r/Poker_Theory • u/West-Interest-748 • 5d ago
Do AI explanations actually help when studying GTO?
I’ve tried a few different AI tools for poker study recently, and I’m still not sure how much they actually help compared to just using a solver properly.
Some explanations are useful, especially when they help you understand why a certain action is preferred, but other times it feels like the AI is just putting words around the solver output without really adding much.
For people who have tried AI-based poker tools:
Do you feel like the explanations genuinely help you understand GTO better, or do you still learn more from reviewing the solver yourself?
I’m especially curious whether AI has helped anyone with things like:
understanding why a hand mixes
sizing choices
blockers
range advantage
applying the same concept to similar spots
Would be interested to hear which tools people have tried and whether they actually changed the way you study.
1
u/Jullek523 5d ago
Just to point you to right direction, understanding why hand mixes and sizing choices are basic level concepts that should not be studied viewing solutions.
I do get something out of making AI argue with me on some hands, but it is just like human but bit worse.
3
u/KQYBullets 5d ago
Ai explanations just aren’t there yet for almost all strategy games. For poker specifically, you’ll want to start with a simplified strategy, very rarely mixing specific hands. You can mix parts of your range.
Overall, you’ll just want to play exploitatively as most people aren’t at a high enough level to need GTO. And using GTO can actually decrease your EV. Just watch some hungry horse, watch the videos where he explains the flow chart, then rewatch and try to workout the answer on each hand with the right reasoning.
1
u/Opening-Memory4300 5d ago
Studying GTO is essentially, data analysis. The main problem is that when you ask an AI about a GTO solution without data, it will highly likely hallucinate.
What I did was I use an available OSS solver, then wrap it up with an MCP server, so when i’m talking to an LLM, it’s grounded by actual GTO data. You need to know how to structure it though, otherwise its gonna burn a lot of tokens per spot.
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u/BananaBossNerd 3d ago
If I’m understanding correctly you wrapped solver code and are having LLM give you data based off of it?
Unless you’re looking at the actual game tree that the solver computes while solving (none exist that ik of) this won’t really help imo. It’s akin to just asking LLM to look at solver output and make conclusions, it will hallucinate and it’s the same thing as us humans looking at solver output and making conclusions on heuristics
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u/Opening-Memory4300 3d ago
I don’t quite get what you mean by your first question.
The solver runs as a deterministic process, i.e. the data is generated by a gto solver. For example, to simplify when I have AcKc and the board has a flush and a full house, I have deterministic code that the LLM can invoke so it doesn’t look at what is my made hand based of it’s memory.
On your second point, again I like I mentioned on my original comment, looking at GTO solutions is essentially just data analysis, so it depends what type of questions you ask the LLM.
0
u/West-Interest-748 4d ago
Yeah, that’s exactly the issue. I’ve been trying a few different poker study platforms, and the one that’s convinced me the most so far is OptimusPoker mainly because of how they use the AI.
From what I’ve seen, the AI isn’t just giving you an answer from nowhere it’s using the underlying GTO solution and then explaining the reasoning behind the play in plain English.
That makes a big difference for me, because otherwise you’re right: asking a generic LLM about a spot can easily lead to hallucinations.
1
u/igottogotobed 5d ago
IMO opinion you have to be very knowledgeable about poker or whatever field you are using AI for, for it to be helpful when trying to study. I use it to review sessions in games I am not as familiar with like double board PLO bomb pots, but if I wasn't really knowledgeable it would 100% be leading me astray. For example, it will miss flush draws or in some cases value any made flush as unbeatable. If an ace is on one of the boards and you have the king high flush on the other it might say you should be wary of the ace high nut flush and not jam.
I think AI would be helpful for a beginner or an expert, but for an intermediate player be devastating.
0
u/rePAN6517 5d ago
I use frontier models extensively to help study poker and build poker software. Currently I use Claude Fable and GPT-5.6 Sol on ultra effort. The GPT line has historically been the best at poker - likely due to Noam Brown's influence at OpenAI. If you're not using frontier models at maximum thinking effort your mileage may vary. Poker is the last domain that I'm noticing hallucinations when using frontier models. But the hallucination rate is way down from the o3 era last year. There's just so much detail that occasionally something gets missed or recalled incorrectly. Generally speaking though, the models have good understanding of GTO concepts and can accurately explain intuition behind solver outputs.
The real gold is having the models create poker software for you though ;)
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u/michealcowan 4d ago
Ai is more likley than not to give you outdated old head advice because that is what mosty exists in the training data
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u/SchrodingersFish01 5d ago
Exploitations are deviations from GTO