Poker Basics - The Range Bet

Today we look at the times when your range is so strong your best course of action is to bet all of your hands.

In the early days of poker you could print money by simply continuation betting every flop, but as a strategy it soon became easy to exploit. Now you have to balance your bluffs, value bets, give ups, block bet, bluff catchers and pot control decisions. 

There are times, however, when you can go ahead and bet all your hands profitably and this is known as Range Bet. 

A Range Bet is when your overall range is so strong that often the most profitable thing you can do is bet 100% of your hands the same way. 

A simplified flop strategy

You can Range Bet when you have range advantage in the hand. That means your overall range contains a lot of very strong hands, while your opponent's does not. 

A simple example would be if you raise under-the-gun nine handed with a tight range like A5s+, AQo+, KQs, 88+, get called by the Big Blind, and the flop comes AAJ rainbow. 

You have so many strong hands on this board and your opponent does not, because they would have likely reraised with hands like AA, AK, AQ, KK, JJ. Therefore you can go ahead and bet all your hands. Your bluffs will get through more often because you have so many value hands. 

Even strong hands like QQ might work best as an overall range bet here, rather than checking it down to bluff catch and facing a tough decision when they make a scary bet. 

The Range Bet is unlikely to be the most profitable action for all your hands but it is a useful way to simplify your post flop strategy. It should only be done when you have a significant range advantage in the hand, you will easily get exploited if you get into the habit of betting the same way all the time with all your range.. 

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