A player needs to nurture his/her ability to recognize and read the poker ranges. When you play poker online India on a leading platform PokerBaazi, it is essential to have the strong technical knowledge and logical deduction skills to identify your opponent’s range.
A range means all possible hands your opponent has at this moment. The ranges preflop and post-flop differ widely because loose players have multiple starting hands, while tight players have few hands. Start building opponents’ preflop range and continue to adjust as they start taking action.
Four forms help to understand a poker range
- Poker hand matrix
The 13 X 13 matrix lists every possible starting hand – 13 x 13 = 169. It is a common way how the poker players visualize the ranges.
The matrix displays –
- Pocket pair lengthways along the diagonal
- Suited combo directly above the diagonal
- Unsuited combo further down the diagonal
The software has different color codes and the chosen hands are highlighted. They stand out from the unselected hands.
- Percentage [%]
The 169 possible starting hands will become 1,326 exclusive combos. Therefore, if you need to identify the percentage form of the pocket aces then there are six combos. It means the % form for AA= 6/1326 = 0.45%
This form is helpful when you synch challenger’s preflop frequencies with real hand ranges. For example, if you identify that your challenger open-raises preflop 17% of the time then build the top 17% of hands to guess their range.
- Combos
New players believe there is just a single combo of AK [Ace King] when actually there are 16 combos of AK with 4 suited and 12 unsuited. Remember the comparison of combos and percentage form with this chart as you already know there are 1,326 exclusive combos from 169 starting hands.
Percentage form – combo [comparison chart]
10% – 133
25% – 332
33% – 438
50% – 663
67% – 888
75% – 995
100% – 1,326
Hole cards can impact the combos, so gain a better understanding of these blockers in a poker game.
- Range strand
It is a sequence of text, which lists every selected hand. There are some common shorthand players’ uses for discussing ranges on forum posts. For example, JJ+, which deciphers – choose pocket Jacks & every pocket pairs above it that is JJ, QQ, KK & AA. Plus sign after starting hand means include similar hand higher than it.
How to employ ranges?
After determining your challenger’s range, you need to use them, but there are some considerations to make.
- Are there many hands because loose players have tons, which they shouldn’t have?
- Will those extra hands possibly fold to aggression or will they not?
When there are many hands in preflop ranges, you gain a great opportunity to bluff the +Ev preflop calls, 3 bets, and proactively create a post-flop line.
Enroll in a poker gameplay tutorial to understand and practice poker ranges. With proper practice, you will find estimation and visualization at the table easily. The effort and time put in practicing deduction and visualization skills pay off massively.
