POOH-BAH Post: Hand Ranges

[Mercman572]

Plain and simple, poker is about putting your opponent on a hand and acting accordingly. You stand to benefit when you bet or raise hands that beat the majority of your opponents holdings at showdown (or will fold out their holdings that will beat you), and calling when the % of hands in his range that you beat is greater than the pot odds/equity you are getting. I am going to explain the dynamics of hand ranges.

First, I will begin on Level One:
This is when your opponent is only worrying about how strong his own hand is. Newbs, this is likely to be the game you're playing in.
Against a level one thinker, you simply determine what hands your opponent considers to be good ones, and bet/ call or raise when you beat the majority of those hands
---- If they think 2nd pair or better is a "good" hand, than you simply bet or call when you have 2nd pair beat. There is one caveat, however. Keep in mind that often even for bad players, their range for calling a raise will be smaller than calling a bet or betting themselves. So when you are deciding to raise, remember that although a player thinks 2nd pair is good enough to bet with, they might not call a raise with less than top pair good kicker. So your raising range should lessen accordingly.

On the next level, an opponent is trying to put you on a hand.
It does not matter what your range really is at any point against these players, it only matters what they THINK your range is . Too many times I see someone ask a player questioning his bluff "Would you play AA that way." What they really should be asking is "Does he THINK you would play AA that way." Of course, we always care about an opponents actual range. There are several theorems that can be derived from this concept.
---- 1. When your perceived range has widened, it is likely that villain's range will widen too. When your perceived range has narrowed, it is likely that villain's range will narrow as well. Since a player thinks you are betting with weaker hands when you have a wide range, he will be more inclined to call with weaker hands. Use this to your advantage.
----- 2. You want your range to be perceived as wide when you are betting for value, and you want your range to be perceived as narrow when you are bluffing

Manipulating Your Perceived Range
We can deceive our opponent by acting as they believe we would if we were weak when we are actually strong, and by acting as they think we would if we are strong when we are actually weak. It is important to note that different players have different schemas of what constitutes weak and strong play.
1. We may widen our range through several different courses of action. The most basic is playing the hand itself weakly. An example of this is betting when you flop TPTK, checking the turn, and betting the river after the flop gets checked through. Our opponent believes that because we have checked the turn, our hand can't be that good, so he will call the river with worse hands than he normally would.
2. Betting paired boards with trips against "Policeman." They think you would NEVER bet when you actually have trips, and will try to call you down or push you off your hand. Sometimes, acting overly strong may cause your opponent to think you are weak.
3. Table image can also affect how weak or strong an opponent perceives you in a given hand (and thus affect how wide or narrow their betting and calling range will be). After all, you're raising 1/2 the time and betting tons of flops, so you must be willing to dump your stack with garbage, right? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Remember though, image isn't as prevalent as we sometimes think, and misconstruing what our opponent thinks of us is a good way to massively leak EV.
4. We may narrow our perceived range by showing continual aggression. We raise preflop, bet a 7 high board against a good player. They call or raise. We bet again on the turn. Now they are forced to think we hold either an overpair or AK (which may or may not bet true), and can call with considerably fewer hands than they could on the flop.
5. Or range narrows when we have been playing tightly. Remember this! Sometimes when an opponent keeps calling when we are very strong, it may be the case that he sees our range as very narrow, and can beat the hands he puts us on (caveat: sometimes they only put you on AK and will call down when no A or K flops).

The danger of perceived range (or image).
When you've been playing LAG, you assume people see your range as being very wide. So by this reasoning, you have to go to showdown alot more. It is very difficult to accurately assess what an opponent thinks of you, and harder still to think they will react based on how they feel. So you must be exceptionally good to play LAG because you are at the constant risk of calling and raising more than the opponents' range would dictate. You may think they are playing back when they just caught a really good hand. Or you may think they caught a good hand but are just playing back.
----The danger of playing TAG, on the other hand, is that opponents will be more likely to fold. When they don't fold, you're not really sure if they are pushing back because they think your range can't make it to showdown (like when you raise preflop and the flop comes 789 with a flush draw), or actually have your perceived range crushed. The former happens rarely, so it is not a major point of concern, and you get good hands much less frequently than bad ones, so you stand to make fewer errors playing TAG.

That's all for now. I considered third level thinking, but that would be hard to express and think it's beyond the scope of this single post. Please let me know if you think I have made an errors or have anything to add.

If you don't have anything to add, please feel free to give this a healthy bump with a "NH" or something so I know this effort didn't go unappreciated

Your Pooh-Bah,
Merc

P.S. Edited to add my other essay-ish thread I posted not too long ago. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showth...page=0&vc=1

[vulturesrow]

tl;dr. Ok actually I did, but I just wanted to be the first. Nice job.

[4_2_it]

I enjoyed it. I can't recall the last time SSNL had a discussion on ranges and 2nd level thinking.

Bravo!

[beavens]

excellent post merc, i'm looking forward to your Carpal post.

if anyone doesn't understand what merc is talking about, don't be afraid to ask questions.

that is the point of these threads.

[4_2_it]

Merc,

What % of SSNL do you think fit the following:

1st level thinkers
2nd level thinker
3rd level or beyond

How much does your answer change as you move from NL$25 to NL$200?

[wallywojo]

NH

A question I have relating to this is what happens when you are a TAG and you are getting little respect on your CBets? I found myself in this situation last week and found it very hard to believe the villain had hit everytime, but it just so happened that I missed all these flops as well. I just can't think that firing back with air is going to be positive financially.

[Jamougha]

VNH

[ChipStorm]

Nice post, Pooh-Bah!

[ QUOTE ]
Merc,

What % of SSNL do you think fit the following:

1st level thinkers
2nd level thinker
3rd level or beyond

How much does your answer change as you move from NL$25 to NL$200?

[/ QUOTE ]
Would love to hear some opinions on 4_2_it's question. I think at the 25s it's about 70/29/1, at the 50s maybe 30/60/10.

[derosnec]

I see alot of level 2 players at 50 and 100 nl.

[vulturesrow]

[ QUOTE ]
Merc,

What % of SSNL do you think fit the following:

1st level thinkers
2nd level thinker
3rd level or beyond

How much does your answer change as you move from NL$25 to NL$200?

[/ QUOTE ]

Based on my stab at the 200NL game at Party Poker last night, Id estimate that 100% are at level 0 thinking. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]