Have starting hands changed at all due to solvers?

Have starting hands changed at all due to solvers?

Title says it.

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21 February 2025 at 04:16 PM
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29 Replies

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by chillrob k

If you don't play as good as the solver does, or if your opponents are significantly different than the simulated ones, you wouldn't want to open the same hands as it does.
It could still be useful to know what it thinks though.

+1
Especially I suspect a good chunk of hands would have been near 0 EV ?
So if it’s 0 EV with perfect play , seem ok to fold a bunch with no perfect play .
Ps: unless u found some big leak vs an opponent u want to exploit by playing more hands .


by CrazyLond k

Then you sit down in a live game in a strange city against a bunch of unknowns and you think I'd better deviate from both strategies early so they don't immediately peg me as someone familiar with either online hand databases or solvers.

I don't think this should be a consideration at all fwiw - me sitting down at a live game and remembering a chart in my head and then choosing that action when its my turn looks exactly the same thing as Bobby Walnuts clicking random buttons when its his turn. If I open K7s and the solver likes it there will still be several people at the table that see it shown down and think "haha this guy is a spewy fish". That's just how poker works.

by mongidig k

I wonder how much money people have lost by using solver ranges in situations where they don't apply.

I do a good bit of coaching, I think the number of times a student has said "well I did this because the solver said its good but maybe its bad because of X, Y, Z?" is close to zero. What almost always happens is a student says "well I decided to 3 bet here because villain never 4 bets and folds too much on the flop" and then we watch the rest of the hand and either the villain 4 bets or he check raises flop and student tries to justify it and says "I swear that almost never happens!" (it happens all the time)

by mongidig k

Why is it that in limit forums getting answers to questions is like pulling teethe? It wasn't always this way. Back in the good old days someone would ask a question and he would get 20-30 well thought out responses from very good players. Perhaps because limit is becoming less and less popular and information is less and less available it's considered more valuable. In No Limit threads people are happy to provide their expertise including poker coaches. In limit forums people are basically ask

I have a strong opinion on this as someone who has been a part of this forum since 2002.
1) back in the day that was the only means of getting an answer to a question that we had. It was literally just everyone's random opinion and if the guy played 10/20 6max on Party Poker everyone went "well that settles it, this guy plays the huge tough games!"
2) Over the last ~10 years tools have improved drastically and the people that want answers to complicated questions have the means to discover them for themselves, so the strongest players spend all their study time off doing that. In addition, internet forums are just not as common a method of communication as they were, so many people spend time in discord groups, telegram channels, reddit, wherever.

by chillrob k

^ Do you really think that 20-30 players here could have answered this question? I'm a LHE pro, and I have never used a solver. My guess as to the answer would be "not at all, because no one in my games has ever used a solver", but that wouldn't be a very helpful answer either. This was not a question that many people could answer.

Also this ^^

by Montrealcorp k

+1
Especially I suspect a good chunk of hands would have been near 0 EV ?
So if it’s 0 EV with perfect play , seem ok to fold a bunch with no perfect play .
Ps: unless u found some big leak vs an opponent u want to exploit by playing more hands .

I find this to be the glass half empty/full thought experiment. I mean if you tell me a hand is around 0 EV of course I want to play it! Folding is really not fun at all. And I assume that I will be at least neutral EV if not super +EV making postflop decisions vs my typical opponents. Its a bit ironic that all the typical hand posts here are subconsciously saying "I did this because I can outplay my opponents and they will make dumb mistakes vs me" but at the same time you aren't confident you can turn a 0 EV hand into a +EV hand by better decision making.


Well I figured I play much worst then a solver and it can’t itself even do best then 0 ev .
I figure I need better odds to make those hands playable or again, I can identify obvious leak in my opponent to play those shrug .

In the end I’m a very unlucky person after all 😀 .


by Montrealcorp k

Well I figured I play much worst then a solver and it can’t itself even do best then 0 ev .
I figure I need better odds to make those hands playable or again, I can identify obvious leak in my opponent to play those shrug .

In the end I’m a very unlucky person after all 😀 .

But if you're a winning player, presumably your opponents play even worse when compared with the simulated opponents used by the solver.


by DeathDonkey k

I don't think this should be a consideration at all fwiw - me sitting down at a live game and remembering a chart in my head and then choosing that action when its my turn looks exactly the same thing as Bobby Walnuts clicking random buttons when its his turn. If I open K7s and the solver likes it there will still be several people at the table that see it shown down and think "haha this guy is a spewy fish". That's just how poker works.

You're right.

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