3 Money-Making Exploits That Work in 99% of Poker Games

stack the odds when to ditch gto for exploitative poker

Whether to attempt to play a game theory optimal (GTO) strategy has been a hot topic in the poker world for years. Here’s my take: Learning GTO is extremely useful, but that doesn’t mean you follow it blindly. GTO strategies teach the correct plays in theory, but with that knowledge, we can exploit key mistakes…

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How to Exploit Maniac Poker Players

Note: The new Lucid Poker channel will be posting helpful videos like this regularly. Click here to subscribe! Once again, you are forced to muck ATo after the same opponent has 3-bet you preflop for what feels like the millionth time in a row. You sit there, tilted, thinking “How am I ever going to…

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How to Exploit Weak 3-Bettors (AKA Most Poker Players)

exploit weak 3-bettors

Upswing Poker’s newest course presents a fresh approach to poker from chess champion turned poker pro Alex Vuilleumier. In this article/video, Alex shares one of his favorite and most effective exploits: exploiting players who don’t 3-bet often enough. He also teaches you a simple method to leverage a node locking with the Rocket Solver free…

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Master Common Poker Exploits With This New Upswing Lab Module!

exploit your opponents

Upswing Lab coach and all-around crusher Tim Jenkins is back with an easy-to-watch module on exploiting your opponents!  In this module, Tim shows Upswing Lab members the top exploits he’s used to make hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout his poker career. Whether you think your opponents are too aggressive, too passive, call too much,…

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Should He Try To Bluff The Recreational Player? (Analysis)

bluff in low stakes tournament

I’ve analyzed a lot of high stakes tournament hands here on the Upswing Poker blog, so I figured some readers might appreciate a dip into a low stakes hand. After all, tournaments in the $10-50 buy-in range online and the $100-500 buy-in range live are what the majority of poker players prefer to play. That’s…

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How to Conquer Aggressive Poker Players (5 Exploit Tips)

uri peleg very poker aggressive players

(Note: Video not loading? Click here to watch it on YouTube or read on for a written version.) Have you ever felt like you’re being run over by an aggressive opponent? If you have, you know it’s beyond frustrating. You might tell yourself that you’ll eventually have the hand to catch him, but the spot…

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How to Crush the Guy Who Always C-Bets

Negreanu c-betting with 6d4d, is it a good c-bet text overlay

Have you ever played against a player who seems to continuation bet (c-bet) every hand? This article will help you learn the key adjustments that will allow you to exploit such a player — including a sneaky adjustment you can make to your preflop strategy that sets you up for success on the flop. Part…

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How to Exploit Loose Poker Players Preflop

(Note: Video not loading? Click here to watch it on YouTube or read on for a written version.) The goal of these articles is to ingrain in you the 3 pillars of exploitative poker, which will help you take advantage of your opponents’ mistakes and maximize your win-rate. This article covers the preflop play in…

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Leveling: How Overthinking Costs You Money at the Poker Table

leveling in poker

What is Leveling in Poker? Also known as Multiple Level Thinking, Leveling is the concept of evaluating a poker situation beyond what cards you hold in your own hand. In 1999 (and then later in 2006) David Sklansky in his celebrated book The Theory of Poker introduced the world to the various levels of thinking…

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7 Poker Tells You Should Look Out For

physical poker tells shuffling chips

Poker tells are a tricky topic. Most beginners put way too much credence into tells early in their poker journey. Eating an Oreo cookie could mean someone has a strong hand in the movies, but in real life…not so much. But many experienced pros focus solely on playing a good strategy, completely ignoring live poker…

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Crush Live Poker Games With These 8 Battle-Tested Tactics

big stack of poker chips in live casino game

It is no secret that live poker games are far softer than online games. Most successful online players could switch to live poker and win at a solid rate from the get-go. The same can not be said for successful live players who hop online. Yet the players who have the highest hourly win-rates in…

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5 Strategic Mistakes Poker Players Make (And How to Exploit Them)

exploit poker leaks

Exploiting your opponents’ leaks is how you really take your win-rate to the next level.  This article is written so you don’t need to understand poker game theory to use these specific tactics to crush your opposition. That said, having a solid understanding of game theory will help you identify these leaks and exploit them as efficiently…

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3 Theoretically Winning Calls That Lose in Practice

I love GTO except in these spots for exploits text over poker player wearing black hat

Should you favor a theoretically sound strategy or play exploitative poker? This question has been a hot debate in the poker world for the past several years. Some are fierce supporters of theory (sometimes to their stack’s detriment), while others insist that theoretically sound poker has no value and should be disregarded (an absurd proposition).…

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Does Studying Poker Tells Make You a Worse Overall Player?

teddy kgb 500 42 hand

My name’s Zachary Elwood, and I’ve written some well-known books on poker tells: Reading Poker Tells, Verbal Poker Tells, and Exploiting Poker Tells. I also have a poker tells video series. I was watching the Cate Hall versus Mike Dentale “grudge match” the other day, and Doug Polk and Shaun Deeb were commentating. Doug and…

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