Hello,

Here's my attempt at describing how I analyze poker hands. I guess everyone does it differently, but here's how I do it:

Sometimes, I play a hand that leaves me guessing. I'll open up equilab and mess around a bit. Sometimes, it's quick, like with a bluffcatcher on the river vs a narrow range. Other times, I get really into it and I'll go through a whole hand, deciding which ranges and betsizes I like for both players. Once I come up with a hand to analyze, here's what I do:

step 1: come up with preflop ranges for both players and run equity sims. I write down the ranges and equities. Usually, the preflop raiser has an edge from 55%-60% against a blind, for example.

step 2: pick the flop and run more sims. I write it down again.

step 3: decide on a cbet range for the preflop raiser and I run more sims. Usually this gives the cbettor a healthy lead from 60%-65% equity range vs range.

step 4: decide on a calling range and I run more sims. This will usually bring up the caller's equity to 45%-50%.

From here, there are too many variables to fit into one post. Maybe I'll look at playing my calling range vs a flop check raise, or maybe I'll just look at a 3 barrels in position vs a blind line. This sometimes takes me all the way through the hand, but sometimes I get bored with it and quit at the flop, like today.

Feel free to comment or describe how you analyze hands.

Cheers for pointing me in direction of this, will write this down.

couple of questions, what is the overall goal ( not being an ass i genuinely improve best when understand fully ) is it just to help on table when deciding ranges?
or can you get other benefits from this like where you can exploit situations? or stop being exploited.
and if so what information shows you this?

Thing is that I did hundreds if not thousands of equity calculations for my individual hands vs my opponent's range before moving on to range vs range stuff. I suggest you do the same.

When you see someone make a play that you wouldn't make, there is one of two things happening:

a) your opponent is better than you and you can learn something new.

b) your opponent is making a mistake that you can exploit.

Once you decide which event is occurring then you have a few options.

For example:

Once upon a time I was playing 3 handed no limit holdem. Saw a guy raise preflop, bet all the way, and showdown a flush with 53s on the button.

I decided to adjust my default strategy in a few ways:

3 bet more preflop

Call more preflop.

Raise for value more postflop.

Call more postflop.

Get to showdown more often.

So then this happened:

He raises 3x on the button, I 3 bet AKo in the big blind, he calls.

flop: T73 all diamonds.

I check call 1/2 pot.

turn 4o

checks through.

7o

I check call 3/4 pot and win vs QJo.

Normally I'd fold the river but with the information that he can open on the button with 53s I pegged him as an overaggressive player and I went for the exploit.

Thanks will def start to implement this and will take advice on my hand vs range for the time,

Ah one question more of an open one to the moderators more i guess, how comes 2+2 does not have a hand review section on forums? people ask so much about it it seems, and i ve always felt it like spamming a little if i reeled of a few hand history's in the beginner section.
Think it be good to have a section where you could just post hand history's then people can discuss concepts of the hand and views on how it played / could of been played

Because you would have hands of all different formats and stakes mixed together. You can post hands pretty much everywhere (wouldn't try BBV though) to get answers from people who focus on that particular game. For example the MTT section, STT section, NL/PLO sections etc. Beginners is fine for posting hands that fall under many subjects because they tend to be relatively easy to dissect.

By the way a fun exercise; If you call a raise from the BB and he cbets on the flop, put your range in equilab with all the hands you think you're calling with preflop. Then see how many you want to fold to a cbet on for example K72 rainbow. You'll quickly figure out how weak the hands are that you absolutely cannot fold without folding too much.

Many of the forums consist of mainly HHs. You'll see them mostly in the low stakes forums such as Micro Stakes NL, Micro Full Ring, Live Low Stakes NL, STT strategy, Small Stakes MTT, and Other Poker forums.

Kelvis is right that often the standard answer is straight forward for experienced players. That said, I generally don't answer questions about tournament or online play because it has been a long time since I played either.

Over on the left hand side of this page are links to the various sub-forums that are full of hand histories.


Go and lurk in the one that is relevant to your game. e.g. 6-max 2NL cash is discussed in "Micro Stakes NL" (full ring has a separate forum), $25 online tourneys (or lower) are in "Small Stakes MTT" etc. Before you post a hand history, make sure you're in the right sub-forum. Good luck!

BQ is also fine for hand analysis, as long as you only post 1 hand per thread.