Why do GTO players act like robots?

affirmative

If you compare the big and bold personalities of yesteryear to people who study and get good at the game today, the personalties comparatively have not as much to think about (they are much worse at the game, they are not able to and don’t need to process as much info)

In live poker especially there is (mostly) too much information to process within a reasonable amount of time to make the best possible decision

If you ask Negreanu (probably the best) at playing poker at a reasonably high level and having a personality, I’ll guarantee you he doesn’t know something as basic as everyone’s stack all the time before making a decision that could be influenced by this info

It’s also not a coincidence that the majority of personality / characters from yesteryear that the average nerd hating 2p2er are no longer around. Your heroes are not and largely were not good at the game. They were elevated by unsustainable (and largely non-existent) money

This whole discussion about robotic play at the table is silly.

The vast majority of poker players are relatively quiet at the table. So you have a large population of near silent observers, complaining about “GTO robot” behavior in games they don’t play, praising people like Kassouf for bringing something to the game, while they simultaneously complain about the miniature Kassouf in their 1/3 game.

The majority of the “biggest personalities” in your average poker room are like that because it’s one of the only places they have a captive audience lol

Simple. They're trying to regurgitate a computer output. They view poker purely from the standpoint of making the most +ev decision on that hand. Nothing else matters. How long it takes is irrelevant. The fact nobody wants to play with them or they poison player pools is irrelevant. What does computer say is all that matters when playing a hand. Oh seat opened to the whales direct left I must take it since it's +ev etc

Even before solvers were a thing people who learned and mostly played online were way quieter and more socially awkward than those who learned live. This became even more true as online became getting small edges over mass volume. You're just not developing any social skills like this.

Doug Polk is one of the few gto players I've seen who also has a good table presence and has good soft skills at the tables.

It takes an extremely rare personality to be super well studied theoretically but also to understand live poker has the highest win rates as a soft hustle in an environment that isn't serious.

Autism, mostly

I think the context matters too. A lot of the robot-like behavior is observed in the absolute biggest games when a ****-ton of money is on the line. Those are the games that most people are watching.

I suspect a lot of these players would likely be looser if you encountered them at their typical Friday night cash game, even if that game is a relatively high stakes game.

There's a tendency to tighten up a bit when you're playing for seven figures plus with a bunch of cameras on you. There's also a perception that the smallest mistakes are magnified to a huge extent, so people don't want to give anything away.

Not all "GTO players" act like robots, but probably almost all players who act like robots are "GTO players." Hence, your false conclusion.

I have Aspurgers too. Autism is an extreme form of Aspurgers. However, I chat with people at the poker table, because I like to chat, not because it is better for making money. I couldn't be a salesman, courtroom lawyer, organization manager, politician, etc., but I don't act like those GTO nerds.

No idea what OP is talking about beep boop

I think that if your goal is to be as "balanced" as possible and you are playing live poker, the best option is to be stoic, so this tends to cause people to become robotic. I have mild aspergers myself and I do think that those with the condition are more susceptible to being robotic in live games just because it's comfortable.

However I will say that if you give me a couple IPAs I suddenly turn into a regular outgoing person lol

A little. Far more important is that if you do not behave like a computer and give zero tells as to whether you are bluffing or not GTO does not work. If your main skill is mimicking a computer using that method to limit tells is likely easier for you.

Not sure whether you mean live or online, but when I was watching the 10kNL cash champs on Coin Poker, a lot of the time I saw everyone taking their time to make decisions, or tanking on purpose in order to not give timing tells. It does give you a little bit of a robotic vibe due to most post flop action happening like exactly when they're about to go into the time bank, and most of the time seeing sizings exactly you would expect in theory.

I mean I can't blame some live Triton MTT highrollers taking their time to make decisions, covering faces, trying to hide emotions etc. in big spots in final tables. Those are some of the most important moments during their poker careers, and they are usually up against pretty ridiculous line ups by the time only the last 10 players or so are left.

Still haven't seen anyone playing anywhere close to perfect GTO when I've been railing and reviewing those games, especially on the river, and those guys know there's no reason to even try.

They're also running RTA online

I love when people are playing live 1/3 and using a "solver". Gotta get a chuckle in.

Most of em arent based on their river actions

Everything goes in cycles. Longball Larry and his Busch Light exploitatively 4-betting all in will crush a lot of supposedly GTO 3-bets with 76s from the button. Then Larry will call them a bitch for wearing that hoodie and tanking for 5 minutes before folding low suited connectors. Nature is about to heal.

🤣🤣🤣

Acting like an actual human being is probably more valuable in multiple ways than avoiding giving off any hypothetical tells. Imo.

Yeah, I watch those videos of those high rollers, and sometimes based on the player, large stack size, and position, those 3!s look like bluffs. I was thinking why not 4! shove with hands like suited broadway, suited aces, or pps which have decent equity if called by a 3! value hand.

Poker is a boring ass game to watch live, and no one should expect someone playing as a profession to be “entertaining”.

I think it was better back in the day because we only got a glimpse into the poker scene. We got the great narratives created by editing and production teams. We saw the big hands only. The interesting convos only.

They also edited a lot of things across the entire day merging them all into one shown hand. (ie staredowns and the like)

we didn't know what we had, those episodes are miles better content than we get today but it's just impossible to do that in a live unedited setting.

If you know how to play poker, the Pokergo videos of the PLO and mixed game high rollers are very interesting and entertaining. Maybe not a lot of good sound bites.

It's a illusion of truth, i'm friends with / have met / mutual friends with the majority of best cash game regs and cant even think of a single one that qualifies as anything close to a robot. It's only in poker where people expect you to put on some show and goof around when you are playing at the highest level for millions of dollars. It's not like people talk about top athletes as being robots just because they dont goof around during a game. Some of the mtt-regs seem pretty damn weird outside of the tables though I will admit that.