Hand ranges are a fundamental part of poker, and whether you know it or not, you’ve been thinking about them every time you play poker. In case you’re unsure of what one is, a hand range is the spread of hands any particular opponent can have on any street. A player’s range will vary depending on his looseness/tightness, position, and activity level preflop, which can be narrowed down even further by his actions on the flop, turn and river.
Simple hand ranges came about from the first old-school live tournament pros who taught new players about the perils of playing Broadway junk (K-J, Q-T etc) in early position at full ring tables. But as the games have moved on, hand ranges have changed along with the players. In six-max cash games, hand ranges can be incredibly varied. You could have a 90/10 fish (playing 90% of hands but only raising 10%) and a 12/10 nit at the same table- players who are at completely opposite ends of the hand range spectrum.
In hold’ em, hand ranges are very important because very rarely does somebody have a super-strong hand. In order to be a successful player – in six-max particularly – you need to try to win as many of the pots as possible when neither you, nor your opponent has much of a hand. The best way to do this is to ramp up your non-showdown winnings by understanding hand ranges, in turn enabling you to read players’ hands more effectively and get away with winning far more than your ‘fair share’ of pots.
But how do you do this? When you can’t see the cards your opponent is holding, you need to be able to form an opinion by creating a range of hands your opponent could have. As the hand progresses you should continue to narrow this range. This helps you when you want to represent a scare card, give up on boards that have hit your opponents’ ranges hard, or go for thin value bets against an opponent whose hand strength you are pretty certain of.
Improving your win-rate
Thinking about hand ranges leads to hand reading. Good hand reading leads to good decisions, and that, as we all know, leads to more chips and cash dollars.
Hand reading is like most of the skills in poker – there’s no pass and fail, just a far more gradual learning curve. Thinking about hand ranges as a six-max player will help you beat other players, whether it be by including Q-x suited from your cutoff opening range when there are tight players in the blinds, to three-betting K-J suited from the button against a mid-position open from a loose player. Understanding how ranges interact with each other in terms of relative strength, implied odds and 101 other factors is sure to make you a tougher opponent at the tables.
TAG hand ranges
Categorising someone as a TAG (tight-aggressive) player will make playing them a lot easier. Unfortunately, you'll usually have to play a lot of hands with a player before you can identify them as a true TAG, as a lot of supposed TAGs aren't anything of the sort. Players who have a wide gap between the number of hands they play and the number they raise with in a cash game are not TAGs – they are some variant of a weak-tight player or fish. True tight-aggressive players play a fairly selective range of hands, very dependent on position, but they will play these hands with reasonable aggression. They will generally enter the pot with a strong holding and very often come in for a raise. This is a fundamental point in understanding how to combat them.
When a TAG player enters the pot, you should have a pretty good idea of his range from most positions. Calling a TAG player out of position (from the blinds) is generally a mistake, as you are unable to exploit an overall weak range as much as other player types. Calling in position is absolutely fine, but your default in heads-up pots from the blinds should be to three-bet or fold.
Bear in mind that good TAG players are aware of position, so be wary of three-betting their early-position raises with hands that are strong but you are not happy getting your whole stack in with (something like T-T or A-J suited). TAGs normally have decent steal frequencies from late position and the small blind in blind battles, so three-betting here is fine to exploit this. It’s probably best not to go after them too much as your strategy will be found out, but raising their late-position raises around 20% of the time will generally yield a good return.
Exploiting TAG fears
While TAG players generally enter pots with strong holdings, they are not as happy playing big pots with marginal and weak hands as other player types. One of the ways of exploiting TAG players is to float the flop and steal on a later street. TAGs will rarely double-barrel bluff and almost never triple-barrel bluff. Out of position you can use floating and bluff-raising turns on scary boards as effective weapons, because it’s in their nature as tight players not to get too involved when boards get ugly and players get aggressive.
LAG hand ranges
When you have noted that one or more of your opponents at a cash table is a LAG (loose-aggressive) player, you should slow down and form a strategy for crushing them. Picking them out shouldn’t be too hard because they will be open-raising with a very wide range, three-betting with a lot less than Jacks and making some big moves post-flop.
Ideally you want to have position on a LAG player, as being out of position on even a losing LAG can be a very tough situation. If you don’t get in crossfire wars with other players gunning for his chips, you’ll end up having to gamble, wait for the nuts or make some very big calls post-flop, none of which are easy or attractive prospects.
The most effective way of combating a loose-aggressive player is by playing a strong range. When you have a strong holding, all of your decisions are generally easier and you get into far fewer complex situations and marginal spots. It is tempting to get involved when you see a monkey LAG involved in every pot with less than stellar hands, but this is exactly the adjustment you should NOT make. Be patient, find a hand and let them bluff into you when you are comfortable with your holdings. It’s important to realise that an awful lot of the time a LAG will have a weak hand or nothing at all.
Leaving room for the bluff
You should be happy to let a LAG player bluff, so don’t start raising your set on a super dry 3-7-T rainbow flop. There is simply no need. These players are loose and aggressive, not necessarily dumb, and you won’t get full value by playing fast. Instead, play your hand like the bulk of your range. Call, let them barrel the Ace on the turn, call again and then break their arm off when they overbet on the river. Don’t lose sight of the fact that you make money from these guys by letting them indulge their aggression.
The other way to combat LAGs is by playing back at them, three- and four-betting them liberally pre-flop and bluff-raising or check-raising them on the flop. However, this approach will put you into a lot of high-variance standoffs, and in general actually holding or flopping a strong hand will be a far superior strategy.