How I created Draw Solver, made a million dollars, and helped to take down Phil Ivey
(This is part 2, part one)
In 2013, after we made a deal about Holdem solver, Trueteller mentioned that solving 2-7 Triple Draw (TDFL) could make me a million dollars. TDFL was an obscure poker variant regularly played with $2000 big blind on PokerStars – and there was no action at lower stakes to practice, which made solver even more valuable.
The first version of the solver relied on handcrafted strategies for preflop betting and the 1st draw, solving subtrees starting from the second betting round (mimicking the approach with solving flops in Holdem).
At some point we realized that tracking discarded blockers is crucial, and I managed to make solver remember a single discard, which later turned out extremely valuable.
I partnered with Trueteller and RaulGonzalez: I would have 40% of their result, gradually decreasing to 10% over two years (nowadays I charge more). At lower stakes, I would have a regular piece where I owe money if they lose. For the highest stakes, where bankroll swings were enormous and I could not take on losses, we devised an “Indirect Share” approach. This allowed me to earn a percentage of their EV with a freeroll arrangement. The percentage of freeroll was was calculated based on the volume of hands played.
At the $2000/$4000 tables, we encountered a rival group of professionals who also trained with their own private solver. However, theirs did not account for blockers, leaving their strategy vulnerable. By capitalizing on this weakness, Trueteller and RaulG won $700K over 40K hands against them. One of the key strategic differences were raises at turn after 1-1 discards.
Between 2013 and 2015, my bankroll grew from $20K to $1M. The swings were intense: RaulG’s best day saw a $704K win, while his worst day was a $346K loss. I did not handle such volatility well, as my previous poker career had much smaller stakes (I played $1K buy-in max and my biggest daily swing was $10K). To cope, I distracted myself by immersing in Dota 2, logging 2,000 hours in 2014 alone.
Here's RaulG's biggest pot. I never watched the games in real time, it would have been too stressful to see both of my partners fold to a $980 bet in $120K pot
In 2015, Trueteller used it to prepare for an 8-game match against Phil Ivey, studying with my solvers for TDFL, Razz and FL Holdem. Trueteller won $400K at the table over 40K hands, and even more with a cross-book. I made $200K from that match.
Later, during $3000/6000 Vegas live cash mix game, Trueteller’s dominance at Triple Draw was so overwhelming that opponents voted to exclude the game from the mix.
In 2017 I started working with Jungleman, who studied with TDFL, SDNL and Razz solvers, which contributed to his back-to-back wins of $50K WSOP Players Championship in 2021 & 2022.
Seeing my work help someone succeed on poker’s biggest stage was deeply satisfying.
Special thanks to Trueteller, RaulG, and Jungleman; also R Nikhil, Ian Chan, Joey Ingram, Ivan Bogatyy for their help with reviewing the draft of the story.
Read the full story here https://medium.com/@olegostroumov/how-i-...
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–Oleg Ostroumov
