Flagship research books
Long-form solver-verified poker strategy research, co-authored with coaches. Every claim traces to a query. These are the foundation other content is built on.
Squid Classic
the first strategy manual
QuintAce's proprietary poker variant where each pot carries a game-end win token and whoever finishes without one pays a penalty. Nobody else has published strategy research on it. Ten solver-verified mechanisms, grounded in the literal game rules. v1.8.0 complete rebuild with methodology refresh.
Cash Format Transitions
how your strategy shifts when the format changes
How ante structure, table size, stack depth, rake, and compound transitions reshape GTO strategy. Five chapters, each grounded in solver-verified mechanisms. All chapters published.
Work in progress
The 8 Pillars of Poker Strategy
and what our solver says about each
51 foundational poker theories from modern GTO literature, tested against our solver at scale. Eight pillars covering equity and ranges, frequencies and balance, position, sizing, board texture, multi-street strategy, advanced concepts, and 3-bet pot dynamics. All theories carry source links and confidence badges.
Opponent Modeling & Exploitation
what real opponents do, and how to adjust
Most poker research asks what the solver does. This book asks what real opponents do, how far that is from GTO, and what the optimal counter-strategy is. Starting with bots — the most documented player type in our pool. 12 ranked behavioral signatures, the 'fake nit' paradox, and the sizing polarity inversion that breaks standard MDA logic. **Currently WIP** — awaiting additional research-team data; structure stable, content expansion pending.
PLO4 — Strategy Divergence
where PLO strategy diverges from Cash NLHE
How the trained PLO4 model plays Pot-Limit Omaha versus the Cash NLHE baseline. Nine mechanisms (M1-M9), all T1, covering paired-board cbet suppression, limp-depth inversion, connected-board cbet elevation, wider opens, wider BB defense, turn probe elevation, depth-dependent defense against EP openers, river bet direction reversal after BB turn probes, and BB 3-bet behaviour against LP openers. ~179 solver queries across 9 iterative batches; STOP declared.
PLO4 — Strategy from Zero
how the solver plays PLO from the ground up
Same solver research as our Strategy Divergence book (5b), reframed for readers learning PLO as a standalone game. No NLHE references. Nine mechanisms explained from PLO-native reasoning.
NLHE → PLO Heuristic Migration
which NLHE habits work in PLO and which break
One-page migration cheat sheet. Every significant NLHE heuristic → PLO correction with representative solver data. Designed for competent NLHE players who just sat down at a PLO table.
MTT — Strategy Divergence
how tournament play diverges from cash
How the trained MTT model plays multi-table tournaments versus Cash NLHE, classified across all 8 Cash pillars (A–H) plus Pillar M (MTT-native). 62 theory entries: 23 TRANSFER CLEANLY, 8 AMPLIFY, 1 TEXTURE-SPLIT/REVERSE, 5 MTT-SPECIFIC MODIFICATION (G4 ICM expanded), 15 UNTESTED (Pillar F multi-street, Pillar H 3-bet pots, shallow-D), 10 Pillar M natives (bounty pricing, stage binning, M-ratio, push-fold crossover, SB limping, chip utility, early-ICM engagement). 8 solver-verified mechanisms (M1–M8) all T1 at single-checkpoint. 914 solver queries (497 MTT + 417 Cash); B1 trust gate 40/55 PASS with identical Cash fail set (E4 Cash→MTT PASS). **Currently WIP** — blocked on KI-10 (stage-collapse data-emission bug, gameplay-ai owned), M4 downgrade-vs-audit decision, and M-Probe merge resolution (affects book-2 primarily but ripples here).
Articles
Shorter, audience-targeted pieces spawned from the flagship books. Written with coaches to answer a single focused question with solver data behind it.
Why the solver widens for antes — and tightens the button for straddles
Antes and straddles both put chips in the pot before the hand. The solver treats them very differently. Antes widen every position uniformly. Straddles widen UTG, MP, and CO modestly — but narrow the button by 14.4 percentage points. The asymmetry reshapes every seat's preflop strategy; the article works through the mechanism and the position-by-position playbook.
QuintAI Graded My Dumbest Hands. It's Not What You Think.
JRB handed over 13 of his most-discussed televised hands for solver grading. Two are real fold mistakes (QQ to Salomon, AK to Persson — ~$700K of misjudged EV). One is a correct call unwound by verbal pressure (Robl's flush-rep). One is the Adelstein top-two call that every commentator said was a mistake — and the solver says was right. The leak isn't misread opponents; it's conviction under pressure.
Intuition vs math: grading Easy Game
Good poker intuition points at the right target. The solver tells you whether the target actually exists, how close you were to the coordinates, and what to do when you get there. We run 8 of Andrew Seidman's load-bearing claims from *Easy Game* through the QuintAce solver and grade each one — intuition on the money, intuition pointed at the right target but wrong coordinates, or intuition pointed at a ghost. Seidman responds inline to each verdict.
Work in progress
The hands that defined Phil Ivey — graded
The most publicly-discussed Ivey hands in televised poker — from the Moneymaker cooler at the 2003 WSOP Main Event through the Paul Jackson bluff war at Monte Carlo '05, the $676K Dwan tank-fold on High Stakes Poker, and the Guinness-record $1.1M MDCG pot — put through the QuintAce solver. The public memory of Ivey is mostly mystique; the solver quantifies it, one decision at a time.
The 5 Questions Patrik Antonius Would Ask a Modern Solver
Every other piece in our pipeline grades the coach. This one flips the axis. Patrik Antonius picks 5 questions he's genuinely curious about — spots he's never had a clean verdict on, concepts he wants pressure-tested, debates he wants settled. QuintAce's solver answers each. Patrik reacts to what it finds. The piece is a map of what's still unsettled at the top of the game — in the words of one of the people who plays it.
Seven Hands from Patrik's Modern Cash Era: A Solver Retrospective
Patrik Antonius played elite televised NLHE cash through the entire solver era. HSP, Triton, Cash of the Titans, the $1.978M No Gamble No Future pot, and the Andy Ni bluff — seven hands that span 2014-2024. QuintAce's solver revisits each one. The read-based template he built pre-solver still works; the solver retrospectively confirms his instincts on most decisions and surfaces lines that didn't exist when the hands were played.
Strategy Debate #1 — Xuan Liu × QuintAI
Two minds, two methods, one spot. Xuan Liu brings a strategic claim she wants to pressure-test. QuintAce's solver runs it. Xuan responds to the verdict. Together we close with what a pro actually does in-game given both outputs. This is the inaugural entry in a running column — debate format, not grading.