5 Solver Strategies That Suck in Real Life | Upswing Poker Level-Up #60

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady and Gary Blackwood. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike Brady (00:00):

We are about to poke holes in the solver strategy and level up your game in the process. I’m Mike Brady and I’m joined by Cash Game Pro, WSOP final tableist and all around good guy, Gary Blackwood.

Gary Blackwood (00:13):

Welcome to the show guys. We normally talk about what the solver wants to do on this show, but today I want to reveal five situations in which you should ignore the solver and the main reason for that is your opponents won’t always play like a computer themselves, so if we’re just following the solver, it’s going to be costing us money.

Mike Brady (00:31):

All of these strategies have strategic merit against top players and if you’re drilling against the solver, but they’re rarely the best course of action against the real opponents in your games. Diving into solver strategy number one, three-betting with a polarized range from the big blind. This strategy sucks against fishy players who don’t fold to many three bets.

Gary Blackwood (00:54):

When the solver is in the big blind facing a raise, it responds by three betting with strong hands like Aces, Kings, Ace King, pocket Queens, Ace Queen suited… But it also three bets with some more speculative hands to balance out those strong hands. We can see this in action by booting up the free Preflop Prodigy app on upswingpoker.com. When facing a cutoff raise, for example, the solver responds by three betting with loads of different bluffs from the big blind, such as King Five suited, Jack Eight suited, Queen six suited, and even Ace Five offsuit. Now this is how you should play against strong players who will actually fold to some of your three bets. It’s awesome to three bet with a hand like Jack Eight suited and force them to fold a hand that dominates you like Queen Jack offsuit. But now imagine you’re up against a recreational player or a looser player, or a bad player who’s not going to fold that Queen Jack offsuit. Against such a player, you’re just bloating the pot with an inferior hand by three betting with these speculative holdings. In short, the solver strategy sucks when you’re up against a player who won’t fold to your three bets and in those cases, stick to value three bets only and also consider widening that value range to take advantage of their willingness to call.

Mike Brady (02:07):

Before we get into solver strategy number two, I want to quickly tell you that the feedback for Upswing Lab 2.0 since we launched it a few weeks ago has been absolutely incredible. People are saying that it’s excellent, it’s really helping them improve their game. They love the structure, they love the ease of use, the brand new UI, the community’s been amazing and the Max Exploit Academy course, which is kind of a bonus inside of Lab 2.0 has had glowing reviews itself. If you want to upgrade your skills and join a truly helpful community, head over to upswingpoker.com and get in the Lab. Lab 2.0 that is. Make sure you use code LEVELUP to get fifty dollars off. Once again, that’s code LEVELUP. Solver strategy number two is playing a three bet or fold strategy preflop. That’s a strategy that includes no calling. This strategy sucks when you’re in a game full of weak players, especially if those weak players are behind you in the blinds.

Gary Blackwood (03:05):

Solvers have taught us that, in theory, calling preflop raises isn’t as good as what we once thought. This is true for all positions except the big blind and arguably the button as well. For example, suppose the under the gun player raises and you’re seated in the cutoff. If you just call that raise you signal that you have a hand worth playing but not strong enough to re-raise. That’s called “capping your range” and it gives the players behind the green light to three bet aggressively to squeeze you out of the pot. Rather than calling many solver study players choose to play a three bet or fold strategy. This is simpler to implement and cost you almost no expected value. But suppose you look to your left and you see three guys who stink at poker, you know they won’t three bet aggressively and in fact you’d love to play with these guys.

(03:50):

When this is the case, as often as it is, you absolutely should have a calling range with certain hands. It’s actually increasing your EV to call with a hand like pocket Eights or King Ten suited from the cutoff when the player in the small blind is a massive whale. This solver strategy sucks when the players behind are weak and won’t punish you for having a cold-calling range and you absolutely want to be playing with these players. Throw the three bet or fold strategy out the window in those spots because these are the players that we want to play against because these are the players we’re going to make most money from.

Mike Brady (04:20):

I want to throw a quick word of caution out there. If you are a low stakes live player, one-two, one-three, two-five, I’m willing to bet that you are currently calling against raises too often. This advice that we just covered might push you further that way and I really don’t want that to happen. In fact, I want you to challenge yourself and look for spots to three bet more often in your live games. You can definitely call like we’re talking about, there are great spots to call, the pocket Eights, the King Ten suited, when you’ve got whales behind… That’s great, but just don’t be the guy who’s bleeding away chips and kind of playing bingo by just calling a ton of raises when you could otherwise be three betting, isolating against the opener and playing a heads-up pot where you have a big skill advantage. That’s really where you’re going to make a lot of money and I would really regret telling you all to go out there and call more when you’re probably already calling too often. Solver strategy number three is checking back Aces and Kings on certain flops. This strategy sucks against players who won’t do the betting for you on the turn.

Gary Blackwood (05:30):

Suppose you raise preflop and the big blind calls. On many flops, the solver likes to check back with overpairs like Aces and Kings for pot control and to protect the rest of your checking range. It’s almost always smart to do this on a really low connected flop like Six Five Three with a flush draw, but the solver also makes this play on a variety of other boards like Nine Four Deuce rainbow, which is nowhere near as scary. That makes sense if you’re up against a strong aggressive pro who will come out firing on the turn, but if you’re up against a weaker reg or a recreational player, they simply won’t do the betting for you as often as you would like. You’re going to be missing value with those strong overpairs, so you’re better off doing the betting yourself. By the way, there is a flip side to this. Do you think your opponents are checking back with Aces and Kings like the solver suggests on that Nine Four Deuce board, for example? What about some of their top pairs? Because the solver likes to check back some of those as well. If not, that means they have a weaker and less protected range after checking back and that gives you the green light to blast bets on the turn and on the river to get them off of their low-strength hands, like their Ace highs, their King highs and their bottom pairs.

Mike Brady (06:41):

There are a few reasons the solver checks back with overpairs on these types of low connected flops, generally. Like Gary said, it’s good for pot control, it protects the rest of your checking range, but they’re also just kind of dicey boards. You take a board like Eight Seven Five with two clubs, for example. Let’s say you bet the flop with Aces and the big blind calls. If the turn is a Four, a Six, a Nine, there’s four cards to a straight. Or if the turn is a club, there’s now a possible flush. So, you are building the pot, you’re getting money in there, which you’re probably ahead with Aces, don’t get me wrong, but there are a lot of turns that make the situation a lot more dicey and make it much less likely that you are ahead and those are the situations where the solver and strong players who have studied solvers choose to check back with those types of overpairs.

(07:30):

So that’s kind of the strategy that we’re talking about here. But in real life, when you look across the table and see a player who just isn’t tricky, someone who isn’t aggressive and isn’t going to put you in tough spots, you don’t really have to worry about that stuff as much. You can kind of just play your hand for what it is and expect them to not read too much into it. So while you can and probably should check back those really dicey flops like the Six Five Fours, you should probably be firing a bet a good amount more than the solver would against your real life human opponents. By the way, there’s one more upside to checking back these strong over pairs and it’s allowing your opponent to catch up with a hand that’s still second best. For example, imagine your opponent has Queen Jack on that Eight high dry board. You check back and the turn is a Jack. Now you’re going to get two streets of value easily with your pocket Aces or Kings, whereas they would’ve just folded the flop had you bet. So that’s why there is still an upside to checking back even against passive, non-tricky opponents. Solver strategy number four is leveraging blockers for big river bluffs. This strategy sucks against players who just don’t like folding rivers.

Gary Blackwood (08:38):

Short and sweet one here, the solver loves to attempt big bluffs when it has a key blocker. For example, suppose you reach the river on a board with three diamonds. If you hold the Ace or even the King of diamonds, the solver is going to lean towards firing the big bluff. But what if you’re up against the type of player that doesn’t like the full top pair, let alone two pair? Against these calling stations it’s okay to give up. It’s okay to be unbalanced and have very few slash no bluffs. Instead, widen your value range and get yourself paid when you’ve got stronger hands.

Mike Brady (09:09):

Yeah, these are the types of players who when you have a two-pair hand on maybe a flush-possible board that you would normally check, maybe you can go for that value bet. If they’re just going to pay you off with top pair, you might as well. We have a quick favor to ask of you. If you are getting value from this episode of Upswing Poker Level Up, hit that like button, rate the podcast five stars and subscribe to the channel. Wherever you’re watching, do something positive that signals to our algorithmic overlords that we’re doing a good job and that this show is worth making. I’m going to be honest with you guys, it is really hard for Gary and I to find the time to make the show these days. We put a lot of effort into it and we have fairly busy working lives otherwise.

(09:50):

So if we get these views, if we get this positive feedback, those are the types of things that really help motivate us to actually do it. Kind of giving you a peek behind the curtain there, but it is just the truth. So again, we’d really appreciate like, subscribe, a high rating. All of it really helps us out and it makes us feel good, makes us want to make this show. Solver strategy number five is block betting the river with very strong hands. This strategy sucks if your opponents aren’t likely to raise against that block bet.

Gary Blackwood (10:19):

The solver loves to bet small with nutted hands like straights or flushes. In theory, these small bets should induce a raise from your opponent sometimes with value, with bluffs, and then you can come over the top for max value. Including some nutted hands in your block-betting range also helps protect the rest of your block-bet hands, which is important against stronger players. But in reality, raising against river blocks is chronically underdone. Your human opponents will not raise thin enough for value or bluff anywhere near as much as they should, so don’t bet small with nutted hands and hope they’ll put more money in for you. If you know your opponent will raise your small bet often, then go for it, but the vast majority of people won’t. You’ll just bet small with your nuts and they’re just going to call. The key takeaway here is stupidly obvious. When you’ve got a really strong hand on the river, lean towards betting big to extract max value.

Mike Brady (11:14):

That’s all we’ve got for you today. If you want more on this topic of solver strategies, but this time strategies that you actually might want to use in your games, check out our previous episode, Seven Solver Strategies that Changed Poker. We’ll see you in the next one.