Figuring out the range?

GDBPoker

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After watching vids on training sites it seems the pro's all have their specific ranges for calling, 3 betting, 3 bet calling, check raise etc etc.

Is this something that they have sat down and figured out, created scenarios and found examples, and decided what exactly you will do in each situation against specific opponents almost every time? Or when people are talking about ranges is it just ingrained, have they played so much and reviewed so much its just stuck in their head?

To me it seems like a bit of both, and on a few videos the pro has said its important to have your shoving and re-shoving and calling ranges etc figured out in order to do well. So am I sitting down and finding some kind of list out there of these ranges, or am I creating one myself based on how I like to play? And at what stages should I be saying "yeah my 3bet range is the shiz"? I know its always changing and evolving as you progress as a player, I'd just like to know if figuring out these ranges are the first things I should be focused on, or if it comes more from trial and error by playing more MTT's and reviewing.

Thanks for the help
 
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floweryhead

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If you go through your opponents stats you can work out the ranges that your opponents are playing and create a counter strategy... In HEM2 or PT4 you can see how many hands they open call with with their VPIP... how many hands they open raise with PFR... 3 bet... 4bet etc... Once you have this all worked out you can group the players into certain types and work out strategies to exploit them..In summary... you end up with different strategies for different player types.
 
yeezus

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Each range is gonna be dependent on the type of player you are against.Lag tag etc. Also the ranges are gonna be changing as your opponents play changes if they are capable of changing gears and what not.You can develop a range for each type of player tag lag and tweak the range on what uou gather from the information about yhe player. Definately utilize hem or pt. Unless you play on bovada like me which makes it a little more difficult to do. Goodluck at the tables
 
2Pacavelli

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there is no correct formula , you have to make your own range of hands based on the information you have on your opponents , as style of play, stack , position , etc. is also very important you have notes of opponents , so that you will be able to identify his range more easily
 
GDBPoker

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I guess I never thought of it that way, to find a specific opponent and figure out what the best way is to play against them, and then apply it to villains that are similar in style. I guess when looking back that's exactly what has been said in all the vids I've seen, just not as direct as some of you have written it out
 
IntenseHeat

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As in everything having to do with poker, it depends on this, that and the other thing. Then there is some other stuff that you need to factor in. That being said, I can't say that I have a specific or fixed 3-bet range.

As a couple of people have already said, it's starts with observation, what I often refer to as patterns and deviations. My 3-betting range is going to be dependent on these observations. While I'm comfortable raising with any hand in my range, what I raise with is not always the same hand that I would call a raise with. It's going to change depending on the situation. Likewise, my 3-bet range is not always going to be the same. In some cases I might widen it against an EP min raise, not so much to play back at the min raiser as to discourage anyone else from getting in the hand in order to see a flop heads up, because a lot of players aren't deterred by a min raise. I might widen it even more against an agro player who shows a tendency to open light. Where I consider myself to be a tight player, but am willing to raise with any part of my range, some players will call with a lot of hands that I wouldn't even play, but they don't seem to ever raise. So when I see a raise from these players, I might call their raise, but would only 3-bet them with aces or kings.

To the reason why you might not be able to find anywhere where anyone says this is my 3-bet range, other than because it varies depending on the situation, is probably because no one wants to give that much specific information about how they play. I do it all the time. When describing my range I might say that it's tighter than some, but not as tight as others. I will readily tell you that I don't mind raising with any hand in my range. But I will never say exactly where that range begins. I will try to answer questions as best I can without defining my exact range. I would imagine that when people are giving advice on 3-betting, they are trying to do the same thing.
 
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GDBPoker

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As in everything having to do with poker, it depends on this, that and the other thing. Then there is some other stuff that you need to factor in. That being said, I can't say that I have a specific or fixed 3-bet range.

As a couple of people have already said, it's starts with observation, what I often refer to as patterns and deviations. My 3-betting range is going to be dependent on these observations. While I'm comfortable raising with any hand in my range, what I raise with is not always the same hand that I would call a raise with. It's going to change depending on the situation. Likewise, my 3-bet range is not always going to be the same. In some cases I might widen it against an EP min raise, not so much to play back at the min raiser as to discourage anyone else from getting in the hand in order to see a flop heads up. I might widen it even more against an agro player who shows a tendency to open light. Where I consider myself to be a tight player, but am willing to raise with any part of my range, some players will call with a lot of hands that I wouldn't even play, they don't seem to ever raise. So when I see a raise from these players, I might call their raise, but would only 3-bet them with aces or kings.

To the reason why you might not be able to find anywhere where anyone says this is my 3-bet range, other than because varies depending on the situation, is probably because no one wants to give that much specific information about how they play. I do it all the time. When describing my range I might say that it's tighter than some, but not as tight as others. I will readily tell you that I don't mind raising with any hand in my range. But I will never say exactly where that range begins. I will try to answer questions as best I can without defining my exact range. I would imagine that when people are giving advice on 3-betting, they are trying to do the same thing.

Thanks mate makes sense. By the sounds of it, one of the main things I should be focusing on first is being more situationally aware, get better at reading what's going on in a hand, and get a handle on the basics of what I should and shouldn't be doing. I guess that's how this question popped up in the first place, posting hands and people saying I should be 3-betting to isolate etc.

Cheers for the reply, really helpful
 
TeUnit

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i think establishing ranges can come from a variety of sources, notes, hud, situational awareness, and study

the best players come up the most accurate ranges through using the most amount of information available
 
rock0001

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some players will just use a hud, however i dont think they work against opponents who are changing their game constantly. sure you can see villain 3 bet range is only 3% so you think he is not going to 3 bet unless he has aa,kk, qq or ak however any ¨smart¨ player who knows his 3 bet range is very tight might start 3 betting more often and players who uses the huds wont figured this out. you need to pay attention on how tight or loose your opponents are at the moment not 3 years ago. look at their raises, their positions in which they made their raises, if they reach the showdown look all the cards they had, also chipstack is important because players tend to loosen up their game with a bigstack so the range of hands of a bigstack tend to be wider than a player with a lower stack.
 
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floweryhead

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some players will just use a hud, however i dont think they work against opponents who are changing their game constantly. sure you can see villain 3 bet range is only 3% so you think he is not going to 3 bet unless he has aa,kk, qq or ak however any ¨smart¨ player who knows his 3 bet range is very tight might start 3 betting more often and players who uses the huds wont figured this out. you need to pay attention on how tight or loose your opponents are at the moment not 3 years ago. look at their raises, their positions in which they made their raises, if they reach the showdown look all the cards they had, also chipstack is important because players tend to loosen up their game with a bigstack so the range of hands of a bigstack tend to be wider than a player with a lower stack.

This is very true. When I work on a particular problem opponent I tend to review all hands first and then the last 12 months to see what deviations have occurred. There's one particular opponent whom I have over a million hands against. He was originally a TAG but through August September last year he turned maniac and lost loads. Now he's LAG but not making anywhere near as much as he was as a TAG. Another thing I realised as well is that he plays very differently when I'm at the table. I took a couple of sessions watching him... so now that I've realised he's adjusting to me I'm adjusting back... I'm up against him at the moment btw...
 
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floweryhead

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Just wanted to maybe correct an error. It may not be an error. In another post I say about my HEM2 dying on New Years day so I can't clarify for sure but there's one specific player that I've played more than 500K hands against as of New Years Day (when my computer died). My memory of it is that it was closer to 800K but I don't know for sure. I estimated that over 4 months I may have played considerably more hands against them to make the million but could quite easily be wrong. It was just on rereading what I have written in this post I could have over-estimated. If I somehow or other manage to recover the dead drive at some point I'll know for sure. The Database I have since New Years day contains 637,643 hands from 24-tabling at this moment consisting of 56701 against the player I mentioned
 
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