Poker is a game of incomplete information, and it is never possible to know exactly what your opponents are holding.
Therefore, instead of trying to guess their opponent’s exact two cards, skilled players determine hand ranges based on the actions their opponents take. This allows them to play their cards optimally against all poker hands and gives them a significant edge.
Today, you will learn what poker ranges are, how they are constructed, and how you can use the concept to become a better player almost instantly.
What Exactly Is a Poker Range?
A poker range is a collection of poker hands that a player can have in a given situation based on the actions they have taken.
A poker hand range can be expressed as a percentage. For example, you can know that a tight opponent raising from an early position has about 10% of all starting hand combinations, and you can discount all the others.
As the hand goes on, you can get even deeper into a player’s hand range and express it in the form of specific hand combos.
For example, when an opponent bets the flop, turn, and river, you can assign them a range that’s made up of the best value combinations and the best bluffing hands for the situation.
How exactly a player’s hand range is constructed depends on many factors, including their tendencies, their actions, and the board texture.
Visualizing Hand Ranges in Poker
There are several ways you can go about visualizing and memorizing poker ranges. They all ultimately have the same meaning, and for the most part, they can be used interchangeably.
Displaying ranges as percentages works best preflop because it is easy to visualize specific hands being in a range.
For example, if we assign a player an opening range of 20%, we know their range consists of pairs of 33 or better, any suited Ace, suited connectors, etc.
If you want to go into more detail, you could depict this opening range as a hand strand, which would look something like this:
33+, A2s+, K8s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 98s+, 87s+, 76s+, AT+, KT+
A poker hand range in Texas Hold’em can also be displayed on the poker hand grid. The grid contains all the possible starting card combinations, and you can use it to highlight all the hands contained in a player’s range.
This method of range display is commonly used when studying poker with software tools like GTO Wizard or PokerSnowie.
How to Construct a Poker Range
Every action that happens at a poker table can help you determine a player’s hand range more precisely.
Some of the things to look out for include:
- Positions
- Player actions
- Player tendencies
- Game flow
- Stack sizes
- Meta game
Each of these factors can help you determine a player’s poker range more accurately. It all starts from the moment a player acts on their hand in the preflop betting round.
The first move a player makes is usually a very telling one. A player raising or re-raising preflop from different positions can help you immediately narrow their range down from 100% to just 20% or 30% of the hands, or even less.
The player’s position and overall tendencies are your best clues.
A tight player opening from an early position or 3-betting over your raise will usually signify a very tight range.
Things like game flow and meta game can impact the range as well. For example, if a player who just lost two big pots to you is 3-betting you, their range might contain some extra bluffs, as they may be out to play some pots with you.
Iis worth studying actual push fold charts to take advantage of this information. Of course, this all depends on the player profile, as some players are more or less likely to deviate from their original game plan based on the meta game.
Balanced, Polarized, and Linear Hand Ranges
When constructing your own hand ranges or trying to determine your opponents’ ranges, you must be aware of concepts such as balance and polarization.
Even before the flop, and especially on later streets, these concepts play a major part in range building and how you perceive poker ranges.
Depending on the hands they are made up of, poker ranges can be:
- Balanced Ranges: A balanced range is one that is made up of a balanced number of strong hands and bluffs. A well-balanced range is hard to play against, as it is primarily designed to be impossible to exploit.
- Polarized Ranges: A polarized hand range is one made up of only the strongest possible hands and pure bluffs. Think about a range that overbets the turn on a dynamic board, which is made up only of the nuts and draws, without any middling hands.
- Linear Range: Unlike a polarized range, a linear range also contains some medium strength hands. For example, a Small Blind 3-betting range against a late position raise will often be linear since the player in SB usually 3-bets all of the hands they play, not a polarized range of strong and weak holdings.
As you improve your poker ranging skills, you will begin to recognize spots in which players tend to be more balanced, as well as those in which ranges become polarized.
GTO vs. Exploitative Preflop Ranges
Range construction starts before the flop. Whether you are constructing your own range or trying to determine another player’s, it is important to understand the distinction between GTO and exploitative play.
GTO preflop ranges are derived from GTO poker strategy and created by solvers. These ranges are balanced, which means they include a good mix of strongest hands, medium strength hands, and bluffs.
The best online poker players use GTO poker ranges as their baseline and rarely deviate from them, as other players cannot exploit it.
Our preflop charts provide examples of GTO ranges, with different ones available for full ring and six max play.
On the other hand, it is also worth noting that your opponents won’t always play GTO, especially in live poker games. For example, a player opening from early position in a live cash game might still have a hand like Q3s or 98, simply because they felt like playing it at any given time.
Any ranges that deviate from GTO are dubbed exploitative, although other players in your games might simply be playing hands because they feel like it, not necessarily to exploit any tendencies.
When constructing their ranges, it is important to remember that their opening ranges are likely much wider than the GTO ones. This is a great starting point for further range efforts.
Poker Ranges in Practice – How to Put a Player on a Hand Range
In order to properly put your opponent on a range, you will have to take every action into account and try to construct a range of hands they could reasonably play the way they did.
This allows you to narrow down their potential holdings to just a few hands by the river and, based on your deductions, make more educated decisions.
Sometimes, you may find that a player’s line makes very little sense and that they have very few actual value hands in their range by the river. This way, you will be able to make the right calls, turn your hand into a bluff at the right time, and generally play a strategy that doesn’t revolve around guesswork.
Let’s walk through a poker hand and see how our ranging efforts might help us make the right play on every street.
Preflop
You are playing in a $1/$2 online cash game. You raise in middle position to $5 and a relatively tight recreational played on the button 3-bets to $15.
You call the small 3-bet with nearly your entire raising range, and the flop comes JsTc8s.
Your opponent raised preflop and he is on the tighter side, so you can assume he has a lot of strong hands.
His potential preflop range might look something like this:
88+, ATs+, A2s-A5s, KJs+, AQ+, JTs, T9s, 98s
You will notice we added a few hands like A2s to A5s, T9s, and 98s to the range that would act as your opponent’s bluffs. Of course, most players won’t 3-bet these hands every time, but savvy opponents will add them to their preflop ranges to balance them out.
Flop
With $33 in the pot, you check, and your opponent bets $25 on the board of JsTc8s. This is where things get interesting.
Your opponent has fired a big c-bet on a highly coordinated board, which typically favors your range rather than the 3-bettors.
Let’s dissect what hands he is likely to do this with:
Value: JJ, TT, 88, JTs
Draws: AsKs, AsQs, AsTs, As5s, As4s, As3s, As2s, KsQs, KQs
At this stage, your opponent has very few hands that actually connect very strongly with this board. Hands like AA, KK, and QQ may be inclined to check on this flop at least some of the time, as your range is so strong on this board.
On the other hand, your opponent can also have a fairly wide range of drawing hands. The spade poker combos with a straight draw are especially good bluffing candidates, and all other spare draws, like As5s, also have a lot of playability.
You can safely assume that if your opponent had a hand like AK without spades, 99, or Ah5h, they would check back this board, given your range advantage.
Turn
You call the flop bet, and the dealer puts out the 7s. You check once again, and your opponent checks back.
This card completes a lot of straight and flush draws you both potentially have on the flop, but your opponent’s check tells you quite a bit about his range.
If he had a hand like the nut flush, he would likely continue betting the turn. After all, your range is still very strong, and you can have both smaller flushes and straight. This gives him more than enough reason to continue barreling.
At this point, you can start discounting some of the flush combos. Many hands with a 9 in them, such as 99s or T9s, are likely to check back the turn, so you can discount quite a few of those as well.
This means it’s a lot more likely your opponent actually has a hand like JTs or JJ, which was very strong on the flop but lost a lot of its value with this turn card.
River
With $88 in the pot, the dealer shows the river card, which is the 3h. This card does not change the action, and the action is on you.
Thanks to your ranging efforts on the flop and the turn, you now know your opponent likely has a value hand, but one that can’t stand much heat.
Unless your opponent is a particularly strong GTO player who will be balancing his range on the turn, you can go for a big bet and bluff with hands that can’t beat two pairs and sets and a smaller bet with hands like straights and flushes.
If you bet full pot or overbet here, it is likely you can get your opponent to fold a hand like a set of Tens, as they will believe all the draws got there. This way, you can win with a hand like KhJh against TT on this board.
On the other hand, if you do have a hand like As6s or 99, you can go for some value by betting smaller and getting your opponent to make the disgruntled river call.
Use Poker Ranges to Your Advantage
We gave one simple example of how figuring out your opponent’s poker range can help you get the best possible outcome in a hand. You can apply the same ranging methods to determine your opponent’s potential cards in every poker hand you ever play.
By doing this better than your opponents, you will be able to make better decisions, fold at the right time, and size your bets to get the desired results from their imbalanced poker ranges.
The next time you play poker, make a game out of it and try to determine your opponents’ ranges even in hands you are not playing.
Once they flip over their cards, see if the hands they show were a part of the ranges you put them on or not, and keep fine-tuning your skills with every poker session you play.
To get other shortcuts and make better decisions, make sure to also check our poker cheat sheet.
