Quote Originally Posted by Pelion View Post
Are you saying that if you joined a game of rock paper scissors and noticed that everyone picked scissors every time, you wouldn't figure out you should start off playing rock until Nash solved it for you?
I think he's just saying:

If you learn GTO then you know what optimal is.
If you know what optimal is you can recognize other players playing optimally and other players playing sub-optimally.
If you know how a player is playing sub-optimally (how they are deviating from optimal) then you know how you can exploit this players tendencies by also deviating your play from optimal.