Open range

	The texture of the board is very important in assigning your opponent’s range

There may well be some freaks on this planet so in tune with their natural poker abilities that they can look into an opponent’s soul and know they have Ace-Queen. And if you’re one of those people, you can stop reading now. Okay, that’s Doyle gone, so now I want to explain to the rest of you how assigning players a range of possible hands, rather than taking a guess at one specific hand, can make you lots more money.

When you play a hand of poker your job is to make the best decisions you can. The more information you can deduce about your opponents’ hands the better your decision-making will be, and the bigger your long-term profits. As the hand progresses through each street you get more information and with each new clue you should assign a list of possible hands your opponent could hold. Try to get into the habit of doing this as early in the hand as possible rather than reconstructing the hand at the end. In an ideal world, when you reach the river you will have a complete view of the possible hands your opponent(s) could have and how your hand compares to theirs.

GETTING STARTED

Let’s start by first breaking down the process of assigning a hand range to your opponents. Before the flop players can fall into very predictable patterns and it can be very possible to put them on quite a narrow range of possible hands. For example, if a predictable player raises from early position in a full ring game you can say with some confidence that he will most likely have a pocket pair, A-K or A-Q and, very occasionally, suited connectors to vary his play.

Contrast this to a loose player making the first raise in a pot on the button. With no one else in the pot and the blinds up for grabs he could literally have any two cards – certainly any cards with the slightest playable merit. So putting that type of player on a specific hand is nigh-on impossible, and the range of possible holdings you’d assign him would be very high.

Once there’s been action it becomes easier to refine someone’s pre-flop range. For instance, if you raise and a tight player calls, especially in early or middle position, you can narrow his range to usually being a medium strength hand, sometimes a speculative hand, and occasionally a huge hand that he’s slow-playing.

Or let’s say you raise to steal the blinds and the big blind calls. Now you can take what you know about this player and be pretty confident about his pre-flop range a lot of the time. If he’s an unpredictable or loose player his hand range could be very wide, but most players will re-raise from the blinds with strong hands, call with hands like small and medium pairs or two broadway cards, and muck the rest.

So as you can see, you can widen the range of your opponents’ hands based on how predictable or not they play. However, it’s important not to be too specific with your opponents’ hand ranges, and instead understand how they’re weighted. In other words, the predictable player raising from early position will usually have a big hand and occasionally suited connectors, but you shouldn’t rule out his less likely holdings at this stage.

One other point to remember when you’re putting unknown players on a hand is that in the absence of solid information on a player, you should assume that your opponent will act in a ‘standard’ rational way. So if you have a close decision in a hand with an unknown it’s better to err on the side of giving them credit for a hand, as calling and being wrong tends to be a bigger mistake than folding and being wrong.

NARROW STREETS

Once the flop is dealt and action takes place you can start narrowing down your opponents’ possible holdings. For instance, if your opponent calls your pre-flop raise and continuation bet on the flop, you should be able to narrow his range considerably. His call on the flop would suggest that he’s either connected with the flop in some way, or he has a hand that he thinks may still be best.

The texture of the board is very important both on the flop and throughout the rest of the hand in assigning your opponent’s range. For example, if your opponent check-raises you on the flop and it isn’t a draw-heavy board, then you can be a lot more specific about his hand. In this spot it’s frequently a stronger holding, such as an overpair, top pair or a set. However, if the flop is draw-heavy your opponent’s range will need to be larger, as he may hold a made hand or be semi-bluffing a draw or combination hand such as top pair with a gutshot.

The turn and river are a continuation and refinement of your read. Ideally, you’ll be able to funnel down your opponent’s possible holdings as the hand develops, based on the cards dealt and betting. Remember, you’re not trying to be specific about what he has, you’re simply considering candidates for his possible holding and accepting or rejecting them as possibilities.

So, for example, let’s say your opponent raises in early position and you call. You determine that his hand range includes pocket pairs 7-7+, two face cards A-Js+ and occasionally a hand like 9-8s. The flop comes, he bets, and you call again with a hand that may be good. The pot is heads-up so you don’t think this street changes his range very much as he will make continuation bets with almost his entire range.

The turn brings a harmless card and your opponent checks. For the majority of players you can now eliminate big pairs from their hand and suited connectors that have connected heavily with the board, and instead weight their range heavily towards two big cards. However, against a tricky player who you have previously seen check- raise on the turn when they have a big hand, you may not be able to eliminate such holdings.

The good news when assigning hand ranges is that the vast majority of players act in a very predictable pattern only – this is certainly true of the lower levels of the game and for many medium stakes players.

You shouldn’t forget that, particularly as you play against tougher competition, your competitors will be assessing your possible holdings too. You may have heard that you should make certain plays to ‘balance your range’ – this means making plays that deviate from your normal decisions (e.g. raising in early position with a hand like 7-6s) to make it harder for players to read you. This is something you should be aware of, but don’t stray too far from the path of solid poker, unless you’re playing against really good players or against the same players very often.

On the river the process of assessing your opponent’s hand range is complete and the picture should be much clearer. The final board card will decide whether draws have been completed or not and so on. The other significant thing is that the maths of the hand is simplified as often there can’t be any more betting when you make your decision. If your opponent is giving you action or making an aggressive play the completeness of the board means it’s much clearer what he has or is trying to represent – therefore you can usually give him a much narrower range.

At this stage I should talk about the pure bluff. You’ve probably all been in a hand where you’ve had an agonising decision over whether your hand is good. So when considering your opponent’s range you should often allocate a certain percentage to total airballs. This may be covered by the hands you’re considering (for example, missed draws) but it may not, and you should definitely add some bluffs to his range. This bluffing percentage depends, of course, on the situation, but also on your opponent.

EDUCATED GUESS

So what’s the point of this exercise? Well, giving your opponents a hand range takes the guesswork out of difficult decisions. All you have to do to make a correct decision is compare your hand to your opponent’s hand range. If you need to make a big call, for instance, you can compare the percentage of times you think your hand is good to the odds of reward from the pot, and decide if it’s a profitable call.

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say at the river you hold two-pair. Your opponent bets and you think half the time he’s made his flush and half the time he’s bluffing – so you win 50% of the time against his hand range. Now let’s say the pot contains 1000 chips and your opponent has bet another 1000. This means your hand needs to be good one in two times or 33% of the time. You’ve already deduced you’re good against his range 50% of the time, so you can make a profitable call.

Of course, your opponent’s range will often be wider than two possible holdings, as in the above example. And it can also be difficult to work out the maths of a given situation. However, it’s possible to approximate your opponent’s range and your strength against it. You do this by starting to think about hands in this way until it becomes second nature, and analysing hands you’ve played after the event.

I’d strongly recommend starting to do this using an equity calculator (‘Poker Stove’ is available for free at www.pokerstove.com) so that you can see exactly how much strength you have against an opponent’s range. The more you do this the more of a feel you’ll get for how hands fare against different ranges in different situations, and the easier it will be to make good decisions.