BUT WHAT'S YOUR RANGE

Originally Posted by daven

genuine question re the above. Savvy, you are probably best placed to answer this well.

is it not better to deviate from optimal (i'm assuming you mean GTO in this context) in the way that you know is most likely to exploit population norms when you're up against an unknown? unless you think that unknowns are likely to be very, very good?

When I say optimal I do mean GTO ye, it's shitty language but everyone I've seen speak about this before uses it so it's just trying to be consistent and if you don't get it a bit of logic should be able to deduce what I mean like you have done.

As for population reads it's a bit awkward. As yeah it's probably fine when the population read is everyone is really bad and we don't go overboard with the adjustments but it really helps to understand the spots where doing this is dangerous and the spots where doing this isn't ever going to be horrendous. It also becomes much more vulnerable as soon as we start playing people who begin to be competent at exploiting us.

I suppose all these questions become much easier to answer when we actually have solid population reads, but the stuff that gets banded about like people call too wide, value bet more and bluff less isn't really what I'd class as a solid population read in the sense that it doesn't really give us any specifics about how we should adjust or factor in the variation in the population which is what's important.

So it all boils down to the fact that GTO against an unknown is never bad. It may not be the most profitable strategy but it is a profitable strategy. The other side to it is that the worse the player the quicker we get reads and the quicker we can exploit them in the first place so it's not really like we're missing out on that much value anyway.

At what point all these factors tip favouring whatever approach as a starting point against an unknown I really couldn't give you a definite answer on though. I just think it tends to be best to air on the side of caution and the worse a player the quicker and the more confident we can be about adjusting.