Getting started

Creating your first blueprint

1. Describe the game

• Seats: switch UTG, MP, CO, BU, SB and BB on or off (2–6 players). Set stacks per seat, or all at once with Set all stacks.
• Raise sizes: per seat, for the open, 3-bet, squeeze (a 3-bet after somebody called the open), 4-bet and 5-bet; a separate big-blind 3-bet against a small-blind open. The 6-bet is always all-in. Each level has allow jam and force jam options.
  • A 3-bet or 4-bet is either a raise-to amount in big blinds (9) or a multiple of the raise it answers: 3x, or 3x/4x for in position / out of position. A multiple becomes a big-blind amount for every line, so a 3x 3-bet is 7.5 bb against a 2.5 bb open and 9 bb against a 3 bb open.
  • The 5-bet size is set by the seat that opened the pot, whoever makes the 5-bet.
  • A size below the legal minimum raise is played as the minimum; Preview tree lists where that happens.
• Limps and calls:
  • Allow Limp exists for the SB only.
  • Cold calls of the open can be allowed per seat, and you can cap the number of cold callers.
  • Cold Call 3-bet, Cold Call 4-bet and Cold Call 5-bet (off by default): a seat may call that raise while it has nothing in the pot yet, for example UTG opens, MP 3-bets and the button calls. Only seats that can face the raise before acting have a box. These calls count against the cold-caller cap. A row disappears when an earlier raise is forced all-in, because that raise level can no longer happen. Each box adds multiway pots, so the tree and the RAM grow.
  • You can allow the BB to iso-raise a limp, and the SB to re-raise after limping.
  • Anyone may call an all-in (on by default for new trees): every seat may call an all-in at any raise level, however many players have already called.
• Rake: rake %, cap, minimum pot, "no flop, no drop", and "Rake uncalled bets".
• Postflop tree: start from the Light, Standard or Rich preset. Then set the bets and raises for the out-of-position and in-position player in each pot type: limped, single-raised, 3-bet and 4-bet+. See Custom game trees.

Click Verify Tree to check the tree before training. Click Preview tree to browse the preflop tree the engine will build, in the panel on the right:

• Follow any line to its end: a fold, an all-in, or the flop with the players in, the pot and the pot type.
• The summary counts the preflop decisions and the flops by number of players and pot type.
• It also lists every raise size the engine had to raise to the legal minimum (or to all-in).
• Click a raise to change its size. The matching setting changes and the preview is rebuilt; any other setting you change while it is open rebuilds it too.

2. Choose the run parameters

• Iterations (default 20,000) and checkpoint targets (default 2000, 5000, 10000, 20000).
• Strength: small, medium or high (the default). This sets the size of the postflop hand abstraction. See what it changes.
• Postflop EV: in training (full), sampled at end, or off (least RAM). This controls which postflop EVs the blueprint records; see Reading EV.
• Threads and a run name. The app usually prefills the detected logical processor count minus two, up to 32; if detection is unavailable it keeps 6. You can edit the value. Output goes to preflop_runs\<name>.

The panel shows a RAM estimate. A run saves a checkpoint and stops itself when it reaches 85% of physical RAM.

3. Start

• Saved to: the disk and folder the run's checkpoints are written to. A checkpoint takes from a few GB to tens of GB on a long six-player run, and two are kept per run, so pick a disk with room: click the button, choose a disk or type a folder. Runs saved in a folder you used before stay in the list of checkpoints and can still be loaded, continued and deleted. A run you continue from a checkpoint in another folder writes its new checkpoints to the folder chosen here, under the same run name; the checkpoint it resumed stays where it was. The same choice is offered in the summary before a run starts and when a run stops for lack of space.
• Threads: worker threads of the run. The app usually prefills your detected logical processor count minus two, up to 32, with 6 as the fallback. This is a suggested starting value, not the maximum you can enter.
• Hand classes (faster): trains the postflop part on equivalent hands instead of single combos, about 1.3 times faster on the measured large run. The model stays the same, but adding results in a different order can change the run's path, much like using another seed. Off by default. A checkpoint can be continued with or without it.
• Run solve trains the blueprint. A summary dialog asks you to confirm first.
• ▶▶ Build base runs the whole pipeline and shows an ETA: train, scan, repair shared classes, refresh, and load the result.
• Stop saves a checkpoint and a blueprint of the work done so far.
• The action tree beside the settings shows the latest ranges of the run, or the loaded blueprint. Click an action to see its range. Click a seat's Decision row to see all of its actions in one grid: fold is blue, call, limp and check are orange, a raise is red and an all-in dark red; a hand that does not always reach the node is filled only as high as the share that does. Zoom opens the same view larger.

A run keeps going if you close the window; see Checkpoints & long runs.