Hey Guys

At live 1/3-2/5 game I'm usually trying to visualize my opponents range and Xing out the cards i think they don't have ,based upon their play.

I was just wondering how some of you guys visualize your opponents range, in your mind how you imagine the range say you have a Tag opponents who called your raise pre-flop.

but ill take any example you guys want to give me. thank you

I've Been working with flopzilla. There is a filter feature that hands pass through based on strength. Its adjustable. Preflop is difficult without history with villian for me too. If its a cold call usually eliminate AA, Kk Ak, sometimes queens preflop. Right now I'm just entering hands from this forum into flopzilla to practice. I read ed Millers book how to read hands in Texas Holden and liked it alot.

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Set up pre defined ranges for tags, lags, fish, maniacs, etc. seperate ranges for cold call and open raise

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yeah but when you playing live how do you visualize range in your head

You gotta play around with it away from the table to Get good at it at the table. Learn to estimate combinations. If You don't have time to enumerate long lists of ranges get an general idea of if there are more strong hands or weak hands.

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I wish more people would comment on this because i am working on the same thing. I think the more you practice the more mental shortcuts you come up with and you just get better. I know keeping track of a range can seem overwhelming

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Instead of keeping track of each hand i would try thinking in terms of groups. Which groups can i get value from? Tp hands, two pair hands? Etc. i.e what hands can you get value from that you beat but are strong enough for then to call and then think about what hands have you beat. That's a easier starting point. THEN expand from there.

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Flatting ranges are usually 22-88 sometimes 99-JJ, ATB (any two Broadway): AT-AQ, KT-KQ, QT-QJ, JT, suited connectors 76+....Re-raising ranges are usually QQ+, AK.

Post flop ranges change depending on the action in the hand and board textures, for example, his x/c range on a 844 flop is probably wider than on a AKJ flop, so on and so forth.

At first I was thinking this topic was extremely broad. But I see what your asking now.

First: I think the most valuable information comes when you see a showdown or a player shows his cards. If a passive player limps or bets from EP/MP and they showdown A8o or K9o, they are now a target. I generally play better hands than that and love to bet/bet/bet TPGK and have them outkicked.

Second: to hand read before the flop, remember what they've shown, and how many hands they play. If a bad young player limps/calls you can cap his range at AT-/99-. If he's an OMC you can cap it at AQ-/QQ-. This obviously varied from player to player; some youngsters play like OMCs and some OMCs raise QQ, but you get the idea.

Third: (most relevant to your question) once the board comes out, you have to read it along with their actions. Hand reading overlaps with board reading a lot. I think "crossing out hands in your mind" sounds really really hard; just look at the board.

Let's say a passive player limp/calls preflop and the board comes 972r, and they check raise us. We can put a lot of players on sets and fold AA. But if the same board came JT2 two tone, we would be more inclined to call. If he check raises draws, very inclined to call.

Screw "overlapping." Hand reading is board reading imo. I'm pretty new to this though. Wondering if other (more experienced) players think like this.

Cliffs: Preflop, think about their actions and their shows. Postflop, think about their actions, their shows, and the board.

By the way how is Ed Millers book how to read hands in Texas Holden. I'm currently reading Ed Millers book playing the player and i like it.

Nice post duderstron, i especially like your pre flop advice because i never thought about it like that. Ed millers book ishow i got started. I've read it like 3 times so obvi like it alot.

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OP, I think you're literally asking how do you "visualize" ranges. Right?

You're not asking - how do you put people on ranges / hand read?

It sounds like you want to understand how to actually track them in your head.

For visualizing ranges, I think it's helpful to categorize hands into types.

There really aren't that many types of hands. I mean, there are like 169 possible starting hands, and over 1300+ if you include suits, and you are NOT going to start all of those. What you ARE going to track are the hand types. For example, hands types include: pairs, pairs + draws, draws, two pair, sets+ (monsters), air / air with equity. So not that many types.

And it's not like you need to track all the different types on all different boards.

For example, you raise pre-flop with AA from UTG and get a caller on the BTN. The flop comes K72r. You bet and he calls. You really don't have to worry too much about draws and pair + draws since there are no real draws on this flop. And if the turn comes full rainbow with a non-connecting card, there aren't even backdoor draws. So now your types of hands are pretty limited to just a few.

So anyway, categorizing the hand types is super helpful to set up a framework for visualizing ranges. Then you can almost visualize a matrix of sorts in your head. Like a 4 by 4, to visualize information about hand types and densities (i.e. combos).

Like go through the types and put them in imaginary boxes. On that example K72r flop, there are almost certainly 3 boxes of hand types (assuming villain does not call pre-flop with junk) 1. "pairs," 2. "sets," 3. "air." It's pretty hard to have much else on that flop. There are no draws. We don't think villain ever has a 2-pair combo.

So now we think about the density of hands in those boxes. In fact, we might want to segment the pair box into two boxes - top pair and under pair. But you don't have to of course. But sure, pairs, assuming a reasonable pre-flop range - AK, KQ, KJ, KT, JJ, TT, 99, 88, 66, 55, 44, 33. The Kx combos in particular - that's a ton of pair combos. Then there are sets - 77, 22. Only 6 combos. That's very unlikely. Then there's air. Some villains will float you here on a flop like this very wide, others will play fit or fold. Combos - villain dependent.

So now you have visualized those hand type boxes, and then you just have to determine the density of certain hands in those boxes. You can imagine the boxes in your head - one full of combos, another very light with combos, and see how it changes over time. Say on the K72r, you bet the flop, he calls, you bet turn on a T, and he raises big - suddenly we're starting to shift his range to stronger hands, eliminate most air hands (depending) and the "monster" category now includes 2-pairs with KT, as well as 77 22, etc, etc.

Anyway, I didn't organize this post very well, but I think you can get the idea. There are various TYPES of hands (pair, draw, pair + draw, air, two pair, sets+, etc). And that's the key to hand reading live in my experience. You can categorize those types into "boxes" in your mind which are going to be more or less dense based on pre-flop ranges, flop texture, villain tendencies, and mathematically possible combos. As the hand plays, those boxes will change (some go away, some come in, some stay the same.... some grow in combo density, some shrink, some stay the same), and then you can do whatever is most +EV against that range. Often on that K72r board, for example, it's going to be bet/bet/bet because AK, KQ, KJ, KT makes up so much of his range.

I'm reading Ed Miller's "How to Read hands at No Limit Hold'em". I got about 75% of the way through and then went and played a session. Let me just say that I played the best poker of my life that night...I made all the right calls, the right raises, the right folds, etc...It was a 7 hour session where I made two noteworthy mistakes, and I learned quite a bit from them. I highly recommend the book as it teaches you how to read hands quickly on the fly.

unfortunately this is a skill that takes a lot of trial and error and you never have a very exact range for an opponent except for regs you know very well

the main way to start building a range for opponents is:

1. you should know what the top 10%, 20%, 30% etc looks like
2. put villain on a % range for vpip/pfr/3! based on what you see them do over a period of time.
3. observe their showdowns to see if your ranging has been accurate
4. rememer that drinking/boredom/losing/tilting makes 90% of players open their range
5. always make decisions based on what range you think they have and if you are wrong, dont feel bad. you tried your best

also some villains love to tell you what they play, how they play it, etc. that helps u range them down as well

also for postflop, just ser how they play theirhands like draws and tp etc. so you can narrow their range as much as possible on each street

I normally analyze what villain's range could be when he does this, this, and that based on my bets.. I think when understanding concepts like continuing range on PR, flop, and turn will help you out alot..

Along with their image/actions, I weigh in some of his position and question what range he would take with the actions he made.. If I cant justify them making sense of an action that beats my hand, I continue with the hand.

yeah but how do you see the your opponents range in your mind how do you structure it in your head ?

Based on preflop tendencies, you should have a rough sense of what % of starting hands a player can have pf. It helps a lot to be familiar with what top 10%, top 20%, etc. ranges look like. Postflop, I tend to visualize the possible hands grouped into boxes according to what they are on that board. For instance, on a 983r flop, I'd imagine boxes for sets, two pair, overpairs, 9x, 8x, lower pairs, straight draws, overcards, and complete air. I get a rough sense of how many combos of each there are based on pf (for instance, if a fairly LAG player limped in LP, there are probably no overpairs in his range), and then start chucking some of them out as the player does things postflop. Often it's necessary to readjust the boxes; for example, if the turn is a ten, I'd need to think about how many of those straight draws became straights, how many became top pair + draw, etc.

And I'm also careful never to neglect that small probability that an unknown opponent is just bat**** insane

+1 to this book.

Incredibly useful, especially the exercises. I am rereading it for the third time