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Read MoreMultiple Level Thinking
Multiple level thinking is a tool used by experienced poker players to out-think their opponents and gain a strategic advantage. This type of thinking expands the scope of a poker player's thought process, encompassing their opponent's range and the psychology of their opponent.
Before we begin, let’s take a look at each level used by professional players in multiple level thinking.
- Level 1 – The strength of your hand.
- Level 2 – What your opponent’s range looks like.
- Level 3 – What your opponent thinks of your range.
Considering your own hand will only get you so far as a poker player; to be successful, you must consider a wide range of variables, such as your opponent’s range and their psychology. To sharpen your strategic thinking and increase the extent of your thought process we’ll be exploring how to think in poker using multiple level thinking as part of a greater poker strategy, how you can learn this new way of thinking, and how you can implement it as part of your poker game. Join us as we discover how to take your poker thinking to the next level.
Unveiling the Levels of Poker Thinking
So, let’s pull back the curtain on the different levels of thinking and explore what they are and how they work. The first three levels are the most important; we’ll explore what happens beyond these levels later in the article, but for most intents and purposes, three levels are all you need.
The very first level of poker thinking is “How good is my hand?” This is the level of the average beginner; all they’re concerned about is how good their hand is according to the poker hand rankings chart. If it’s low on the list, they’ll play it passively, if it’s high on the list, they’ll play it aggressively.
If you’ve played live poker, you’ll have likely seen the players who 4bet shove the river with bottom boat because “they had a full house!” when it’s obvious that they’re only getting called by worse. These players are only thinking on Level 1.
We call Level 1 the foundation of poker logic because it focuses on the most basic part of the game; if your hand is good, you’re more likely to win, and if your hand is bad, you’re more likely to lose. It’s important to internalize this concept early on, which is why you find so many beginners stuck at this level. However, if you want to become a winning poker player, you need to progress beyond the most basic aspects of poker and explore other variables that impact the hand.
The danger of only thinking about your hand is that poker is not played in a vacuum. You need to consider external factors, such as what your opponents have, when evaluating how good your hand is, just comparing it to the poker hand rankings chart is not going to be good enough to develop a winning strategy.
The next step in multiple level thinking is considering what your opponent may have. Doing this gives you a reference point for how good your hand is which you can use to alter your strategy. Like in the example above, you may have a full house on the river, but if your opponent likely has a better full house given how they’ve played the hand, you can use this information to find a fold.
To understand what your opponents have, you need to sharpen your hand-reading skills and pay attention to how they’re playing. By picking up patterns in their actions, you’re better able to understand how they play certain groups of hands, giving you a strategic advantage.
For example, do they always play their draws aggressively? Do they often trap with their strong hands? Understanding these tendencies better allows you to create accurate ranges for your opponents, which then allows you to better change your strategy to exploit them.
When seeking to understand how your opponents play, it’s important that you consider both preflop and postflop action to create a complete picture of your opponent’s range. If your opponent reaches a showdown with a hand that they shouldn’t be playing from a certain position, this is vital information that you should be collecting! By noticing that they play too wide preflop, you can adjust your starting ranges for your opponents, giving you a more accurate picture of their postflop ranges.
However, don’t think that you’re the only person at the poker table who’s able to adjust their strategy. You’re playing against humans, not robots, and people will start to change how they play based on information they pick up at the poker table – particularly if they’re high-level thinkers. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t bother trying to understand what they have; in fact, we can use this to our advantage.
Level 3 is all about the psychology of our opponents, or “What does my opponent think I have?” Thinking players will be evaluating how you play and will make judgments based on what they’ve seen, so use that to your advantage! Have you been getting a bad run of cards and folded for two orbits in a row? They probably think you play too tight. Have you been getting a lot of hands that haven’t gone to showdown? They probably think you’re too aggressive.
Once you understand these perceptions of how you play, you can subvert them by adjusting your strategy. For example, if you suspect your opponent thinks you’re playing too tight, take advantage of that by bluffing into them aggressively.
Playing this game can be dangerous, as there’s no way to know what your opponent is thinking. If they haven’t noticed you playing tight, upping your bluffing aggression will likely backfire, so carefully consider whether or not your opponent is the type of person who will pay attention to how you play before pulling the trigger.
Advanced Level Thinking: Beyond the Third Level
Multiple level poker thinking doesn’t end at Level 3; in fact, it can go on for as many levels as you’d like! Many players consider anything beyond Level 3 the “meta-game.” It’s at this point where poker turns into a big game of “they know that I know that they know that I know…”
It’s because of this that many players believe that the level of thinking in poker required to be a winning player doesn’t need to exceed Level 3. Even Level 3 is delving into the world of guesswork, as you can never know what your opponent really thinks of you, so anything beyond that is just speculation at best.
However, that’s not to say that it doesn’t have its place in poker. If you’re playing against someone you’re deeply familiar with, being able to “out-level” your opponent can lead to some very profitable situations.
For example, let’s say you’re playing against a friend who has an intimate knowledge of how you play. They’re on Level 3 of the multiple level thinking tree. However, by moving to Level 4 (you know that they know how you play), you can use their knowledge of your game against them by altering your strategy in ways you won’t expect.
Be aware that when playing these games, it’s easy to “out-level” yourself, and end up making strategic changes that fall right into your opponent’s hands, so level at your own risk!
Playing Profitable Poker: Using MLT To Your Advantage
All this multiple level thinking is all well and good, but how exactly do we it to make money at the poker table? Well, the secret to multiple level thinking is to always be one level ahead of your opponent. By staying exactly one level ahead, you’re able to exploit your opponent without out-leveling yourself, allowing you to play profitably against them.
Let’s consider a Level 1 player; all they think about when making their decisions is the strength of their hand. By thinking on Level 2, you’re focusing on what your opponent’s range looks like, which allows you to better predict how they’re going to act. However, if you tried to go to Level 3, you’d be thinking about what they think of your range – something that they’re not doing! This can lead to you making incorrect adjustments that lose you money based on the way they’re actually playing.
The logic works the same for a Level 2 player; they’re considering what you have, so it’s important to understand what they think of your range. If you think that they think your range is strong, you can use that to your advantage and start bluffing more often, knowing that they’ll likely fold more often.
The key thing to remember is to always stay exactly one level ahead of your opponent; this allows you to make adjustments that best exploit how they play.
Navigating MLT to Shape Table Dynamics
When playing live or online, you’re not going to be up against a single opponent, you’re likely going to be up against multiple opponents. Each of these opponents will be on a different level of thinking, which will shape how the game plays. When you sit down at a new table, the first thing you should try and do is ascertain what level each of your opponents is playing on.
By understanding the level that each player is playing on, you will be able to change your strategy to best exploit them. For example, against a player who is only thinking on Level 1, you should play very simply; betting your best hands for value and not bluffing when they show an interest in the pot.
Not only will understanding their level help you determine how to play against them, but it will give you a better understanding of the table dynamics. For example, if a Level 1 player limps and a Level 2 player raises that limp, you can make a reasonable assumption that the Level 1 player’s hand is weak, and the Level 2 player is exploiting that fact, giving you the opportunity to steal the pot with an aggressive play.
If you pay attention, you can use each player’s level of thinking against them, creating profitable situations that you otherwise may not have found.
The Learning Curve: Progressing Through Levels of Thought
If you’re reading this and realizing that you’re only on Level 1 or 2, you may be wondering how you can progress up the levels and become a Level 3 thinker. Well, the best way to improve how you think about the game is by actively playing; this means playing and paying close attention to what’s happening rather than scrolling through your phone after you fold your hand. By watching the flow of action and seeing what good players do and what bad players do, you get an understanding of how they think about the game, which you can then use to your advantage.
Away from the table, there are multiple things you can do to get a better understanding of the psychology of the game. Watching high-level players talk through their thought processes in strategy videos is a great way to understand the mind of strong players; understanding what they think about when making their decisions can help you improve your own poker thought process.
Another thing you can do is develop friendships with good players. By discussing poker with players who have a solid understanding of how the game works, you can take aspects of their thought process and implement them when you’re playing.
For players who are progressing to Level 2, the most important thing to focus on is your hand-reading skills. Take the time to thoroughly think through what your opponent can have in each scenario and break it down hand by hand. By doing this enough times, you will quickly become comfortable with hand-reading in-game.
If you’re looking to progress to Level 3, turn the focus back on yourself. Consider how you evaluate yourself if you were an opponent. Do you think you’ve been playing tight? Do you think you’ve been playing aggressively? Being able to objectively evaluate how you’re playing, you are better able to understand how your opponents perceive you, which you can then use to your advantage.
Case Studies in Multiple Level Thinking
To give an example of multi-level thinking by a professional player, let’s look at a hand between poker pro Roberto Romanello and Greg Geller in the WSOP and take it street by street.
Implementing MLT in Tournaments and Cash Games
While multiple level thinking is applicable in both tournaments and cash games, it’s important to understand the differences in where it’s used to utilize it effectively. In tournaments, the average stack size is considerably lower than in cash games. This means that many of the decisions are mechanical and based purely on math rather than any psychology, and the potential for multiple level thinking is reduced.
However, during key sections of the tournament, such as the money bubble, pay jumps, and the final table bubble, you are able to use multiple level thinking to your advantage. Knowing how your opponent will approach the bubble should drastically change your own strategy. If you think that they’re going to tighten up to try and make the money, you can go crazy bluffing them, knowing that they’ll fold almost all the time. On the other hand, if they don’t care about the bubble, bluffing into them aggressively would be suicidal!
When it comes to cash games, the stacks get a lot deeper, so the potential for out-leveling your opponents becomes much greater. With deeper stacks, there’s much more room for divergent strategies, and understanding how your opponents play and what level they’re thinking on can lead to very profitable situations – as long as you know how to adjust.
Conclusion
An important step in becoming a winning poker player is learning how to think beyond your own hand. Poker is a game that should not be played in isolation; there’s a whole world outside your own hand that you should consider, and by implementing multiple level thinking into your poker game, you’re better able to consider the important variables and adjust your strategy accordingly.
If you want to get better at multiple level thinking in poker, the only way to do so is to practice! We’ve given you the building blocks in this article, so now it’s up to you to go out there and use them.
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If you want to reach Level 2 and understand the hands your opponents have, we’d recommend watching a cards-down poker live stream and pausing to consider what each player could likely have in each scenario based on how they play. This allows you to work on your hand reading in a low-pressure environment, and once you’ve developed your skills, you can take them to the poker table.
Yes, when you are playing against opponents who have a simplified thought process, overcomplicating your multiple level thinking will only detriment you. Remember, you only need to be one level above your opponent to exploit them, so if your opponent is on Level 1, don’t waste your mental energy thinking on Level 3 or 4.
Yes, all professional poker players have a comprehensive understanding of poker on multiple levels. Big names like Phil Hellmuth, Tom Dwan, and Daniel Negreanu would not be able to reach the heights they have without a mastery of MLT strategies.
Yes! Beginners can absolutely benefit from adopting MLT strategies. In fact, we’d go as far to say that you can’t become a good player without thinking on multiple levels. By adopting MLT strategies, you broaden your perspective on the game and open your mind to new strategies that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred to you.
Yes, despite the fast-paced nature of the game, you can absolutely use multiple level thinking in online games. By using technology such as HUDs as well as paying close attention to your opponents, you can identify the levels of each player and use that to your advantage.
Yes, MLT strategies can be used against players who play in an unorthodox manner. While they may play unconventionally, you should be able to work out whether they’re thinking on Level 1, 2, or 3. Once you’ve ascertained their level of thinking, you can out-level them and successfully exploit the way they play.
Truthfully, the best players are consistently thinking on multiple levels while they’re playing, and only reduce the number of levels as and when they need to. You shouldn’t be focusing on only what you have or only what your opponent thinks of you; you should be constantly thinking across the levels to best understand how you should play your hand, and the only way to do this is by practicing!
Overthinking is a dangerous trap to fall into, but it’s important to remember that the best way to exploit your opponents is to play one level above them. They’re on Level 1? You think on Level 2. They’re on Level 2? You think on Level 3.
When poker was first played, almost all players were Level 1 thinkers, only concerned about the strength of their own hand. Over the years, the smartest players realized that by considering what their opponents have, they could alter their strategy and increase their win rate. Since then, MLT strategies have evolved to cover multiple levels of thinking, with the best players consistently thinking at least three levels deep!
GTO or Game Theory Optimal play is a style of play that focuses on playing the best theoretical strategy in any situation, whereas multiple level thinking seeks to use your opponent’s thought process against them and is considered to be an exploitative strategy.
