A Question For A long time: How to Range Players?

the_viper667 said:

A HUD will help you with getting a rough range by looking at the top percentage of hands they play

Mostly what you'll want to do is observe betting patterns, even in a hand you're not involved in and try to put them on a range. Watch every showdown you can cause they're a goldmine of information on how that person plays
Eventually you'll find yourself being correct with these ranges more and more often

To that second part: not all good players can narrow it down to the exact two cards, in fact most can only do that when they really know their opponent(s) well. And bad players aren't always transparent, if you think that way you'll find yourself calling fish down whenever you put them on a bluff only to find yourself beaten

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the_viper667 said:

Not anymore unfortunately. The local site I play on doesn't support HUDs so I make notes by hand instead. I used to use a free one called FPDB since I'm a cheapskate, it does pretty much everything you'd need. The usual betting stats, graphs and positional stats are all there

Theres also the more commonly used PokerTracker and Hold Em Manager, personally I found HEM to be more user-friendly.

If you're playing cash games then I'd recommend HEM and Leak Buster. If you're playing SNGs you'll like SNG Wizard

They're all great investments though and even if you're grinding micros they'll pay for themselves pretty fast as long as you put in the study time

Good luck

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jesseg said:

Practicing this and letting others comment on your thought process can help you get much better at this in a short period of time. For example, whenever you post hands, put your opponent(s) on a range for each action that they take on each street. People who comment on your ranges will help you to develop this skill much more quickly.

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Thx a lot my dude. I will check this out to see if it will help. Actually I tried to make notes by hand, but it just did not work well.

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jesseg said:

Practicing this and letting others comment on your thought process can help you get much better at this in a short period of time. For example, whenever you post hands, put your opponent(s) on a range for each action that they take on each street. People who comment on your ranges will help you to develop this skill much more quickly.

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WiZZiM said:

things like Hem and other software only help if you understand the game. they are numbers but dont tell the whole story, it just tells you the story of how that player plays vs EVERyone in the game, not jst you. the best way to work players ranges out is to work out how they approach the game. you have to make some assumptions, at first this will be guesswork, but after a while you can narrow players down a lot and actually get into their head and find out how they approach the game. once you work out how they think, they are screwed.

to get this is mainly experience, reviewing hands and also trying to put yourself in the shoes of your opponant. How do you think he thinks, why does he play the game, what are his stats in terms of money won/lost. after you answer some of these questions, do you think he thinks about what hands you have, if so, then ask yourself how would that player view your style on that particular day,

These are the things i think about when i play poker. To narrow down ranges, it's a comination of the things above, but also concentration and paying attention to hands in which you are not even playing. if you play against a plkayer often, go back over tournaments or games and study how he plays for next time.

i never really try to narrow down players ranges to exact figures, i just get a general feeling of what he might do in spots. this is a bit of a ramble since its 4am here, but hope it might help.

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