Poker charts

GTO poker charts: what they are, when they work, when they fail

GTO preflop charts are ranges a solver produced for one exact situation. The label tells you where the numbers came from and what they assume, and the assumptions are the whole story: get them right and the chart is a strong default, get them wrong and you are following a map of a different table.

What makes a poker chart "GTO"?

A chart earns the label when its ranges come out of software that approximates an equilibrium: a strategy that cannot be beaten by any counter-strategy, given a fixed set of conditions. That is what GTO means, and a solver is the software that finds it. Nobody sat down and decided K9s should open from the cutoff. A machine played the spot against itself until neither side could improve, and the chart is a snapshot of where it landed.

The conditions are not decoration. A solve is built for a specific number of players, a specific stack depth, a specific rake, and a specific menu of bet sizes that the person running it chose in advance. Change any of those and the equilibrium moves. A chart labeled GTO for a 6-handed 100 big blind cash game is not a GTO chart for your 9-handed home game, your 30 big blind tournament stack, or a table where everyone opens to 5 big blinds. It is still a chart. It is no longer the equilibrium for the game in front of you.

This is the part that gets skipped when the word appears on a product page. GTO is not a quality rating. It is a statement about where the numbers came from and what was assumed while making them.

How to read a GTO preflop chart

Here is one, simplified enough to print but honest about its edge. It is a button opening range for a 6-handed cash game around 100 big blinds deep, with the action folded to you.

Download this sample chart (PNG)

Three things to notice, and the third is the one that separates a solver chart from a chart somebody wrote by hand.

The grid is every starting hand. Pairs run down the diagonal, suited hands sit above it, offsuit hands below. Your two cards are in exactly one box.

The range is wide because the seat is good. Raising four hands in ten looks reckless written down. Two players are left, you act last on every street that follows, and the button leaks money by folding hands that would have made money, not by playing too many.

The edge is fuzzy, not sharp. The pale band is where a solver mixes. It does not say raise K4s. It says raise K4s some of the time and fold it the rest, at whatever split the solve landed on, because a hand played the same way every time becomes readable. Solver output is full of these mixed frequencies, which is exactly why raw solver charts are hard to use at a live table. Rounding a mix to always or never costs a little and buys you a decision you can make in four seconds.

GTO chart vs simplified chart: what you actually need

Most players comparing charts are really asking whether the free simplified one is good enough. Usually it is, and the reason is not charity. A mixed-frequency chart you execute badly is worth less than a rounded chart you execute correctly, and below the higher stakes almost nobody is losing money because their button range was a few hands off.

The three are not rivals. The equilibrium chart is the baseline you start from, the simplification is how you carry it, and the exploit is what you do once a player at the table shows you something. Poker writers who work with solvers say the same thing: use the chart as a default and adjust as circumstances require.

When GTO charts fail

A chart is a strategy for a game. When the game in front of you is not the one the chart was built for, following it is no longer optimal, it is just consistent. Here is where that happens in practice.

Limpers and odd raise sizes break the assumptions

Every opening chart assumes the pot is unopened and the standard raise is somewhere near two and a half big blinds. A limper in front of you has already broken the first assumption, and the correct response is a different decision tree: isolate wider against a player who limps and folds, tighten and raise for value against one who never folds. A table that opens to five big blinds has broken the second. The pot odds on every call you make have changed, so the range you defend with must shrink. Neither situation is exotic. In a live game both happen every orbit.

Your opponents are not playing GTO either

Equilibrium strategies are built to be unexploitable, which is a defensive property. They do not go looking for a player's mistakes. If someone at your table folds to every 3-bet, the chart's bluffing frequency is leaving money on the table, and you should 3-bet more. If someone calls every raise with any two cards, the chart's bluffs are just donations, and you should bet for value and stop bluffing. The chart is not wrong in either case. It is answering a question about a table you are not sitting at.

Common GTO chart mistakes

The failures we see most often are not subtle. Using a 6-max chart at a 9-handed table, where the extra players make every early seat worse. Using a 100 big blind chart on a 25 big blind tournament stack, where playability matters less and raw equity matters more. Using an opening chart after somebody has already raised. Treating a mixed cell as a pure raise because that is the half you remembered. And the biggest one: following the chart for an hour against a player who has shown you three times exactly how they lose money.

Get free preflop charts

If you came here for the charts themselves rather than the label, they are one click away and there is no email gate on them. The preflop chart library has opening ranges for every seat in 6-max and full ring plus a facing-a-raise chart, on the page and as printable downloads. Short stack in a tournament instead is a different tool: use the push/fold charts.

GTO chart FAQ

Are GTO charts allowed at the table?

Online, at your own desk, nothing stops you. Live is a different question. In tournaments the rule is flat: the Tournament Directors Association bans strategy tools at the table outright, charts and apps named directly, with no live-hand exception to work around. Cash games run on house rules instead, so practice varies room to room, and the realistic expectation is that you will be asked to put it away. We wrote up the detail in what electronics are actually allowed at a poker table. Away from the table, in your notes, on the break, after the session: study all you like.

Do you need a solver to use GTO charts?

No. Running a solver and reading a chart are different activities, and the second one is what almost everyone needs. A solver earns its keep when you have a specific recurring spot you want to understand, not when you want to know which hands open from the cutoff, because that answer has already been computed and shared many times over. If you are weighing the tools against each other, the comparison of a trainer versus a solver is the page for that decision.

Are free GTO charts accurate?

The free ones are usually simplified, and simplified means deliberately lossy: the mixed frequencies get rounded, the rare branches get dropped, and what survives is the part that matters most. That is a feature for a player and a limitation for a study tool, and the honest test is whether the chart says which game it was built for. A chart that names its table size, its stack depth, and its raise size is being straight with you. A chart that just says GTO across the top is selling something.

What is the difference between a GTO chart and a preflop chart?

Nothing structural. Both are grids of starting hands with actions attached. GTO describes where the numbers came from, so the only real question is whether the source solved the game you are playing. Read the assumptions before you trust the colors.