Ahead of opponents range?

I will take a shot but some of the better players can correct me where I am wrong.

First one should not put a player on 1 hand they are usually a range. Even nits have a range of hand they will do certain things with. For instance if you are facing a preflop raise UTG from a 7/5/3 then his range would be AA, KK, AK, maybe QQ (I am not great at this but you get the point). Conversly if you are facing a UTG raise from a 35/27/1.2 and are holding AKs, you are way ahead of his range as he will open riase AA-55, AK-Q10 (again a guess). In the AK case you are way ahead of the majority of his preflop range.

then the flop comes and you use the same principles to compare your hand v. thiers. This is why nits are easy to play agiant. Once the flop comes you know or have a 90% chance of knowing exactly where you stand in the hand. This is also what makes good LAGs so difficult to play against, as you may never know until showdown where you are in the hand.

So lets say you're playing the following hand:

Hero has 77 UTG and raises to 4xbb's. Button calls, all others fold.

- We should now start thinking about his range. Since he flat called, he's more likely to have an AJs, 22, 89s kind of hand, and less likely to have say KK. And you can narrow or expand this player's range based on stats. If he never 3-bets, then you still need to include AK in his range, ect.

Flop comes out 27A rainbow. You c-bet for 75% of the pot, and your opponent min-raises you.

So we've thought about his range preflop, so now that we've been min-raised, his range will change. If he never bluffs, then he's likely doing this with 22, A7s, AJ, A2 type hands. And against that range of hands, we're a big favorite with middle set. You can calculate this with poker stove if you like.

Often by the river, you can narrow your opponents range down to a very small set of cards because you've seen them make & respond to so many actions. But when you're playing, you should never put your opponent on just 1 hand, because there's always a range of hands they could make that set of actions with. The whole key is to take actions that get the most value out of his range as possible.

So, for instance, If I took the sklansky hand groups and compared each to the range of an opponent, would that be a good start for me? or would that be way off the mark?

Something like that. If you are on the button w/JJ and know the BB's three-bet% is like 10%, you can safely 4-bet him and probably get it in preflop or on a good flop.

If it is 1% (QQ+), you would fold.

To expand on one of your previous post: Here

Take the preflop range and compare your holdings to that range and compare how you are doing in the hand to how your opponent is likely doing.

Edit: Then as C9 stated above, as the hand plays out you should be able to narrow your opponents range as the hand plays out.

Stu_Ungar said:

So, for instance, If I took the sklansky hand groups and compared each to the range of an opponent, would that be a good start for me? or would that be way off the mark?

Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "be a good start"....