Name: Modern Poker Theory
ISBN: 9781909457904

What Hacker News says

RaidionJul 2024

Modern Poker Theory by Acevedo was the premier book on this, but I've been out of the game a few years. Idk if I'd fully trust his charts given modern sizing theory, but it's going to improve your game if you understand the concepts. If you're really serious, you want to get a solver: GTO+, PIOSolver, or GTOWizard (online version).

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waprinFeb 2024

I'm currently full-time on a project dedicated to helping people understand how to apply solver strategy to win at live games. I generally avoid the term GTO in favor of "theory-based" since GTO usually refers to equilibrium strategy, and generally you want to study equilibrium but diverge to exploit your opponents.

You can check out my project which includes a preflop trainer at:

https://www.livepokertheory.com

I also have a lot of strategy articles that explore how to use solvers to understand live cash games, and I also just started posting Youtube videos that do solver walkthroughs of high-stakes LA cash games.

I'm also doing some unique things like spaced-repetition which none of my competitors do, unfortunately very few pro poker players have heard the term so it's not a selling point to them but HN crowd tends to have heard of it.

In terms of where to start, I'd recommend where the game starts, which is preflop, and incidentally where my product starts, which is a preflop trainer that helps you study equilbrium-based preflop charts using spaced-repetition. It's currently about 90% free with only one set of charts paywalled (BB defend).

I'm actively developing both postflop content and a native mobile app, though the current app is a responsive web app that should work well on your phone.

I also have a Discord with a lot of professional live players that I've attracted via my content marketing and I'm happy to answer followup strategy questions there.

Some good books I'd recommend that are more modern:

Modern Poker Theory by Michael Acevedo

Play Optimal Poker by Andrew Brokos

Grinder's Manual by Peter Clarke (pre-solver but basically the most exhaustive guide to every concept pre-solver)

for Youtube channels, my own :

https://www.youtube.com/@livepokertheory

https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingEquilibrium (Finding Equilbrium, similar content analyzing live games with solvers)

I also recommend the Thinking Poker podcast by Brokos.

(btw, Hopkins Computer Science is also my alma mater so great to see this coming from them!)

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csaJul 2022

Let me start off by saying that GTO is not the panacea some folks want it to be. It helps find some new lines for sure, it is really good at short stack problems, it helps a lot with starting hand ranges, and it is quite good for hu play.

All that said, most gto output assumes that your opponent is also playing gto. This is usually not the case, especially live. You can node lock in solvers to address this, but that’s a bit of a dark art since you have to assign unknown ranges to villain’s range — it’s just your best guess.

All that said, gto is a great mental exercise, and it has definitely improved my game.

> What's a good resource for learning GTO play?

Play optimal poker 1 and 2 by brokos. Good intro.

Modern poker theory by Acevedo for a little more advanced stuff.

Jonathon little has YT vids with some gto breakdown for hand analysis. He’s not a gto specialist, but he has one or more on his staff (iirc, Acevedo is/was one). His videos are on the simple side and are largely aimed at 1/3 and 2/5 live players, but it’s a soft intro.

Mariano poker on YT has improved a ton over the past few years. He seems to be relatively balanced while still exploiting when possible. His early vids show how to play (and not play) at lower stakes and win, at least in California games.

If you can see any stream with Garrett Adelstein, I would watch it. Mostly hustler live and live at the bike. He plays deep stack, and is a poker god among mere mortals.

> wouldn't mind getting to the point where I could sit down at a random NL100 or 200 B&M table and have an at least even expectation

If you were a winning online player before, you are currently +ev at 1/2 or 1/3 live tables.

The play is atrocious.

I will add that exploitative play is ideal at these stakes, and most gto is largely wasted.

It won’t be until some B&M 5/10 games and many 10/25 games and higher (usually with many pros) that you will see balanced play, although there is no small amount of exploitative play when whales are in the game.

Best of luck!

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MaxfordAndSonsJan 2022

Modern Poker Theory by Michael Acevedo is considered a contemporary gold standard.

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jdm386Jan 2022

Modern Poker Theory as mentioned by the other reply is good. I'd also suggest Play Optimal Poker by Andrew Brokos. The former outlines a lot of strategy in the game and talks a little about game theory and its implications. The latter gives less direct poker advice but uses "toy games" that share some similarities with poker but are simplified to demonstrate some of the implications that game theory has on poker. It does contain some direct poker advice but it's more of a book to teach you how to think properly about how game theory applies to poker and how you can use that to study with something like a solver and actually understand what you're seeing. I would suggest you pick up both, I think that the Brokos book assumes you know certain poker terms and doesn't contain a glossary whereas modern poker theory is almost like a textbook and has a section where it defines all of the terms it uses. Modern poker theory will have more actionable advice but the Brokos book is excellent to teach you how to think about game theory and requires more self-reflection and has more questions to the reader.

Applications of no limit by Janda or mathematics of poker are recommended by a different reply here. I would caution that these are extremely academic and extremely dense texts that would be a very tough read for a newer player. Mathematics is less practical and more of a math book than a poker book and applications is Janda showing how to work out solver-like solutions before solvers existed and also contains a lot of math. I think the other two above are more practical and aren't going to lead you to put the book down a 10th of the way through.

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