When I play live games, it’s usually pretty easy to spot the weak players. They limp frequently and typically employ odd bet sizing strategies that make little sense. However, some opponents aren’t so obvious about advertising their weak play.
Occasionally, it takes a bit longer to evaluate players who are ostensibly good players. These opponents often seem to understand poker basics, and during general play they seem to know what they are doing. But then, out of nowhere, they suddenly say something like, “I put you on pocket Aces.”
Nothing indicates a lack of understanding about poker more than a statement like this. You can never put someone on one specific hand. While it is true that when you face a re-raise from a very tight player, it’s pretty obvious that they are strong. Even so, you can never know the exact hand an opponent holds. Being so absolute when reading opponents is simply something you cannot and should not do.
What you should do is take all the information known at the time and form a range of hands for every player involved in the hand. You can do this both pre-flop and post-flop based on the specific
tendencies that you infer about your opponents. This way of thinking allows you to form a profitable strategy against all types of hands and not just the strongest or weakest ones that an opponent could be holding.
Once you begin thinking in ranges, you will open up a new door of basic understanding about poker.
The quality of your decisions will be vastly improved as you begin to think about all the possibilities based upon the action and make educated guesses accordingly.
So how do we put an opponent on a range?
In online poker, we have the luxury of using tracking software that tells us precisely how often an opponent bets or raises. In Chapter 17, I will show you how to use these types of programs in your own game. For now, I will introduce you to how specific raising percentages translate into actual hand ranges.
Here are some common range percentages you will frequently encounter and potential hands that make up those ranges:
3%: JJ+, AKs, AKo (a tight 3-betting range)
8%: 88+, AJo+, KQo+ (a common 3-betting range)
14%: 22+, ATs+, KTs+, JTs, QJo+ (a common early position range) 20%: 22+, A2s+, A9o+, KJo+, JTo+, 76s+ (a common cutoff range)
35%: 22+, A2o+, K9o+, Q8s+, J8s+, 98o+, 65s+ (a common button range)
50%: 22+, A2o+, K2s+, K9o+, Q2s+, Q8o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96s+, 97o, 64s+, 65o+, 54s+ (a common aggressive stealing range)
These hand ranges are not absolute, and the particular hands that make up specific percentages will vary among players. What this list does illustrate is the large number of holdings that make up common hand ranges and the relative differences between tight and loose ranges.
Post-flop ranges are more complicated due to the community cards in play. On the flop, we can extrapolate how well our opponent’s pre-flop range connects, but in order to narrow it down into a post-flop range, we need information. We gain clues about a player’s hand by their post-flop
actions. If we bet and an opponent calls, we can generally narrow his range a bit. If we bet and opponent raises, we can further narrow that range.
Of course, we always have to remember that our opponent knows we have a range as well and could bluff raise in order to pick up the pot, if he thinks our range does not connect well with the board.
Therefore, we must always consider our opponent’s entire range, which invariably includes some bluffs. This is where things get interesting and reads come into play.
For the purposes of this book, I will focus more on how to play your own ranges based on the potential for opponents to have connected to various board textures. Going into detail on all of the nuances of forming post-flop ranges would take dozens of pages and is well beyond the scope of these writings. For now, I want you to understand common pre-flop ranges and remain mindful of how they connect more solidly on particular flop textures. I will go into this in more detail as we progress.
Equity
In poker, equity is how much of the pot is “owned” by each player as a percentage on any given
street. Put another way, it is how likely a player is to win by the river if he was all-in on that specific street. On the river, unless the hand is a tie, you will either have 0% or 100% equity. So for the purposes of calculating, we are only concerned with equity before the flop, on the flop, or on the turn.
As a short stack player, you will be faced with frequent all-in situations in which you are either contemplating a shove or facing one yourself. In order to navigate these spots accurately, you will need an adequate understanding of hand ranges and equity. You will want to learn how to recognize what your likely pre-flop equity is against various hand ranges and how to form a 3-bet/4-bet
strategy. For post-flop play, you will need to learn how various holdings fair equity wise on different flop textures.
Pre-Flop Equity
Pre-flop equity decisions revolve around 3-betting and 4-betting. The basic premise is that you want to get all-in with a superior range against your opponents and have them get all-in with an inferior range versus you. This is an oversimplified explanation, but describes the basic nature of pre-flop all-in situations as a short stack.
I have provided you with a solid 3-betting and 4-betting strategy via my charts and will not spend too much time going through the details of what is a very complex subject that would take numerous
chapters to properly cover. I will, however, talk more about pre-flop equities in a bit when I cover fold equity.
Post-Flop Equity
We can never know for certain our exact post-flop equity unless all hands are turned face up.
Nevertheless, by making an educated guess about our opponent’s range and comparing our holding to the board texture, we can come pretty close to knowing our probable equity if we were to get all-in.
With a tier 2 or better made hand, we are almost always committed and do not need to worry about our likelihood of improving our hand. For the most part, our equity will be consistently strong enough to get all-in on the flop. With a draw, however, it helps to understand how likely our hand is to
improve by the river. This information can help us, not only with all-in decisions, but also in direct and implied odds calculations when facing a post-flop bet or raise. Before I teach you a well-known easy trick to determining your approximate chance of improving, you will need to know how many outs various common holdings have after the flop.
2 outs: Under Pair (Drawing to a set) 4 outs: Gut Shot Straight Draw
6 outs: Over Cards
8 outs: Open-Ended Straight Draw 9 outs: Two Card Flush Draw
When involved in a hand, you should instantly be able to recognize your likely outs with any given holding. By just learning the approximate equities of the five holdings listed above, you will be able to navigate almost all post-flop equity situations. Now, how do you figure out the likelihood each hand has of improving?