Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection
Recently I have been writing about the value of aggression and position in limit hold’em. I have been focusing on how being aggressive preflop increases your chances of being in position post-flop. I’ve also talked about how being the player with the tempo from preflop makes all your hands more profitable post-flop. There is one other factor that has a large effect on your likelihood of being in position post-flop and that is your preflop position.
- Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Examples
- Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Questions
- Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Strategy
- Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Chart
When you are first to act in a normal nine-handed limit hold’em game, you have six people you have to get to fold to have the last position post-flop. When you are in middle position, you will need to get two or three people to fold in order to have position after the flop. When you are the button, you will be in position simply by playing. Generally, as you move farther from the button, the less chance you have of being in position after the flop.
This idea should be somewhat intuitive. So the question is; what can you do to play profitably from weaker preflop positions? The answer is that you will have to rely more on your hand strength. Yes, the actual cards that you get dealt to you. Most new to intermediate limit hold’em players I talk to at least acknowledge the idea that you need to play tighter up front and that you can play looser in later positions. But I also think that very few of them actually grasp how big of a spread there really is in what hands play profitably.
Hand and range selection preflop To select our hand we'll have to click the green circled button (see image 1.1). Then before we select our opponents cards, we need to give him a range first: He probably calls hands like pocket pairs (22-TT), some suited connectors and some broadways. What is a range in poker? The whole deck, when playing No Limit Texas Hold’em, consists of 52 cards and allows 1326 different hand-combinations. That, for example, is a 100% range as it contains every single hand-combination. There are four suits: diamond (d), club (c), spade (s) and heart (h).
Let’s look at the case where you have raised as the first player to act in a nine-handed game, so there are six players behind you who will have position on you if they choose to play. Let’s suppose that they are all playing reasonably tight as well and so they will only come into this pot with hands like 8-8 or better, A-J or better, A-10 suited, and K-Q. That is a pretty tight range. It’s also slightly more than eight percent of the starting hands. So what are the chances that an opponent is dealt one of these hands? The answer, with six players to act, is about 40 percent of the time. So, if you are playing from up front, 40 percent of the time one of your opponents is going to have a hand that they aren’t likely to be folding. Most likely, you are going to be reraised and have to play the hand from out of position. Sometimes more than one opponent will have a hand that is this strong and that puts you in an even tougher spot.
This doesn’t even account for your opponents who will play a wider range and play aggressively. Realistically, you will be out of position for the pot a little more than half the time. The only way to profitably offset this is to have hands that have a large amount of absolute value. In early position, I play around 12 percent of my starting hands. My range is something like 6-6 or bigger, A-10 or bigger, A-9 suited, K-Q, and all the suited Broadway cards.
As you move into later positions, the chances of running into a premium hand go down. If there are three players behind you, a player will only have that premium range 23 percent of the time. You probably will end up playing from position over 60 percent of the time, even more in a tight game. This will allow you to play many more starting hands profitably. In middle position, I will open pots with about 20 percent of my starting hands. This adds in all the unsuited Broadway cards, a few pairs, a few suited connectors, and a couple of the weaker aces. Even if your more astute opponents notice that you are playing more hands from middle position, you still have a reasonably strong range and they can’t just three-bet you relentlessly and try to run you over.
Now when I am on the button, I know I will be in position post-flop, so I know I will have one of my criteria of profitable play working for me. I also know that the blinds will fold at a decent rate and I will win the one and a half little bets that are in the pot. These two factors really allow me to profitably raise to open the pot with a lot of hands. On the button, I play about half the starting hands if everyone has folded. I may back off of that number a little if the blinds are three-betting me a lot, or I may increase it if they are folding too much, but I start with the idea that 50 percent of my starters is reasonable.
For most people, the idea that you can only play 12 percent of the hands up front and 50 percent of the hands from the button will be strange. Most players are fairly anchored to the numbers that are on the cards in front of them. In reality, the value of your hand has as much to do with the circumstances in which you find yourself as the ranks of the cards. ♠
Rep Porter is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner and is the lead instructor at ThePokerAcademy.com, whose mission is to help poker players achieve better results through better decisions and that is done by teaching poker in a way that makes learning easy and enjoyable with high quality courses taught by professional players.
Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Examples
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Online, free poker hand range calculator for everyone. The odds are instantly calculated and displayed as a card is added to the table or the dead card grid. Great tool for improving Texas Hold’em strategy.
Useful information regarding Poker Hand Range Calculator
What is range in Poker?
A range is a combination of hands a player might have at a given time. Thinking about what players have in the form of a range is valuable because it allows you to think about all of the possibilities of a hand. Experts say that once you understand the idea behind poker range you will soon forget the way of thinking earlier. Thanks to our calculator developed by Forest Turner now you can easily learn flop textures and how ranges split up on boards, how equities shift on turn and river cards.
What you can see with our Poker Hand Range calculator?
The Poker Hand Range Calculator instantly show equities, combination counts, and hand value breakdowns. Use the reset buttons to start over the calculation. First, we start with a preflop range. Get started by selecting a preflop range for the scenario you are analyzing.
What is the highest hand and hands order in poker?
You can see the hands order below starting with the highest ending with the lowest:
Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Questions
• RoyalFlush: 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace all in the same suit.
• StraightFlush: Five cards in a row, all in the same suit.
• Four of aKind: The same card in each of the four suits.
• FullHouse: A pair plus three of a kind in the same hand.
• Flush:Five cards, all in one suit but no numerical order (4, 9, 10, King, Ace in onesuit).
Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Strategy
• Straight:Five cards in numerical order, but no same suit (4, 5, 6, 7, 8 with differentsuit).
• Three ofa Kind: Three of one card (3 Queens).
• Two Pair:Two different pairings of the same card in one hand (two Aces and two Jacks forexample).
• One Pair: Two cards of the same card (twoAces for example).
Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Chart
• High Card: If you have nothing the highest card plays.