GTO Wizard Reveals Five Poker Habits That Will Make You Unstoppable
Table Of Contents
Every poker player wants to improve their game. If you don't, you probably need to find another hobby! GTO Wizard is the perfect study tool, allowing you to analyze hands, practice playing against a GTO bot, in addition to its stable of top-tier poker coaches providing training and insights into poker concepts and strategy.
"Tombos21" is one such GTO Wizard coach. He recently published a YouTube video discussing five poker habits that will make you unstoppable at the tables. "Tombos21" put much thought into his video because he wanted his tips to be easy to implement and helpful for players of all skills and formats.
He 100% believes that the following five tips will sharpen your thought process, eliminate systematic errors from your play, and are all but guaranteed to improve your poker skillset. What are those five poker habits you should get into? Let's dive right in at the deep end.
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Name The Nuts
The first habit to get into seems overly simple, but it is also underrated. You should get into the habit of naming the nuts whenever you're in a hand. How many times have you seen a pot side to an opponent because you didn't realize a straight was possible, even if your opponent would need exactly seven-three to make that straight?
This habit becomes automatic, but you can speed up your learning by naming the nuts each time another community card is dealt. A backdoor straight or flush or a better boat need never surprise you again.
Everything's a Draw
"Tombos21" suggests you should start thinking that every hand is drawing, even pocket pairs and made hands, plus those of your opponent. On each street, think about how your hand improves and whether your outs complete other draws. Getting into this habit helps you gauge your implied and reverse implied odds more accurately
Fast-forward the video to the seven-minute mark for a detailed explanation of this concept using the powerful GTO Wizard tool, including how to play when you flop a set on a monotone board.
The Three-Second Rule
Many recreational poker players, particularly online grinders, have easy-to-read timing tells, which is where this next GTO Wizard tip comes in. Always wait three seconds before making your move if you play to continue with the hand; obviously, don't stall if you are folding, we don't want to waste time.
Knowledgeable players know that your range of hands is narrower if you act immediately because those snap decisions mean you didn't have many, if any, options to consider. No timing tell is perfect, but they do convey a lot of information to your opponents.
You should definitely skip to the 12-minute mark of the video because "Tombos21" shows you how to use GTO Wizard's nodelock feature to show how easy it is to exploit opponents who instantly call a bet.
The Credibility Check
Every time you bet or raise, you are telling your opponent a story about your hand strength. Your opponent will decide if they believe your story based on several factors. This is why the credibility check is a powerful habit to get into.
Before you bet, list three value hands that would take this line for your bet size. Doing so helps you choose better lines and bet sizes and makes your bluffs more believable because you're actively thinking about your value hands.
The concept also applies to the lines your opponent takes. If you get check-raised on the river, list three possible hands they could be bluffing with. If you cannot find three hands they would bluff with in this scenario, they likely aren't bluffing!
Find the Pure Plays
Last but not least, we arrive at finding the pure plays, but what does that mean? Pure play, in game theory circles, means a hand is not mixing. By that, it means if you always call or fold in a particular spot, that is a pure play. If you sometimes call or fold, that is a mixed action.
The concept seems complicated but it is easy to digest when you see "Tombas21" explain it using GTO Wizard. You can find this section of this amazing video at around the 21:30 mark.
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