Learning to put people on hand ranges.

Lately I've been coming to grips with the idea of putting my opponents on hand ranges. Before I was just betting my hand, playing tight, and staying disciplined. This worked, and I'm well rolled for the next level, but I think if I'm going to move up I might have to start thinking about their hand at some point.

I have a certain few regs that I see a lot, and after several thousand hands against them I've basically got a starting hand chart for their play, but at micro-stakes I see a lot of people come and go, so I need to assume a hand range just based on their PT stats after a few hundred hands or less even.

The way I did it was to assume that there is a passive hand order, and an aggressive hand order. The passive hand list is basically the way pokerstove has it - big card combos, Ax, and pairs at the top, running right down to 32o at the bottom. The aggressive hand list is more along the lines of big card combos (QQ+, AK, KQ, AQ), then PPs, then things like suited aces, SCs, then gappers, Kxs, etc. So someone who's 17/15/6 (I.e TAgg, but for the sake of the example let's assume not positionally aware), I would assume - until they demonstrate otherwise - is raising with the bigger broadways, all PPs, and SCs. Someone who's 50/15/.5 (ie loose passive, and probably not positionally aware), whilst having the same PFR is probably raising nearly all the boardways, A7s+, and middle PP. I don't really need to worry about them making a 6 high straight too often.

It then occured to me that whilst this is fine for putting them on a hand when I cold call with my small pairs, or SCs, it might not be so useful for when they cold call me. I, for example, would never call a raise with KQo, but I'm happy to raise with it. I would never raise from MP with 34s, but I might well call UTG from MP with it. Whether this is correct play or not we can discuss another time, I'm just saying that people have a calling range, and a raising range, and I'm not sure how to deduce the second one.

How is this done? Is there a stat in PT (preferably one that can be displayed by PAHud) that tells me how often someone calls when faced with a 2bet? Or do you just sort of have to think "This guy is pretty passive, and very loose, he's calling me with broadways, PPs, and Ace rag"? How specific can you get? I mean do you have an equation in your head, like "Their cold calling range is generally around 1/3 of their VPiP"?

Am I nearly there, or way off?

There is a stat in PAHUD for called PFR. This is less valuable at the micros where you have alot of people minraising preflop, but there you have it.

As for ranges in general, I'm in the same boat as you. I rarely attempt to put people on ranges during a hand, because honestly, I just don't know what the top 30% hands are off the top of my head. As of late, I've been using poker stove during session reviews to get an idea of how I might fare against an opponent's range. Hopefully, after some time, I'll be able to approximate which specific hands are in people's ranges mentally.

Whether someone is positionally aware or not is difficult for me to determine. At my stakes, I usually just assume that most people aren't. Even if I could discern that, I wouldn't quite know how narrow one's range should get further away from the button. I suppose as a rule of thumb you could assume that one's PFR% probably reflects his MP range, and that his EP range is half that, while his button range is twice the PFR%. Of course I could be way off.

micro stakes = dont think, you'll out-think yourself. just value bet. i would know this better than anybody as everyone knows how much i struggled trying to beat micro stakes after going bust playing 5/10.

BUMP

This is a great post. Hopefully we can get a bit more input to this.

preflop is one thing, but narrowing V's range postflop is another tricky thing. Playing Lagg I find is more tricky in narrowing their range as you can't really tell when they've hit hard (aside from the dernks who don't know bet sizing and just insta shove kinda thing)... any input?

Sweet, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean playng *as* a lagg is hard because people play back, and call down thinner? Or do you mean playing *against* a lagg is hard, because who knows what they have?

I'm getting better and better at assigning ranges to people. You don't need a bazillion hand sample on someone to get a rough idea about what they might have. I'd say 50 is about enough to get an idea about whether they're agresive or passive pre-flop, and about 100 is enough to figure whether they're loose or tight. I've by no means got a tight read on someone after 100 hands, but if I see someone who is 60/5/1.0 after 100, I think it's pretty reasonable to think of them as loose passive, even though there's a good chance that given another 100 hands they might look more like 30/12/0.8 or whatever. So what I do is I look at someone and say "Ah, this is my old friend Mr. Loose-Passive Calling station, he's calling my c-bets with nice overcards like AQ, any PP, any vague draw, and slow-playing monsters. Oh look wow, he just called the flop and raised the turn, he either floped super-huge, or just made his set or whatever, I better fold TPTK". Once I've got a thousand hands on someone I'll pull up PT and profile them a bit to see if I can find some quirks, but before that I'll just play them like they're a generic whatever-they-are, until they show me otherwise.

Putting people on ranges is the easy part for me (against easy players at least), what I struggle with is realizing what they're range does for my equity. After every session I go through my interesting hands and go through them meticulously, figuring out my fold equity for every bet, my odds on every call, and so on, seeing if I can find a leak (and for me intresting doesn't mean when I had quads and they had a straight flush for a 600BB pot. That happens once a year, and learning to play that spot better will do dick all for my winrate. I'm better off investing that time on a situation that crops up 20 times a day - that's where 99.9% of my bankroll comes from). I'm quite often suprised by what my equity actually is. Often, at the table, I'll think "Well, I hold pretty much the worst hand they might hold, and that makes it an easy fold", but when I pull out Stove afterwards, it turns out that I was still actually getting a good price to call, even though I beat not much they might have.

I hear people on here say things like "This is an over pair way more than a straight", but how do you figure that out at the table? Is it just a case of analyzing the same situation post-session so many times that eventually you just know what the right price is without ever doing any math, or are you guys all rain man, and work out the minutia on every single street, in every single hand, counting every single combo they could hold, and what that does to your equity?

I get the math, I just don't know how to apply it on a 30 second timer.

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Originally Posted by DJJunkPauds

I hear people on here say things like "This is an over pair way more than a straight", but how do you figure that out at the table? Is it just a case of analyzing the same situation post-session so many times that eventually you just know what the right price is without ever doing any math, or are you guys all rain man, and work out the minutia on every single street, in every single hand, counting every single combo they could hold, and what that does to your equity?

I get the math, I just don't know how to apply it on a 30 second timer.

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The "rain man" thing made me LoL.

I'm a math professor, and I don't do the math at the table on a 30 second timer, or at least not in the way you're asking. I have hand groups that I think about:

1. PP's
2. Broadways
3. Ax
4. sc's suited 1 gappers

And so forth. I know what percentage of opening hands each group is, so based on PF HUD stats, I start from there. Based on betting, I take out as many groups (or parts of groups) as I can. Then, based on what's left, I estimate the probably he holds the exact combinations that beat me.

My estimates at the table are probably within only 5 - 10% of what I get later when I really sit down and analyze it, but that's good enough for poker. If the decision is close enough that 5% matters on your pot odds, there's probably no way to be certain about the correct play anyway (before seeing villain's cards).

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Originally Posted by Marshall28

micro stakes = dont think, you'll out-think yourself. just value bet. i would know this better than anybody as everyone knows how much i struggled trying to beat micro stakes after going bust playing 5/10.

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WTF??

The micros require thinking, just not any fancy play. Villains still have tendencies, pots still have odds, stack sizes still matter, blinds can still be stolen.

You can beat the game for more BB's/100 if you think.

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Originally Posted by DJJunkPauds

work out the minutia on every single street, in every single hand, counting every single combo they could hold, and what that does to your equity?

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I think you can get really good at this with practice. The key is finding tricks with combos and figuring out/find tricks with our equity vs. ranges, without poker stoving it.

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Originally Posted by Robb

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Originally Posted by Marshall28

micro stakes = dont think, you'll out-think yourself. just value bet. i would know this better than anybody as everyone knows how much i struggled trying to beat micro stakes after going bust playing 5/10.

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WTF??

The micros require thinking, just not any fancy play. Villains still have tendencies, pots still have odds, stack sizes still matter, blinds can still be stolen.

You can beat the game for more BB's/100 if you think.

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QFMFT!!!