PNL Study Group Day 7: The REM Process "Intro" and "R is for Range"

[traz]

I haven't actually read the book, so this may not be relevant to the discussion, but it relates to the post above me.

I've never thought about how I approximate hand ranges while playing, but after the last post I thought about it a bit, and I think my though process is like this: If his complete range is a,b,c,x,y,z, I arrive at that range through:

What hands beat me that this player would take this line with on this board? a,b,c
What hands do I beat that this player would take this line with on this board? x,y,z
Are they all equally likely?

and then I do some super fast equity approximations and hopefully choose the right action [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

The more you think about it regularly, the more automatic it becomes. This may not matter at all, but I thought I'd try put my thoughts into words anyways :P

[corsakh]

I am simply thinking in ranges of

- a draw (flush, straight, overcards)
- a monster (big over, two pair and better)
- strong one pair (small overpair, TPGK)
- weak one pair (TPNK, middle or underpair)
- air

This of course changes from player to player, for some players TPTK goes into weak hand category, some people think TPNK is a mosnter. Then I look at their stats, trends and how they played a hand and try to assign one of those ranges.

[Sunny Mehta]

some good comments so far, and some good ideas about how to go about assigning ranges....I like retleftolc's idea that maybe a couple of y'all can post hands that you played where you were unsure of the range analysis....and we can all discuss it....you don't even have to give the whole hand if it's not pertinent - let's focus specifically on range assignment....

[Sunny Mehta]

one more comment is that I personally narrow hand ranges by looking at very specific tendencies wrt lines....specific action (check/call, check/raise, lead/call, etc.), vpip, pfr, 3-bet frequency, c-bet frequency, how they play the turn in and out of position, how they play the river in and out of position, etc. are all key things which aid me in narrowing an opponent's range....

[Matt Flynn]

Hi all,

I usually do it by feel until the turn. Then it's line analysis, like "he raised preflop, got three callers, bet flop, now half-pots turn against me alone." At that point I assign hands. When playing live I analyze physical cues too.

Matt

[dubiousdrift]

traz, nice post!
One of the first board reading exercises that I did when I first started learning was to take two cards and a flop, then name all the hands that beat those two cards (similar to Ed Miller's 'Hidden Outs' exercises). While this was a great exercise and a real eye-opener that helps to tighten down a noob's pre-flop range, it also plants the 'monster under every bed' neurosis seed (or it did for me anyway). This commonly led to my misunderstanding of range as "the specific hands that beat me, one of which is sure to be in my opponent's hand"

Some of the things that I think of when I'm trying to put a person on a range now include:
1) Does this player play junk hands? Loose players who see 80% of flops *must* be playing all sorts of garbage including stuff like J3s - it's sooted, 95o - i could make a straight with it, K9o - I'm not dominated often enough for it to matter (or even better - what do you mean dominated).

2) Is the person aware of position, and do they play it. If so, what position are they in this hand. If not, no adjustments are necessary to widen the range for later positions. The person who routinely limps from the first three spots has no idea what position is.

3) Does the person limp a lot of hands, and only raise pre-flop occasionally? If they raised pre-flop, they probably don't have a set of 7's, but if you have a set of 7's, you can probably stack them on a A,K, or Q high flop.

Angel Largay's book contained a great collection of caricatures for various players of varying looseness and aggressiveness. Even if you don't agree with his strategies (opinions are varied here on 2+2), I think the psychology section is worth the price of the book - and it helps to be able assign people around the table an archetype of 'former football star', 'curmudgeon', 'the wife is shopping and we are trying to out-spend each other'.

Mostly however, I think this is a slowly acquired skill and that the more I actively observe, pay attention and devote 'effortful study' to putting people on ranges, the better I get - But I still have much road to cover.

[Disconnected]

One of the difficult things about ranging opponents for me is that I usually bias ranges on what I would do, even for a player that doesn't have similar stats to me. I mean, I know I shouldn't do that, and being aware of it, I lessen the problem, but sometimes it's really difficult to put poor players on ranges at the micros (and I try to avoid the good players)...you don't see them enough, and guys with similar stats can still have different ranges.

I try to compensate by using the techniques mentioned in a couple different posts, of seeing what specific action they take with various types of hands. I don't think that I do a great job of it, but I do think that's the way to go, at least until you start running into the same players on a more frequent basis than I run into my opponents now.

[retleftolc]

Since I spoke up I'll try one . . .


A dry one- Vill is 44/13/1.35 over 136 hands.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (5 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

MP ($24.50)
Hero ($37.75)
SB ($34.60)
BB ($49.85)
UTG ($16)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $1</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, BB calls $0.75.

Flop: ($2.10) 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
BB checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $1.5</font>, BB calls $1.50.

Assign a range.

I know this is a sad starter, but I searched my database(which made me sad- I suck, good thing others suck more) for others and had a hard time finding good ones. Probably because im tired.

Ret

[Jamougha]

Any one pair better than 44 and worse than AA, a set, any 2 pair, 86s, 64s, 98s.

[traz]

yea his range is hella wide, and you're ahead of most of it