach poker. Now you start to see exploits everywhere, not just where it’s obvious.
Someone that bets too strong is obviously exploitable – you just fold. But if the betting range is too strong, then the checking range must be too weak. Next time you play against this imbalanced player, not only you should exploit his strong betting ranges, but also his weak checking ranges;
Someone that checks too strong is obviously exploitable – you just check yourself. But if the checking range is too strong, then the betting range must be too weak. Next time you play someone with this tendency, instead of focusing on playing passively vs their checks, you should also start playing aggressively vs their bets.
Do this and you’ll already develop a substantial edge compared to the average regular.
From my experience as a player and coach however, the amount of players that can execute exploits at this level are almost non existent. Imagine how much money you can make if you can execute what you are going to see next.
LEVEL 3 – THE CASCADING EFFECT
The Level 3 Type of Exploitation digs deeper on the very same idea from level 2, and expands it. Mistakes and imbalances not only affect the adjacent actions, they also affect the future actions.
The best analogy we can use to understand Level 3 is the Domino effect. Everyone understands the domino effect – if you have multiple dominoes lined up, knocking over the first domino doesn’t just affect that piece – it sets off a chain reaction where each next domino falls because of the one before it. This is a cascade effect. From Google:
“A cascade effect is a chain reaction where a single event triggers a series of consequences that spread through a system. These events are often sequential and interconnected, with one effect leading to another, resulting in an inevitable, and sometimes unforeseen, series of changes that can impact many components of the system”
The exact same thing happens in poker. An imbalance introduced in one specific node doesn’t just affect that node (level 1). It also doesn’t just affect the adjacent actions of the node (level 2). It affects the future nodes and actions too (Level 3). If your opponent knocks an early domino in his strategy, the subsequent dominoes – his future actions and strategies – may also fall as a consequence.
Level 3 can be formally expressed with the following sentence:
| An imbalanced action on the current street not only introduces imbalances in the adjacent actions, but also in all of the subsequent actions over future nodes
This is powerful shit. If you can understand this, you get much closer to becoming a crusher. This cascading effect is the main reason why online recreational players overbluff rivers (if you are not familiar with this fact, you need to consume more of my content). Recreational players massively overcall preflop. They call with a much wider range than what is correct facing a raise, from all positions. You can sometimes see them calling 3x opens with Q7o. This initial preflop mistake cascades to future streets, making them get to the river with incredibly weak ranges. These weak ranges, when not controlled properly, lead to big overbluffing tendencies. One initial preflop mistake lead to another big mistake, 3 streets later. Level 3 exploits are about adjusting your future street strategy, with the understanding that the current imbalance from your opponent will cause even more imbalances in the future. A practical, easy to understand example is the reverse of the recreational player – the nit. A player that plays too tight on early streets doesn’t really get to the river with enough weak hands to bluff enough, right? That’s the reason you overfold against them – when you see that their preflop or flop range is super strong, you know that this will have consequences down the road, and for that reason you adjust your future street strategy in the direction of overfolding.
You already do some form of Level 3 exploitation intuitively. Now the challenge is to apply this to every situation. This will unlock huge edge for you.
IN-DEPTH EXAMPLE – CONSTRUCTING LEVELS 1, 2 AND 3 EXPLOITS
Imagine you are playing the same opponent consistently, and some Metagame starts to develop between you two. He noticed you are very aggressive, so he starts overprotecting his checking ranges with strong hands, waiting for you to put money into the pot.
Obviously, you won’t let him get away with it, and you want to prepare yourself for how to adjust against this imbalance he just introduced to his strategy. How do you stop playing the game, and start playing the Metagame? Let’s answer this together.
Imagine you are playing BTN vs BB with him. Flop came KT5tt and you decided to check back.
Remember, he is in the mood of overprotecting his checking ranges. Once the turn comes, what is on your mind?
The most obvious adjustment you can take here is the Level 1 adjustment. If he is overprotecting his checking range, then now you must play more passively yourself when facing a check. If he checks, you will adjust your baseline strategy to be more passive.
That’s in fact what a solver would do. If we put this situation in a solver simulation, and we force the OOP player to check an overprotected checking range, the IP (our Hero) delayed cbet frequency goes from 34% in GTO to only 21% as a Level 1 Exploit:
It’s also noticeable how we never use the overbet size anymore, as villain’s range is way too strong.
Now let’s start applying what we learned. Instead of simply playing more passively vs his checks, we can use a Level 2 exploit to adjust against his betting range. If he is overprotecting his checking range, then his probe range here will be capped and weak, allowing us to exploit him further.
This is what a GTO defense looks like vs a balanced turn probe from OOP (125% size):
Want to take a guess at how much you should adjust this response vs a weak, capped betting range?
..............................
.
This is the solver max EV response vs the capped betting range:
We go from folding 52% to only 25%, and start raising 22% of the time for thin value + bluffs! When was the last time you pulled something like that? Yeah, never. Even 22 became a profitable call against the turn overbet:
This is the power of a Level 2 exploit.
Now, what about the river? What’s going to happen on the river if we know this guy is probing a capped range?
2 things are going to happen:
– He will very likely overbluff the river, given how he lacks value, allowing us to call him down light (he can still prevent this by giving up most of his bluffs on the river, but most people won’t);
– His betting range will continue to be capped, just like on the turn, allowing us to raise for thin value when he bets, just like we did on the turn;
– He will have a capped checking range, allowing us to value bet thinner when he checks; In fact, solver value bets 88 on the river (which is 3rd pair on this board), after facing a check from the opponent. A hand that was clearly a check at equilibrium became a thin value reopen vs a capped player.
This is the super power of a Level 3 Exploit. You fucked up one street? I will hunt you down, not just for this mistake, but for all the subsequent mistakes you are going to make in your strategy as a consequence of the first one.
If you enjoyed the read so far, then the last Level will blow your mind even more. You will finish reading this newsletter super fired up to crush your opponents at the tables on your next session 😎
We covered how an imbalance introduced on a given node generates imbalances on the adjacent actions of the same node and on future nodes of villain’s strategy. With Level 1 exploits you exploit the target action.
With Level 2 Exploits you exploit the adjacent actions. And with Level 3 Exploits you exploit the future actions. Level 4 exploits them all at once. And it does so by adjusting before the mistakes even happened. LEVEL 4 EXPLOITS – ANTICIPATION Level 1 Exploits are about REACTION. Level 2 Exploits are about AWARENESS and VISION. Level 3 Exploits are about COHERENCE. Level 4 Exploits are about ANTICIPATION.
The idea of anticipation is really simple. You know that your opponent has a certain tendency that creates lots of imbalances in his strategy: perhaps he bets too strong and checks too weak when given the chance, perhaps he does the opposite and checks too strong, which leads to betting too weak.
If you can successfully exploit all these imbalances, you just gained an amount of EV you weren’t collecting before. That being said, you can only collect this new EV if the opportunity arises, right? If his mistake is checking too strong on the turn probe, you only get to collect money from him if you actually check the flop.
Anticipation is about funneling your opponent to nodes they play the worst. By doing so, you maximize the chance you will have the opportunity to exploit them with Levels 1, 2 and 3 exploits. This is simply the max exploit strategy against your opponent, because now that you know they play that node so poorly, all the previous street nodes that lead to this opportunity have their EV increased.
In our example, the way you would do this is by checking the flop more often, to give your opponent the opportunity to fuck up the turn more often, giving you more EV. So while GTO checks back the flop 66% of the time:
A player that is applying the concept of anticipation to make more money would check 88%:
I use anticipation A LOT in my strategy. I have built solver models that allow me to see not only what’s the Level 1 exploit against my opponent’s leak, but also what are levels 2, 3 and 4.
For example, a common scenario in online cash games is to face an opponent that double barrels too passively as the IP aggressor. Imagine you are BB vs BTN and you know that the IP player will check back most of his bluffs on the turn if you call him on the flop.
How would you exploit this player?
The level 1 answer is “I would overfold to his turn bet”. Right, hard to think of something more obvious than this. But it’s crazy to me how most people stop here.
If this guy is checking most of his bluffs, then yeah his betting range is too strong, but also his checking range is too weak. If he checks back the turn, I will punish him with an overbluffing strategy, knowing that his range is full of air and therefore he will overfold to my bets. This is simultaneously a Level 2 exploit, as it exploits the adjacent action, but also a Level 3 exploit, as it exploits an overfold on a future street caused by an imbalance in the previous street.
Now, what would be the Level 4 exploit here?
Remember that if the opponent is making a mistake you can exploit in multiple ways, this means that now this node is super valuable to you. There is a lot of money to be made on this node, so you want to get there more often. How would you get there more often, in this case?
The answer here is that you should overcall flop. In fact, when I ran this model using a solver, simulating a passive IP player on the turn, the solver adjusted by calling any 2 cards on the flop.
If you can’t understand this, I can make it simple to you: when your opponent checks too many of his bluffs on the turn, lots of things happen at the same time:
1. You see the river more often. By cutting down bluffs, his checking frequency increases, allowing you to see the river more often and realize your equity. This already significantly increases EV
2. After he checks back, his range is filled with garbage. If you didn’t hit your hand, you can simply turn it into a bluff and make massive profit, as your opponent will be significantly overfolding
These 2 things combined cause the Level 4 exploit to be to never fold the flop again vs this player.
Stating Level 4 in a more formal, theoretical way, we should say:
| An imbalanced action on the current node by our opponent, if properly exploited, increases the EV of all nodes that lead to it
If your opponent overbluffs the river with the triple barrel, calling the turn has now increased in EV. You should overcall turn. If your opponent checks too much on the turn double barrel, calling the flop AND PREFLOP has now increased in EV. You should overcall flop and preflop.
RECAP AND SUMMARY
1) A Level 1 Exploit exploits the target action. It is the most obvious form of exploitation in poker. It focuses on adjusting your response immediately after villain’s mistake. In our previous example, we checked more often vs a strong checking range.
2) A Level 2 Exploit exploits the adjacent action. In our previous example, checking too strong lead to the betting range becoming too weak. Any imbalanced action always makes the adjacent actions also imbalanced.
3) A Level 3 Exploit exploits the future actions. A mistake introduced in one given node has consequences to future nodes. In our previous example, checking being too strong lead to betting being too weak, which lead to a capped river range. We then thin value bet vs the capped river range.
4) A Level 4 Exploit exploits all of them at once by funneling the opponent to the imbalanced node. In our previous example, the fact that villain makes all of these mistakes once we check back the flop causes the flop check line to increase in EV. We want to check more often because checking is now more profitable, as we are able to exploit villain turn and river ranges.
Crushers are made of players who can consistently identify and execute Levels 2, 3 and 4 exploits in their gameplan.
There you have it. I delivered what I promised you! A super high level article on exploitative strategies. I haven’t seen this topic being explored by any poker coach in this industry, in any paid program. Imagine completely for free like I just did.
I hope your heart now is filled with gratitude, because I would like to ask you for one small favor. I want to grow my audience on Instagram, a platform that is more poker friendly than YouTube, which is what I’ve been prioritizing since 2023.
If you want me to continue writing this newsletter, then you must go there and follow me. If I don’t get at least 500 followers, I will decrease the newsletter frequency to once every 2 weeks, instead of weekly.
If you don’t want that to happen, please click here and follow me on Instagram. Thanks for reading my friend.
See you next week.
In the meantime – don’t play the game. Play the Metagame.
Saulo
Poker Made Simple Newsletter
A new post every monday to help you make more money at the tables. Completely for free.
