Need some advice on putting opponents on a range.

I have been trying to put my opponents on a range in every hand that I play. I feel not doing this often/well enough is my biggest leak. I would really appreciate it if people could look at my though process in these hands and tell me where/if I am going wrong. Thanks.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (8 handed)
I have never played with villain before so I assume that he is standard player. He calls from the CO so I put him on a fairly wide range {AJs+,AQo+,22+, KTo+,A2s+}. I hit top set on the flop so I check to him to see what he wants to do as my guess is that this flop missed him and he would fold to a c-bet, on the other hand I probably should have c-bet anyway as that is what he would have been expecting me to do. He bets 2c which is oddly small (I guess that he wanted me to just throw my hand away if it hadn’t hit) so I revise his range to pps that haven’t hit, A7s, A2s and face cards and I call. On the turn I check to him again and he bets out 6c into a 19c pot which is again quite small but I just think that he is trying to steal with something like AQ or AK and not doing a very good job of it so I call. My thoughts are that if he had had a pp that had hit or a high pp then he would have played the hand faster so I weight these hands less in his range. The river brings an Ace and I check to him again, he makes a half pot size bet and I feel as though this confirms my feeling that he has an Ace face card hand so I re-raise, he re-raises again and I shove.


SB ($1.47)
BB ($2.03)
Hero (UTG) ($1.96)
UTG+1 ($2.09)
MP1 ($2.35)
MP2 ($1.68)
CO ($1.37)
Button ($1.89)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 8, 8
Hero bets $0.06, 3 folds, CO calls $0.06, 3 folds

Flop: ($0.15) 7, 8, 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.02, Hero calls $0.02

Turn: ($0.19) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.06, Hero calls $0.06

River: ($0.31) A (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.16, Hero raises to $0.38, CO raises to $0.60, Hero raises to $1.82 (All-In), CO calls $0.63 (All-In)

Total pot: $2.77 | Rake: $0.18

Here is another hand in a similar vein, I think I made a big mistake in this hand.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (9 handed
I raise with 99 from UTG and villain makes a small re-raise from MP2 so I put him on a range of {JJ+,AK} and figure I am getting odds to set mine so I call. I hit nothing on the flop but I figure that it has missed him too, this is where I think I make a big mistake and bet as I am surely behind everything in his range apart from AK so this was stupid but he just calls and a 9 comes on the turn so I think I was lucky there. I bet out 40c on the turn and go all in on the river as I feel as though I am pot committed even given that he may be holding QQ.
MP3 ($1.97)
CO ($4.21)
Button ($2.75)
SB ($1.98)
BB ($5.06)
Hero (UTG) ($1.33)
UTG+1 ($2.18)
MP1 ($2.60)
MP2 ($2)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9, 9
Hero bets $0.06, 3 folds, MP3 raises to $0.12, 4 folds, Hero calls $0.06

Flop: ($0.27) 5, 8, 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.20, MP3 calls $0.20

Turn: ($0.67) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.40, MP3 calls $0.40

River: ($1.47) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $0.61 (All-In), MP3 calls $0.61

Total pot: $2.69 | Rake: $0.17

Another hand in which I think I made a large error,
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (9 handed)
I raise to 6c with 99 from UTG+1 and get re-raised to 18c by the button. I didn’t really estimate this guy’s range at the table I must admit and looking back on this hand it was stupid but I would like your advice on how I am thinking about my opponents holdings even if my analysis is retrospective. I put this guy on {AA,KK,QQ,AK} so I figure that if I call and hit the flop then I can stack him if there are A’s K’s Q’s on the board. The flop comes 3,4,5 of diamonds and this is where I do something silly and say goodbye to 28c. I don’t have the odds to call pre using the 15x bet relative stack rule but since I figure I can put him on AA,KK,QQ is this a good call?

Hero (UTG+1) ($1.80)
MP1 ($0.48)
MP3 ($2)
CO ($2.46)
Button ($1.70)
SB ($0.79)
BB ($3.70)
UTG ($4.11)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with 9, 9
1 fold, Hero bets $0.06, 3 folds, Button raises to $0.18, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.12

Flop: ($0.39) 5, 3, 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.28, Button raises to $0.80, Hero folds

Total pot: $0.95 | Rake: $0.06

Before anyone asks, I am not buying in full because my BR is hovering around $22. I worked my way up from $10 to $27 over 3500 hands which was great but after a 1000 hand downswing I am back down to $22 and feel like playing it safe. I am working very hard to improve my game as I want to get out of this downswing and start building my bankroll again and I don’t want to go busto by risking too much at any one time.


Thanks for all of your advice, it is very much appreciated.

Great to see you asking this question. I'm running really short on time but when I saw your title I had to post a quick response since I gave you a hard time yesterday for not doing so.

Let me start off by saying I am FAR from being good at this and still struggle with it every session. First thing you need to do for sure is make sure you have PokerStove downloaded as it will be your best friend throughout your poker career. What I initially started doing was I'd take poker stove when I was reviewing hh's and I'd look at the villains stats vpip/pfr and I'd start out as basic as if villain was say 32% vpip I look at their position in the hand and I'd adjust slightly for position. So lets say villain is on the button then we'd assume he plays most of his range from the button. So with pokerstove I'd take the pre-flop slider and move it to 32% which would be {55+,A2s+,K4s+,Q7s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,A5o+,K8o+,Q9o+,J 9o+,T9o} raw from pokerstove. But if you look at that it doesn't make all the sense so you then adjust a little for example I'd certainly think 22-44 would be in his range so I'd add them and subtract something a little less likely to be in his range like say Q7s and Q8s just as an example and just keep tweaking it until it looks right to you. Then you have what should be reasonably close range for villains button. Then after the flop you take the same range and adjust it accordingly and by that if you bet out and he calls you look at the board and think through what would villain have called with based on this board. So then you eliminate the things that make no sense at all such as small suited connectors that don't stand a chance of connecting on later streets but say you leave in over pairs etc. Then you do that same on the turn and flop etc.

This is very rough and certainly you'll get much better advice from others but it is a way to start. Good luck sir!

Hand 1: Maybe it was a type-o, but you included up to KTo in villains range, and only up to AQo. If he is calling with KTo then he is most likely calling w/ at least A9o. His range probably doesn't go as low as A2s, w/o any reads. You can also take AK/KK/AA out pf since villain will most likely be 3betting, but of course always keep the possibility in the back of your mind postflop.

Personally, once he min. bets the flop like that when checked to, I would immediately revise the situation and no loner assume he is a competent player, and open his range up extremely wide. And at this point it becomes hard to narrow his range at all, he can be doing this with any kind of 8 or 7, some weird draw, two broadways, 66-33, or even AA sometimes. Same story for the turn. River card and villains action is gin for you, and I'd be guessing that A hit him...maybe two pair, but it doesn't matter at this point, just get it in.


Hand 2: A couple contradictions in your thought process: preflop you put him on JJ+ and AK, and you say that the flop "missed his range," but over 50% of his range is an overpair to the board, so why would you bet? Also, being that you aren't full stacked, you do not have the odds to set mine. Even if you were full stacked, its a close call being oop. Don't ever "figure" you're getting odds...calculate/estimate them. At most you can win ~10 to 1 on your money. Your odds of flopping a set are 8 to 1...and then you have to factor in how often the villain will have an overpair, and how often he will stack off with it. You got very lucky on the turn, but remember that most of the time that isn't going to happen and this should have been a fold pre.


Hand 3: Again, horrible call pf. You said his range is QQ+/AK, and that if a Q+ comes on the flop and you flop a set, then you can stack him...but a good amount of the time you have to be afraid of set over set there and he will be stacking you. It doesn't matter how much you can narrow his range...even if his hand was face up and you knew he had KK, calling pre is just bad here.



Overall, I think you have a pretty decent understanding of putting villains on a range...but your problem seems to be acting according to the range you put your villain on.

I am certain that I still have a lot to learn about this and that it will require many hours of work. I need to get into pokerstoving player stats as I think that that would be a good way of understanding what hands particular players are playing. Thanks for the advice on putting opponents on a range, I am sure that I will be back in a few days with more hands and trains of thought for you to critique.

As madurskim has mentioned this is 2NL and it is hard to tell whether or not an opponent has any idea what he is doing. There are many any two cards players, many people who know the rules and quite a few grinders out there in 2NL on full tilt who know what they are doing (I think though I may be wrong) and it is sometimes difficult to tell what a minbet means, sometimes a minbet is someone with the nuts "extracting value" and sometimes it is someone playing trash and "stealing". I am wary of putting people on trashy hands and losing my buy in to them because I read them wrong. Because of this and being on a short bankroll I am sticking to a fairly tight and straightforward game and looking for monsters to stack people with as I think that this is the safest way to build my bankroll up. Is this the style of play that you would advocate for 2NL?

Something that has been mentioned on just about every thread that I have posted a hand on is that I am not buying in full. My BR is about $20 so if I buy in full on two tables then that is 20% of my bankroll in play which feels like a lot and is why I have been buying in for $1.40. I have been advised many times to buy in full, I would like to know if you would still advise this given my somewhat short BR?

Originally Posted by madurskim

Hand 1: Maybe it was a type-o, but you included up to KTo...

Hand 3: Again, horrible call pf. You said his range is QQ+/AK, and that if a Q+ comes on the flop and you flop a set...


Overall, I think you have a pretty decent understanding of putting villains on a range...but your problem seems to be acting according to the range you put your villain on.

Yup typo! or brainfart...

I meant to put a no in there. If I hit a set and there is NO Q+ on the board is what I meant to say. Is this stupid logic?

The problem I am having with acting according to the range I put someone on is often due to the fact that I am quite slow at it just now as I am not used to doing it so hopefully that will improve with time.

Thanks.

Most players at 2NL will stack off w/ AA/KK to you're flopped set, but it still doesn't justify set mining in 3bet pots w/o at least 150bb effective stacks (i.e., you and you're opp are both 150bb's deep).

Originally Posted by frjd2

Because of this and being on a short bankroll I am sticking to a fairly tight and straightforward game and looking for monsters to stack people with as I think that this is the safest way to build my bankroll up. Is this the style of play that you would advocate for 2NL?

Even if you're bankroll was 1,000BI's...this is still the way to play 2NL, as well as most of the micros.

Watching hands play out, and putting opp's on ranges even when you aren't in a hand, and seeing if you were right or not is way more helpful than all the time in the world with pokerstove. Once you know how to build an accurate range for an opp, pokerstove is great for calculating your equity against that range. But as far as developing accurate ranges, experience is the most helpful.

I know putting opp's on a range on every single street seems so time consuming at first, trust me, I was there too not too long ago. I used to not even bother most of the time out of laziness. Then I started doing it more and more...the winrate started to go up...then it became easier and easier, and now when a typical TAG reg 11/9 opens from MP, I pretty much have his range in my head instantly (unless there is something unique about the villain).

Just a thought... Looking at poker tracker my stats are VPIP: 14.50, PFR: 10.93, my overall winnings from when I started recording hands in pt are $6 yet if I filter so that pt only shows pps then it says that I have won $14 from pps. So my conclusion must be that I am playing too many hands or playing non pp hands badly (which I think is the case). If I only played say {AQs+,AKo, 22+} which is super tight and maybe tried to steal with suited aces on the button would this be more profitable than my current game. My thoughts are that I could strip back to only these starting hands except for in steal situations and then add in hands like KQs, AJs and AQo and eventually scs and more speculative hands when I become more comfortable at putting opponents on ranges. Do you think this is too tight and that I would be too easily exploitable or is this a good plan for now while I still have much to learn?

Thanks. Your wisdom is greatly appreciated.

Intresting...^^^

filter to see your biggest losers .

I filtered mine at 52,000 hands , i found QT and QJ to be my biggest , then Ax my next , so Ive threw them out instantly (until I learn how to play them) . Plus a few other adjustments.

See what changed .

Originally Posted by celtic123

Intresting...^^^

filter to see your biggest losers .

I filtered mine at 52,000 hands , i found QT and QJ to be my biggest , then Ax my next , so Ive threw them out instantly (until I learn how to play them) . Plus a few other adjustments.

See what changed .

What stakes were you playing at? Is this 2NL or a mix or higher?

Don't invest a lot of time right now critiquing your stats as you don't have a big enough sample to work with at all. Just concentrate on playing perfect ABC poker for now. When you get 20,000 hands then maybe post your stats and get some input, although even then you'll take a little flaming for the small sample size. You are off to a good start sir keep up the hard work and make sure you balance your play and your work/study time and you'll just keep on winning. Ex Game

I'd also look at your AA/KK hands and see the times you lost money and make sure you aren't getting it in too light.

regarding practicing for ranges:

I don't claim to be an expert, and I don't know how valuable this will be yet so make your own mind up.

I googled for a bit and came up with about 3 million free hand histories from pokerstars, stakes ranged from .25/.50 to 25/50. I imported them into a separate database because I don't really agree with using datamined info, and i dont know how recent they are anyway. But the point is that your database software can isolate hands with known holecards.

I plan to do non-playing practice at placing players on ranges just replaying hands in my database.

While this is not going to be the be all and end all of learning to place villains on ranges, as there is obviously going to be an enormous amount of situations that don't go to show down, I do think that its a great no-risk starting point. It also leans heavily toward placing 2 players on ranges and being aware of their relative strengths. I believe this would be a great way to begin implementing higher level thinking, ie. "what does he have? what does he think i have?" ..understanding that both the villain and the hero have a range and relative strength towards each other is the cornerstone of the ISF theorem as i understand it. I also understand the power of the ISF theorem but cant apply it because theres no way i'd be fast enough at placing multiple players on a range and manipulating my own based on my conclusions.

That is a very interesting graph. I think that I will definitely drop a lot of hands that I am losing with for the moment.

Here is a hand that I just played.

Villain in MP1 has built his stack to a whopping $9.40 from $2 in the 16 hands I played with him. He has shown down 9Ao, KJo, QTo, AA and A3o all from out of position and most against one fishy player. In short he had been getting very lucky with relatively average holdings. This is the first hand that I play at the table.

Villain limps from MP1 and it is folded to me. I put his range to be almost atc as he has played 14 of the last 16 hands but it is most likely {23s-9Ts, 22-TT, Ax, Kx, Qx, Jx}. I look down at ATc and decide to complete the small blind and hope for a flush. The BB checks so he is on any two. On the flop I pick up the nut flush draw but don't bet because UTG+1 may have hit trips and I want to see where he is at so the action goes check, check, check so I think villain is likely to have missed this flop and would certainly have bet if he hit trip 9s or 3s or Q9 or 93. The turn brings a 9 and the action goes check, check, check, at this point I begin to think that I am probably ahead with just a high card or maybe someone has a 3 and is afraid to bet out. Turn brings 4c and I make a pot sized bet with the nut flush, BB folds and villain makes a massive over bet.

So I go into the tank.... He checks all the way up to the turn after limping. The only hands that could beat me are Q9, 93, 94, 99, QQ, 33, 44. I discount QQ as surely he would have bet pre with that. I discard Q9, 93, 94, 99 and 33 as surely he would have bet the flop even if just 4c. It is possible that he has 44 but I think suited connecting clubs are more likely or possibly even a massive bluff as he is on such a run he probably thinks he can get away with it. So I put him 90% of the time on a lower flush or bluff and shove the rest of my chips into the pot. The hh is below. Is my train of thought on this hand a good one?


Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (9 handed) - Full Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($2)
Button ($0.77)
Hero (SB) ($1.86)
BB ($2)
UTG+1 ($1.41)
MP1 ($9.40)
MP2 ($1.85)
MP3 ($1.36)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, A
1 fold, MP1 calls $0.02, 4 folds, Hero calls $0.01, BB checks

Flop: ($0.06) Q, 9, 3 (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP1 checks

Turn: ($0.06) 9 (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP1 checks

River: ($0.06) 4 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.06, 1 fold, MP1 raises to $0.73, Hero raises to $1.84 (All-In), MP1 calls $1.11

Total pot: $3.74 | Rake: $0.24

Originally Posted by scott_owen

I believe this would be a great way to begin implementing higher level thinking, ie. "what does he have? what does he think i have?"

It's great to be concerned with learning how to start thinking like this but at 2nl and 5nl I wouldn't be acting on thoughts any higher than level 2. Most of your opponents are not going to be concerned with what you have. Their only thoughts are "OMFG, I've got an Ace!" Concentrate on how your hand compares to his most likely range.
If you start making plays according to what you think he thinks that you have at the micros then you'll find yourself in the hole.

raise pre to 0,8 , bet flop, ck turn, try to get as much money as possible on river.

for ranges, get the trial from PT3 or HEM until you have money to buy it ( i did and the trials helped to make money and buy it). a HUD will help you a lot in your game. also, a range is not only for preflop. you have to assign ranges for al streets and all cases, like for a flop: what does he fold, what he bets, what he calls and what he raises. it's hard at first, but it will help your game a lot by doing this and in time you will be able to give accurate ranges like good player do ( not me, i also still learning a lot, by studiyng or by trial and error )

Just done a quick check. Pure 2nl.

Ive not moved up , its too easy to withdraw from the euro site I play at. I just walk into the shop and withdraw over the counter $10-$20 to get some food / beer , etc.. when im short of cash .

I leave $20 in there tho and sit down with $2 (the full buy in) . Even though this is terrible BRM .

Im comfy doing this on this euro site cos after 50k+ hands , im finally beating 2NL (here ). I usually Know when to move out of the way when im beat .


I play around 12/8 , set mine , avoid all-ins pre (unless I hvae good reads ) . Play in position. And threw out my biggest losers . And read every post in the BC . over and over and over. Im old tho.

I tink you'll be beating it far sooner than the 50k it took me , actually , it took me longer , I did about 70k on PS