How can you determine the strongest poker player? How do you know who's best or most dominant?
Some will name the current year's World Series Main Event champion or the player with the biggest prize money according to The Hendon Mob, and others will look at the ROI according to Sharkscope, or estimate EVbb in cash over the long term.
The creators of GTO Wizard decided to offer another way, with a claim to objectivity – a game that combines poker, solver work and a rating system similar to Elo.
What is PokerArena?
PokerArena is a new game on the GTO Wizard platform. These are heads-ups in the format of hyper-turbo tournaments, where for a victory they award not money or conditional chips, but points in the rating. At the same time, each hand is automatically checked for compliance with GTO, which also affects the position in the leaderboard.
There are 3 modes available:
- Rating games ( Competitive ). The main mode where you can compete with opponents and score points.
- Free Practice Mode ( Casual ). Same thing, but without the risk of losing points.
- Games with friends ( Play With Friends ). The only mode where you can invite specific people and play up to 9 people at one table. No rating.
PokerArena works on Windows, macOS and Android via a browser, a separate application is available for iOS. The game is cross-platform, with a common pool for all devices and a common rating.
The key feature of Arena is its full integration with GTO Wizard. After each match, you can open a report on all the hands played. They have already been analyzed by the solver, so literally a couple of clicks will be enough to find bad plays, estimate EV Loss and find out the optimal strategy.
To start the game, you need to go to the official website, click on the Play & Learn for Free button, log in to the GTO Wizard system (you can use an existing account or log in via Google, Facebook or Apple), come up with a nickname and choose an avatar with a flag. The latter can be changed at any time by clicking on the pencil icon next to the nickname.
The main menu consists of 3 parts:
- on the left – general statistics,
- in the center – mode selection,
- On the right is the current leaderboard.
Profile data consists of status, number of points, game statistics. The leaderboard is divided into 5 ranks: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond, each with 3 divisions. Immediately after creating an account, you receive 1,500 points and Silver status.
Matching opponents takes a few seconds. Players are given 500 chips, blinds are 10/20 and increase every 4 hands.
After the tournament is over, you can open a window with an analysis of each hand played.
What is the fight for?
Every month, a new season starts in the Arena, and the best players of the past receive rewards. Here's what the champions of August are promised:
- 1st place – 3 months subscription to the Elite game plan + XL Mystery Box;
- 2nd place – 2 months subscription to the Elite game plan + XL Mystery Box;
- 3rd place – 1 month subscription to the Elite game plan + XL Mystery Box;
- 4-100 seats – 10% discount on any GTO Wizard subscription.
For example, the three-month Elite plan costs $447.
You can subscribe to GTO Wizard in the GipsyTeam store. There, you can also get a 10% discount on any software and merch if you play together with GT+ .
