So, one great way to exploit your opponent and have an edge is to know their range. Opening ranges, 3 bet calling range, their 3 bet range, flatting etc. Now I say this is hocus pocus for a few main reasons. Most of my opponents do not know what range is. They will call a large 3 bet pre to any 2 cards. So if I'm studying and I say ok in this spot I can put them on this range. Most of the time it is wrong. I just had a guy stack it off with J8, UTG he opened, 2 callers, me in the BB, 3 bet the pot with AdQd, 2 other callers, flop 3d 10d Jh These are not standard spots, possibly I should be happy I am running into these types of players but if you're running bad versus this type of play you tend to question your game. I led out he jammed lol. I spiked ace on river. But this is just an example. Yes you could theoretically put someone on a range of what they should be calling with and I bet it's wrong a lot of the time. Discuss, no trolling!

"Any two cards" is a range. So is any subset of that. Whether or not your opponents know what a range is, they have one.

A range need not be based on some top percent of heads up hands. A range could be, I call with any suited hand, or any hand containing a face card, or both. Or anything else.

It's pretty wreckless. So if I was to analyze hands vs these types of players in a sim, i select every hand possible for their range?

Well speaking 6max, I'd expect heads up to be a much wider range.

That’s simply not the point, it’s not really the point if villains don’t know about ranges or relative hand strengths either.

V looks at his cards and thinks playable. You 3B, he doesn’t think “my relative hand strength vs the 3B range is poor” he thinks “I want to play my hand”

Something to remember is people are creatures of habit. There will be the odd outlier in a range, there’s always the potential for a moment of “I’m gonna play this hand when normally I wouldn’t” but as a whole people stick to things. And most people have similar ideas. Two different fish have a vpip if 40% over a large sample. You can safely assume that they will share a high % of hands. For example almost certainly every ace, pp and broadway and some suited/gaped connectors. Probably the rest being made up of off some suite connectors/some gappers and then suited hands down to K-Q-J4s.

If it’s genuinely any two cards then it’s 100% of hands. Which is great for us.

A trick I use is that against genuine wider ranges I tend to look at what hands V takes actions with on the flop rather than what they get to the flop with. Another thing is you’re obviously playing a lot of fish which is great but range analysis is less needed. I haven’t done too much looking past 35% and just use the technique above.

I bought 300,000 hh for a project a few months back. I wanted to get as close as possible to real world average ranges over large samples. So many players have very similar ranges.


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Don't put your opponents on a range they should be calling with. Put them on the range you think that actual player is calling with.
This is why most winning online players use HUDs: so they can get a better idea of what particular players' ranges look like. Handreading is not 'hocus pocus'. It's a mix of observation, perception and probability.

This is exactly right. Each player had a different range. Also, ranges change based on action. Then you tweak them as the hand progresses. You make choices accordingly.

For example, there’s an old guy at my casino. If he 3 bets you you can put him in AA or KK. Maybe every now and then QQ, but he will usually just call with the ladies. He may open a bit wider, like 99+, AQo, but he will only ever 3bet pre with those two hands. That’s his 3 bet range.
Other players have wider ranges. So, you construct a range for each particular player.

Hocus pocus.

The game is like bingo and you should bet a bunch when you have a hunch!

Everyone has some concept of a range. Also, nobody is 0-level. If they are capable of thinking they can limp aces and exploit your call, they are effectively on 3rd level, however bad their play actually is.

Not trolling. Is OP complaining about fish stacking off with J8?

From theory standpoint, it is equally important to know *your own* ranges and where you are located in range. This is required in order to make the decision to exploit opponents who stack off light. If they are too wide or even totally random button clickers, you will just win more money. Actually, you are printing.

I think non-regs get obsessed with this type of stuff and "suck-outs" in general because they are playing so few hands that they can't step back and see the big picture that it's all just variance.

Variance can be so brutal though, I've been playing for many years however my sample sizes have never been what I am looking to accomplish, it was always short term resuls here and there. I OP is looking to track 150-200k hands to analyze myself as a player and look for leaks to improve. I guess I've never taken it this seriously until now. No complaints about the J8 stack off lol, it just say he does that 5 times vs my range and holds every time you tend to question your game like wtf is going on! I brought up this topic and Doug Polk brought it up in his recent video with the main event in it. Speaking about ranges and it really brought this to light. There are your standard theoretical ranges and then ranges for a specific player based off of reads etc.

This discussion isn't about micro limits. I play 1/2 2/5. Which I guess to 200/400 grinders I play micros lol. I'm at 20k hands I just can't wait to see the overall picture.

I have yet to really push through variance without changing my game in some way or going up in stakes or changing game types etc. I'm rolled and just trying to do the right things here, studying etc. Poker is alive and well that is for certain. https://youtu.be/GvDjFtPt5So at 10:30 in. Like they guy or not he makes some good points.