help w/ opponents range

Hello,

I'm starting to really try and study my opponents possible hand ranges (after the flop), but I need a basic idea of how to approach this. Like maybe a simplified way of thinking after flop activity that helps me narrow the possible hands down. I mean what should my thought process be at the flop, turn, and river. How do I narrow down their range? If they are calling my bets but not raising? If they are leading? etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

There's no 100% way to actually know. Its more like a guesstamation.

Take into account what kind of Villian it is.
Loose or tight.
The type of villain will tell you most about his range. Tight players play good cards, and loose players play all kinds of different kinds of cards.

Then consider what position villian is limping/raising in.

The earlier position the stronger the hand and vice-a-versa, usually, but you can get a monster in late position also. Position helps me narrow it down a bit.

The texture of the board matters like is there a flush draw or straight draw.


Another way to get a better read is instead of calling start raising it will define the hand more. Dont call with second pair raise with it, someone can only call you if they have you beat or on a draw.

(Theres alot of donks out there that will call with bottom pair but lets assume were dealing with someone who knows what there doing, calling with bottom pair just isnt profitable IMO. In most cases.)

It really depends on the texture of the board.


Villain type and the board texture combined with bets/raises postflop should considerably narrow down the possible RANGE of cards villain can hold.




Hope this helps.

I am trying to get better at this myself so will be intrested in the answers. Some of the things I try to take into account is weather the opponent is a tight player or a total maniac or somewhere inbetween, if he is tight you can asume that he has some semblance of hand if he is a maniac then he could be playing anything so be carefull plenty of face cards with a rag second hand or straighty boards can be bad. You can tell a lot sometimes by preflop raises but sometimes your gonna be caught by someone slow playing pocket pairs or just caught out by a hand that just shouldnt have been there in the first place.

What I try to do is not commit all my chips if unsure and I am working on controlling pot size if I am not sure where I am right now espicially if you are acting first, make notes on your opponents things like are they a lagtard, how far they go to chase flushes or straights if you see them call down light unfortunatly its not an exact science so you can get things wrong. Somedays my reads seem great other days I seem lost to what players have so I guess it comes down to experience and observation over time.

Taking notes is also an organic thing many players stay the same but some adjust and so should your notes.

A lot of postflop hand-reading comes from experience. Seeing what hands people showdown after various action on previous streets, with varying board textures etc.

It all starts with preflop - what type of hands are they cold calling with? Open raising with? What do they call a cbet with on this particular board? What range do they cbet on this board? How hard does their preflop range hit this board texture type? etc etc etc.

It's important always to think a hand through from the beginning and try to figure out how your opponent's range gets narrowed down later on in a hand.

Take note of how many hands they are in and what hands they show you. Obviously, the more hands they are in, the more loose they are and vice versa.