Choosing Spots to Study

Why choosing spots is a skill

There is effectively an endless number of spots to study. However, your time and energy is limited, and choosing the right spots is an easy way to improve the efficiency of your study.

The goal is to focus on common and high-impact spots while maintaining coverage across a diverse set of situations so that you can maximize your general improvement.

Organizing by preflop action

In our standard 6-max NLH solutions, there are 83 distinct ways to get heads-up to the flop. Of these:

• 12 are single-raised pots (SRPs)
• 44 are 3-bet pots
• 27 are 4-bet pots

However, the frequencies of these situations are not equal. In the following chart we list ways to get to a flop, ordered by their importance: reach frequency multiplied by pot size.

Single-raised pots involving the BB are very common and have a high impact on win rate. In contrast, 4-bet pots are much less common, but certain matchups (like SB vs. BB) are common enough to warrant extensive study. A strong basic study plan will focus on the most impactful spots first, while also including some less common strategically unique spots.

Useful patterns

It is not necessary to extensively study every single matchup, even for the most common spots. If you are looking at SRP spots involving the BB, you will notice that the preflop aggressor's range is tightest at UTG and progressively loosens as you move to the BTN. By looking at trends and noticing patterns across different spots, you can often form better general heuristics.

This applies to 3-bet and 4-bet pots as well. Classifying your preflop ranges into categories (linear, polar, condensed, merged) and observing patterns across different SPRs is extremely useful for forming an intuitive understanding of GTO.

Organizing by board type

There is often no need to study every possible board. Instead, we can classify boards into categories based on strategic similarity. Reports are incredibly useful for this purpose.

Using flop reports to group boards

We can use flop reports to narrow our scope to flops we are interested in. For example, if we are looking at a BTN vs BB SRP, we can filter to unpaired rainbow double-broadway boards as shown in the image below.

As you might notice, BTN prefers a large c-bet sizing on the visible AKx and AQx boards. Our study session may then focus on understanding why such a sizing is used, what kinds of hands are in the c-bet range, and what these spots look like for a UTG, HJ, or CO vs BB scenario.

Common board groupings

A basic framework for grouping flops is to classify by ranks, suits, and special characteristics.

Rank categories

We use rank categories to abstract the 13 card ranks into 3 broad categories.

Flop patterns by rank category

All combinations of rank categories produce 10 different board types.

1. HHH
2. HHM
3. HHL
4. HMM
5. HML
6. HLL
7. MMM
8. MML
9. MLL
10. LLL

Flop patterns by suitedness

The suitedness of flops matters because it affects the possibility of flushes and flush draws.

• Rainbow (no suits match)
• Two-tone (two suits match)
• Monotone (all three cards are the same suit)

Special considerations

Certain important characteristics cannot be captured by the broad rules of rank and suit. Add to the list as you see fit, but some important considerations are as follows:

• Paired or tripled boards
• The presence of an Ace
• Possible straights or straight draws

This is not a comprehensive list of what makes a board unique, but by combining these features, (e.g HHM rainbow unpaired with an Ace) we have a good starting point for grouping boards into chunks that you can effectively study.

Putting it all together

When choosing spots to study, it is important to think about what you are trying to learn and how it will impact your play. It takes countless hours to master GTO, but by being intentional about the spots you study, you can better build your understanding of the game.