BUT WHAT'S YOUR RANGE

Let me get this straight. Savvy, tell me if this is what you're thinking:

At the micros, people make lots of mistakes. If we have a good understanding of their tendencies and can hand read etc, then we can play exploitatively and crush them without any GTO knowledge at all. I think this is what Carroters is saying. And this is possible even if we aren't hand reading because there are heuristics ie ABC poker that will let you crush the micros.

I think what Savvy is saying is that, if you're so inclined, you can learn GTO from the beginning. And why not, if you move up, you'll want to know it later anyway. And (I think this is his main point), against bad play like at the micros, balanced GTO is still going to be winning. That in fact ABC heuristics are kind of outdated and we should just start with GTO. It will be just as profitable, maybe a little more effort than learning ABC, but just as good for people starting out or not yet moved up.

I don't know if that's true but that's what I'm hearing, and it is a very interesting idea.

So the question is:

You're a microstakes player. You're serious about the game but right now not very good. You want to learn, win, and move up, of course. What is better? Learning ABC, and delaying GTO, maybe forever? Or starting with GTO? And foregoing the common wisdom that is ABC?

Originally Posted by abelardx

You're a microstakes player. You're serious about the game but right now not very good. You want to learn, win, and move up, of course. What is better? Learning ABC, and delaying GTO, maybe forever? Or starting with GTO? And foregoing the common wisdom that is ABC?

We shouldn't see ABC as the alternative to GTO. There are lots of non ABC optimal decisions we can make for good logical reasons that have nothing to do with GTO or what's best for our range over an infinity of some spot occurring.

But yeah I agree that understanding GTO before you have any kind of competent basic poker thought process is going to lead to confusion and bad decisions for the most part.