We are sure you're thinking, "what does my score mean?".

The way we measure our performance against the Trainer is by tracking "EV Loss" or Expected Value Loss. The best possible result after you pick your action is an EV Loss of 0. This means your action breaks even against a perfect player.

When EV Loss isn’t 0, the number shown is the amount of big blinds that we would lose taking a specific action in the long run.

It is possible to make a poor play (high EV Loss) that results in you winning a specific hand. I’m sure you’ve all seen players make bad plays and win the pot or make the right play and lose the pot. Over time EV Loss will track closer and closer to actual losses.

We only care about EV Loss, we don’t care whether or not we win any one particular hand.

This allows us to have a long term mindset towards poker that focuses on the quality of our decisions and not short term results.

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Learn the Strategy Behind the 5 Final Table Hands You Just Played!

This week we’re showcasing the correct play at the final table of a major tournament with significant payout jumps. There are two short stacks of 10BBS and a 12BBS at the table. You open to 2BBs from Button with a 30BB starting stack and a tough player in the Big Blind calls with 50BBs. This scenario has several interesting factors combining to make this a challenging spot.

With the tremendous odds the Big Blind is getting to call preflop here, their range is significantly wider than yours and also capped, as they would likely reraise with all of their really big hands.

Your hand range is uncapped and narrower than theirs, a situation that at most stages of the tournament would result in a tremendous range advantage for you on most flops with the ability to continuation bet at a very high frequency across many board types.

However, because this is a final table there is also a tremendous amount of ICM pressure on you to outlast the two shorter stacks with 6 players remaining. That ICM pressure coupled with the relatively short effective stack in this scenario allows the Big Blind to implement a much broader check-raising strategy on the flop.

In addition the Big Blind should have a robust leading range on both the flop and turn in situations where they otherwise take a more passive line in earlier phases of a tournament.

This means that you will be continuation betting less often than you might in more standard tournament situations, but you will still c-bet with a high frequency on boards where you have reasonable equity or that are extremely dry and favorable to your range.

You will notice that even in situations where continuation betting is correct, a GTO strategy will include a mixed approach with a minor (but not insignificant) checking frequency on the flop to help offset the frequency with which the Big Blind is likely to want to check-raise.

Here are some tips when practicing with the WPT GTO Trainer:

• Your goal is to select the action for each individual hand that is as close to 0.00 EV as possible
• EV Loss of 0.00 is the same action a GTO Player would take
• 0.00 EV Loss means you broke even against a GTO Player
• EV Loss Color Coding Hint:
  • Green = Near GTO Play
  • Orange = Take Caution
  • Red = Probable Leak in Your Game

See how close you get to 0 EV Loss and high percentage plays, then reread the advice above from the LearnWPT Pros.

Keep practicing
-Team LearnWPT

Play More Hands From This Final Table Spot

LearnWPT.com Members can play more hands from this 30BB Button Open Vs 50BB Big Blind Call Scenario by clicking here or to play more scenarios just like this use the Trainer Refine Filter to sort by Final Table, Open Raise, or 30 BB Stack Size, select a scenario, and click START SESSION!

If you have any questions regarding this scenario or your results send your questions in via the Ask a Pro feature.

P.S. Learn more about our Membership Tiers by clicking here.