Putting Opponents On Ranges

I've recently been trying to think more about ranges.

As some of you will know it's an integral part of developing you poker game. At 10nl (where I am) you should really start to learn and practice it and add it to your game. Before moving up to 25nl you should be pretty comfortable working with ranges to be successful.

I'm trying to add this to my game but i'm finding it difficult. Here are a couple of problems i'm having.

1. I give people too much credit. I start over thinking and probably leveling myself, I start thinking what they could have and start mis-playing my hand. It makes me much less confident in my hand and how to play it.
If some one calls my button raise I put them on small pairs, SC's and some broadways. There a lots of possible hands they could make and I find it hard to stay aggressive when I think of what they may have.

2. It's hard to think of ranges for certain spots quickly, although I know it will come with practice. Like I said before when someone limp calls, what the hell do I do? They could have so many hands at 10nl.



Mainly i't just like to get some advice on how I should start thinking about ranges. Maybe a method to work through that will help me become comfortable with working with them before I can expand and it starts coming naturally to me. I do need help because atm i turn into a mess when I try and think like this.

Thanks.

It all starts with preflop.

Ranges generally get narrower and narrower from preflop to river, so start with a base preflop range and think about how that range changes based on the actions of you and your opponent and the board texture.

Obviously stats can help identify how loose or tight a player is preflop - specifically VPIP/PFR stats.

So a random example hand to illustrate how ranges change:

We expect villain's MP range to be roughly %17 of hands; pokerstove has the top %17 at {66+,A5s+,K9s+,Q9s+,JTs,ATo+,KTo+,QTo+}, and we do great against that range, so we call. (Quick note: the top %X of hands isn't necessarily his exact range; he may open all pairs and maybe not the weaker offsuit hands for example, so you'll often have to make adjustments like this on your own based on your reads of the guy.) 3betting probably folds out most of that range which is good, but he most likely doesn't call a 3bet OOP with any of the hands we dominate, so flatting is best.

Villain most likely cbets %85+ of his range on this flop. If his cbet stat is particularly low or high, we can use that to adjust our assumption. But usually he'll bet all his bluffs (his range contains many more kings than ours does, so we 'should' be scared of this flop with most of our range), as well as all his monsters (AK or better).

So we can see that on a board like this, his range doesn't change all that much from preflop - we can't narrow it down yet.

On a different flop, his range might change completely. For ex:

Villain often won't cbet worse than an overpair, the nut flush draw, pair + straight draw, or other made hands (two pair+). So his %17 preflop range has now been narrowed to a fraction of it's original state since that board (which favours our flatting range MUCH more than it does his opening range) will scare him so much that he will often give up with his air.

You can imagine how various turn/rivers can further the process until, on the river, we have the most information than any other street and can play accordingly.

Hope that helps.

Start by playing around with Pokerstove to get a good handle on what some standard preflop ranges actually look like. For instance if a player is only opening 9% of his hands from EP he basically never has small pps or SCs in his preflop range, so if you flop 2pair holding 56 on a 567 board and he wants to play for stacks, feel comfortable knowing that you're not up against sets, str8s or 2pair ever. He has an overpair and he's drawing to very few outs.

Just knowing what hands are in your opponents preflop ranges helps to eliminate some of those "Well he could have..." fears. So start with learning those ranges and then narrow down from there based on postflop actions.

Edit: How is it that I write like 4 sentences and it takes me like 8 minutes longer than ChuckTs who does a huge post complete with actual ranges!

Pokerstove is used to illustrate ranges and calculate hand equity. Definitely mess around with it as much as you can. It's like the #1 tool for use with hand analysis.

Pokerazor/stox combo is used to break down how those ranges hit various boards. Here's some stuff I did which is a good starting point to get a feel for what type of ranges hit what type of flops:

http://www.cardschat.com/f50/pokeraz...et-pot-136958/ (http://www.cardschat.com/f50/pokerazor-analysis-1-kq-3bet-pot-136958/)
Stox Combo analyses
Pokerazor analysis 2: cbetting against a loose fish

Thanks guys, this is really helpful. It will probably good for other players too.
Thanks for the links ChuckTs, it will help me get a 'feel' for using ranges. I'm sure practice will help a lot too.

I see now that pre-flop we can't really narrow ranges a whole lot where as later we can. Also that because it's in his range doesn't mean we should be scare dof it? We should play against his whole range until he narrows it for us further/we do?

Gonna get something to eat then look over those links.

Thanks again.

Yeah, what you should be doing is weighting that specific hand type vs the rest of his range to see how likely it is.

Quick example:

We raise AA in EP
Fish calls out of the blinds - you know he chases tons of hands postflop and can be aggressive.

Flop comes 9s8s2c

Fish checks
You bet big
Fish calls

Turn comes 2h

Fish checks
You bet big
Fish calls

River 9h

Fish donk bets into you
You snapcall

You snap because we know he'll chase all flush draws, straight draws, sometimes overcards, sometimes he'll ch/c, ch/c with an 8 and decide to donk it on the river for no particular reason, sometimes he'll slowplay JJ+...

So you see a 2 or a 9 is a tiny part of his range and even though we could be 'afraid' of a full house, we know that it's a tiny portion of his range in relation to all those busted draws and stuff.

Ah sweet these look awesome

This is an excellent thread. Thanks for tips everyone!