A genuine shift
GTO Wizard, the industry’s leading training platform, has just rolled out its most ambitious solver upgrade to date. Dragging pre-flop study out of the quaint, neat-and-tidy world of charts and into the new-fangled, messy reality of real poker tables, the new engine represents a genuine shift in how players can approach preflop theory.
multiway pre-flop solutions available instantly
Built on the back of GTO Wizard’s existing heads-up and three-way post-flop technology, the fully customizable, multiway pre-flop solver for up to nine players promises to be fast, flexible, and on demand with multiway pre-flop solutions available instantly. Whether you’re on a browser at home or scrolling hands on your phone between sessions, the appeal is obvious to serious players looking to carve out some extra edge.
“Finally the barrier to entry has been removed for advanced pre-flop solving,” said renowned poker strategy author Dara O’Kearney. The upgrade is available for GTO Wizard Ultra subscribers but there is also a free trial for those who want to take it for a test drive.
An illusion shattered
For a long time, there has been an illusion of finality around pre-flop poker strategy. Sharper minds have, of course, understood how different stacks and a wide range of player styles and tendencies muddy the waters, but in terms of how teachable strategies could be, pre-flop ranges have long been treated as a closed book whose pages had already been annotated, memorized, and filed away in a sort of collective consciousness.
A real-world poker table never follows a predictable script.
Complexity was acknowledged in theory yet quietly excluded in practice, largely because the tools available encouraged a narrow view of how hands actually begin. As such, opening ranges became ritualized and responses to aggression were learned by rote. However, this narrowing was never entirely satisfying. A real-world poker table never follows a predictable script. Under the gun just set off a chain of limps? The player in mid-position just 6x’ed? The button just over-called a cold 4-bet for 40% of his stack?
The prevailing study models have handled these realities by ignoring them, not because they are unimportant, but because they are inconvenient. However, the arrival of multiway pre-flop solving by GTO Wizard now forces that compromise into the open. Ranges are no longer presented as a solved static thing, but as a living, breathing strategic environment shaped and shifted by the interaction of many incentives all at once. What once felt mechanical now feels contingent. What once seemed obvious now invites scrutiny.
The shapeshifting of ranges
As somebody who does a lot of strategy segments with Sensei O’Kearney for “The Chip Race,” one big thing that comes up time and time again is how problematic multiway spots are. Each additional player increases complexity exponentially, overwhelming our traditional approach and forcing us to make clunky assumptions or remove factors to preserve the usability of the solver.
GTO Wizard’s new engine approaches the problem differently. By combining equilibrium solving with “neural network generalization”, it will apparently deliver fast, coherent solutions across an enormous range of inputs. Stack sizes, table size, raise amounts, antes, and even straddles can all be specified directly. The solver will respond without demanding simplification from the user.
Most of the results are intuitive with ranges contracting under multiway pressure but also re-expanding in other places. This shapeshifting of ranges means that hands that would thrive heads-up shed value in family pots, while hands that are big dogs heads-up are better at retaining equity versus multiple opponents. Also, with reduced fold equity and a higher risk of domination, aggression becomes more selective.
Asymmetric stacks and straddles
One of the most exciting advances is in how GTO Wizard will adjust for asymmetric stacks. This is particularly relevant to tournament players as short stacks constrain action, deep stacks create leverage and medium stacks are in a constant state of tension. The claim is that the solver will capture these dynamics without smoothing them away.
Isolation raises become situational rather than automatic.
What heuristics emerge? Interestingly, limping should make a comeback as it is revealed that it is a more nuanced strategic option than its reputation suggests. In multiway contexts, limps can create incentives that are not immediately obvious, especially when combined with shallow stacks behind or passive players yet to act. Isolation raises become situational rather than automatic.
Straddles further complicate matters as opening ranges adjust unevenly across positions. Squeeze incentives shift subtly. Defensive frequencies change in ways that static charts fail to capture. Seeing these effects mapped cleanly by GTO Wizard helps to explain why strategies that we think of as theoretically sound actually struggle in the wild.
Safeguards needed
Of course, no discussion of such a powerful tool is complete without confronting its potential misuse. The speed and accessibility of multiway pre-flop solving inevitably raise concerns about real-time assistance (RTA), particularly in online environments where enforcement already struggles to keep pace with technology.
The reaction from players on social media has been varied, with some applauding the breakthrough to others doomsaying the end of poker. The reality is that the march of technology is inexorable and if GTO Wizard didn’t make this leap today, somebody else would have tomorrow. That is not to say that we throw in the towel with regard to policing against cheaters. Quite the contrary.
The cat and mouse game is ongoing, and this is just a new challenge for poker security/game integrity teams. When solutions can be generated in a matter of seconds, there will be a temptation to consult them during play. However, this is already the case for other GTO Wizard applications and the same safeguards (delays and FairPlay checks) are in place to combat rogue users who try to use this new feature in-game. I asked O’Kearney if he had any concerns:
RTA risk seems low right now because it’s still a laborious process to input all the information”
“Not to be disparaging to GTO Wizard because this new product is excellent, but it’s not dramatically different from what is already on the market, most notably HoldemResources Calculator (HRC) which has been available for years. In fact, it is currently not as sophisticated as HRC in the sense that it can’t do ICM or bounty sims yet. It’s faster and much easier to use, but the RTA risk seems low right now because it’s still a laborious process to input all the information.”
A new generation of poker chameleons
Poker has gone through many paradigm shifts and my hunch is that this piece of kit marks the beginning of a new one. It seems to me that a big consequence will be the more fluid way we will start to talk about pre-flop ranges and how our story in that area will start to resemble the way we do post-flop analysis. It will be exploratory rather than prescriptive, open-minded rather than dogmatic.
Curiosity will replace compliance as the question shifts from “what am I supposed to do” to “how does this particular configuration sway my preferred action”. This shift matters because players will no longer be memorizing charts divorced from their context. They will observe how incentives interact and find patterns in the output. Over time, this kind of study will create a new generation of hybrid players, chameleons who better respond to shifting dynamics.
Looking forward, the implications of GTO Wizard’s latest update will extend well beyond pre-flop. Multiway post-flop solving and ICM-aware pre-flop analysis are already on the horizon. With each addition, the distance between theory and lived poker experience is reduced. Little by little, our knowledge gap narrows in this game of imperfect information.
