Poker Ranges Explained

This article explains what a range is and why poker strategy is built around ranges and not exact hands.

What is a range?

A range is the set of hands a player can have in any given spot. Instead of trying to guess our opponent's exact hand, we think in terms of all hands they could plausibly have, including the likelihood of each hand.

This is the right unit of analysis because we must make decisions under incomplete information. We will rarely know an opponent's exact cards, but we can often describe the group of hands they can reasonably hold.

Why poker strategy uses ranges

Ranges let you compare one player’s possible hands against another player’s possible hands. That is much more useful than hand-vs-hand thinking when you are deciding whether to bet, call, raise, or fold.

Once you think in ranges, several parts of poker become easier to understand:

• preflop opening charts
• solver outputs
• value betting and bluffing
• blockers and card removal
• board texture and range interaction
• range vs. range dynamics

Reading a range grid

Range grids compress range information into a visual chart. The grid shows the 169 basic Hold'em hands:

• Pocket Pairs run diagonally from the top left to the bottom right of the chart. Each cell represents 6 suit combinations (combos). For AA we have A♠A♥, A♠A♦, A♠A♣, A♥A♦, A♥A♣, A♦A♣
• Offsuit Hands are located on the bottom left of the pocket pair diagonal and are denoted by an ‘o’ at the end. Each cell represents 12 suit combinations. For AKo we have A♠K♥, A♠K♦, A♠K♣, A♥K♠, A♥K♦, A♥K♣, A♦K♠, A♦K♥, A♦K♣, A♣K♠, A♣K♥, A♣K♦
• Suited Hands are located on the top left of the pocket pair diagonal and are denoted by a ‘s’ at the end. Each cell represents 4 suit combinations. For AKs we have A♠K♠, A♥K♥, A♦K♦, A♣K♣

Range notation

According to the chart above, BTN should open the following hands:

• 22+ meaning all pocket pairs from 22 and up
• A2s+ meaning all suited Aces from A2s and up
• K2s+, Q2s+, J4s+, T6s+, 96s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s
• A3o+ meaning all offsuit aces from A3o and up
• K8o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o+

Polarization

Polarization refers to the distribution of hands in your range being clustered around very strong and very weak hands, with nothing in between. The opposite of this would be a merged range – a range with lots of middling hands.

Polarization is an important range concept to introduce, as how polarized our range is affects every decision we make at the poker table.

Thinking in terms of ranges

Blockers, playing styles, preflop betting, postflop betting, and many more factors influence ranges. The next time you find yourself in a poker hand, think to yourself: given all of the information so far, what does my opponent’s range look like?

Getting familiar with ranging – inferring what ranges look like in real time – is a key skill that will help you make better decisions at the poker table.