A leveling war occurs when two players enter a cycle of multi-level reasoning where each tries to think one level above the other. Level 1 is thinking about your own cards, level 2 is thinking about what the opponent has, level 3 is thinking about what the opponent thinks you have, and so on. Leveling wars can lead to paradoxical decisions where the player thinking at more levels sometimes arrives at the same conclusion as a level 1 thinker. GTO theory resolves this by playing equilibrium strategies that make the opponent’s thinking level irrelevant.