No stupid questions: What is a 'range' in poker?
The movies get this dead wrong. Why should you think about ranges rather than hands in poker?
One of the great myths in poker perpetrated by movies and TV shows is that professional players can put you on your exact hand.
The sharp will demonstrate their prowess by telling you that you have Ace-Queen of diamonds, showing they have an almost mystical ability to look into your soul and extract your money from you.
Not only is this wrong, it's actually a very dangerous strategy to employ. When you are trying to put players on an exact hand, the cost of making an error is far greater.
What is a range?
Serious poker players think in terms of range, not hand. That means that they think of all the possible hands a player could have and try to devise the best aggregate strategy to play against that.
For example, if an under-the-gun player opens to 2.5bbs, you might tell yourself he probably has Pocket Aces. If that was the case, you might look down at Pocket Kings and fold them. An extremely costly strategy with the 2nd best hand in poker.
Educated players instead think something like this. This player has a tight range, which might include AJo+, A9s+, 77+, KJs+ and KQo.
Still a strong range, but now your KK looks like a very playable hand.
If you get to the flop and it's nine high, your KK might play very well against most hands in that range. If an Ace flops, you will likely proceed with caution, but there are still lots of hands you beat.
What about your range?
It's not just your opponent's range you need to think about, you also need to think about what your own range looks like to them. Let's say it is you with the tight range above and the flop comes AQT rainbow.
This is great news the time you have KJs, and pretty awesome when you have AA/QQ/TT/AK/AQ/AT. But what about when you have the measly 77?
Actually, it's not that bad either. While your 77 has missed the flop terribly, most of the hands in your range don't. There is a strong case to be made for betting with your 77 as a bluff here because your overall range is very strong on this board, and you could easily make better hands fold. You may be at the 'bottom of your range' but your opponent does not know that.
It may sound complicated, but it's actually a much simpler strategy to play against a range rather than a hand.
Do you think range or hand? Let us know in the comments:
