My latest poker strategy article, Thinking About Ranges, has just been published in the June issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. Here’s a little preview:
Your perception of an opponent’s possible holdings should influence everything from whether you bluff to how you size your value bets, sometimes in rather subtle ways.
This article will move quickly through the basics of calculating your equity versus a range of hands and then examine some of the more complicated ways in which the ranges you assign should influence your play.
If you find this helpful, have a look at my archive of older poker articles as well.
Great article. I’ve read a lot of your book reviews and 2+2 comments and always look forward to them.
I play low-stakes games and wonder how much some of this info is applicable, though. Whenever I try to put someone on a range, then find out I am way off when it goes to showdown, it is discouraging. I don’t think they are particularly tricky players, just poor ones.
I would like to get better at putting guys on a range and narrowing, but I find it really hard to do that at my level. Any advice on how to become a better player while grinding out the low-stakes games? I don’t want to move up and play higher stakes yet, but if none if the advice is applicable at my level, how do I improve?
Also, I hope you write the article on the Hero’s hand ranges that you mention in the article.
-Dan
I enjoyed the article. There are a few typos you might want to try and get them to correct. In the A5 hand, if I bet there, it would be to buy back half the pot from another A-high…you really get value from Q-high? I think you get called by a scared T more than you get looked up by Q-high…
bruechips
Conder,
I’m afraid that this isn’t something you get to blame on your weak opponents :-). Weak opponents do tend to have very wide ranges (not usually in a good way), which makes it tougher to have a very good idea of what they hold, but you just need to consider more possibilities. Plenty of what I write or post here isn’t going to be applicable in very small stakes games, but range analysis definitely is.
At the very least, you need to be able to say, “OK, this guy could have anything from a gutshot draw to the nuts. Where do I stand relative to that range?” If you’re in good shape, you should usually bet, and if you’re in bad shape, you should usually fold. If you are going to bluff them, you need to know what hands you expect them to fold. Ditto when you value bet, you need to know which hands you want to pay you off. So if you hold AQ on a QT52K board, you need to make a bet that you think your opponent will call with QJ or JT or something. And if you held 43, it might be worth bluffing to get him off stuff like 54, J9, etc. if you think those are a large enough portion of his ragne.
You need to pay attention to just how light your opponents are calling, betting, check-raising, whatever? Will he do it will bottom pair? Then his range probably includes all better hands as well, except for those strong enough that you think he would have raised them.
There also are times when bad opponents will have excessively tight ranges. This usually occurs when very passive opponents do something like pot the river or min-check-raise the turn or something. That’s worth noticing as well.
Hope that’s helpful.
Sprit,
Thanks. As I’m sure you realize, the specific examples are deliberately contrived and not really the important part. But in a 5/10 HU game, I’d be pretty surprised to see someone fold A high on the river to this action. And if you aren’t value betting A high, then Q high is an easy easy easy call, because so much of your betting range will be bluffs.
If you’ll always value bet A high and will also bluff, then it’s definitely a good play for your opponent to check his T’s. But for the sake of this example, I did stipulate that Villain never checks a boat on the river.
Fair enough. For a HU game at 5/10, I can definitely see that. I play mostly full ring and at lower limits, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody call a decent-sized bet with Q-high there. I think the fact that you’re at a full game affects how opponents play later on, even if it’s a situation that closely approximates HU, like button raiser vs. blind defender. Players are just used to playing tighter, and don’t fully adjust to the specific situation I guess.
Also, nit-picky point – I seriously doubt your loose villain is going to fold J9 on that board. Your point is good though.
Thanks for the reply. I will think about this a bit more.
What are specific areas for a small-stakes player to work on that ARE applicable at the lower levels (hand selection, opponent’s range, etc)?