I need to develop charts for which starting hand ranges to raise with PF and which hand ranges to call shoves with preflop with a 20bb stack size. Especially in the CO, BTN, SB and BB (but other positions, too). This is all new to me, so please forgive (and correct) any mistakes in my understanding. I've played FR but will also try 6 max. I'm disabled and trying to figure out a way to make some money from home. I'm not good enough at poker to play full stacked, so short stacking is the way to go for me, at least for a while. Please help. Thank you.

Scenario is I'm in a hand and either an opponent has already acted ahead of me or remains to act after me. I need to assign ranges to these players in order to determine which hands are profitable to play.

Four questions:

1) When picking a % to use in giving an opponent a range, is it correct to use VPIP if he limps or remains to act, PFR if he has raised in front of me or 3bet percentage if I raise PF and he reraises me? I'm thinking I choose the stat that represents his current or most likely potential action, right?

2) Will the range of hands to play against an opponent who makes a preflop raise in front of me be the same as the range to play against an opponent who 3bets after me if those two player's PFR and 3bet percentages are the same; for example 8% for one opponent's PFR percentage and 8% for the other's 3bet percentage?

3) A lot of the software ask for both an opponent's raising/stealing range and for a range of hands an opponent would call your re-raise of their raise with. How do you determine or estimate an opponent's calling range? I don't see such a stat in my Holdem Manager stat window for players.

4) Is it true that once you have these raising and calling ranges worked out that it doesn't matter if you are playing 6 max or FR? I.e. you are selecting a range of hands to play against a specific opponent and their estimated range based on their stats, not on your position playing against "generic" opponents. So it doesn't matter if the opponent that just 3bet you from the BB is in a 6max or FR game; it's just a a matter of what his 3bet percentage is. Is this correct?

Thank you for your help.

I'm not going to pretend to know enough to answer all your questions correctly and in-depth, but I will tell you that it's harder to make money playing shortstacked than it is playing with 100 big blinds or more in your stack.

When you win, you won't win as much. When you get your stack in the middle, you'll most often be in coin flip situations and your bankroll will bounce up and down like a pogo stick.

Also if you "learn to play" using a shortstack method, when you eventually want to switch to full stacks, everything changes because the odds are different. You'll just be in the same place you are now, and have to start learning all over again.

If you really want to study and learn, start with a full stack. You'll start making a larger profit faster, and you won't have to do it all twice.

Thanks for your reply. But right now I need to figure out how to make some consistent money. And for me right now, shortstacking is my best bet. So that's what I'm focusing on.

I know a lot of people don't like shortstacking. But I do think my questions refer to any stack size, as it gets to how to correctly create and use these type of charts.


Does anyone here know the answers to my questions?

1) VPIP/PFR - Cbet/Fold - 3bet/Fold

We'll first off a person running 15/15 is playing nothing more than premium hands, broadway suited/connected, etc.

3bet is probably around 3-5% basically reraising JJ-AA/AKs,o folding JJ/AK to a 4bet for the most part even sometimes QQ if met with a push.

Cbet % of 50/+50 or below basically is fit or fold for the example 15/15.

So to answer your question, It's not this one or that one, It's all of em combined. the more information you have the better your answer.

2) I don't correlate the two. Again, what action I take vs the villian is dependent on experience, information, and feel. You could say that a 40/4 who just raised 4x, esp OOP, would raise a brow as much as a 3bet by a 20/20 3bet 0%. Either way, your range should tighten up significantly if you're going to go down either road in this scenario.

3) You can figure this out over time. I'm sure there's a lil prog out there where you put someone's stats in and poof out comes an estimated chart. As I don't use something like that, through experience, you'll notice that a lot of players flat 3bets with AK 88-JJ for instance. Sooooo... yeah.

4) Can't comment on this, I play 6max only online.


I hope this helps a little. If you're looking for raw flat data and exacts, like I said there's a prog out there most def. I'm a fan of learning things through application and it becoming second nature, charts imo would drive me insane.