In this video I breakdown how to look at a poker hand using ranges and how that has developed over the years. I no longer only think about my hand vs. Hand Matrix software is the most basic and one of the most important tools we have to help understand how poker works. It allows us to figure out exactly how much equity our hand or range has versus an opponent’s hand or range. For instance, let’s say we have TT and our opponent has Qs9s on Jh-8s-4h. The Poker Hand Matrix You’ve likely seen the 13 by 13 matrix before. This matrix lists out all 169 possible starting hands (13×13 = 169) and is the universal way that poker players visualize ranges. The matrix displays every pocket pair along the diagonal, every suited combo is above the diagonal, and all unsuited combos below the diagonal. Selecting a range of poker hands from a matrix. Ask Question Asked 1 year, 10 months ago. Active 1 year, 10 months ago. Viewed 290 times 2. I am looking for any. The Poker Ranges You’ll Need. Here are the ranges that you’ll have to devise for the current stakes and games you play: Opening Ranges – Know what hands you’ll open in various positions (cash and MTT/SNG) as well as at different levels of the MTT/SNG (Early Stages, Mid-Stages, Late Stages).

It’s incredibly difficult to put your opponent on an exact hand. Therefore, most of the time, you have to think in terms of poker hand ranges. Even though you don’t have a specific idea of what cards are in your opponent’s hand, a hand range gives you something to work with.

Range Matrix Poker Tournaments

Inventory slot numbers minecraft. Beginners may not have thought of this, but winning players make almost all their decisions based on poker hand ranges and knowing the different types of poker hands you might get is extremely important. Your every action changes an opponent’s idea of your hand range and vice-versa. You can have anything when cards are dealt but every fold, call or raise tells something about the range of hands you can have.

Most players fail to make the effort to figure out a hand range. However, every player who intends to be a long-term winner needs to know how to analyze and weight hand ranges.

Betonline Poker - #1 in the U.S

Accepts U.S. customers with large player pool
10+ years with a strong reputation
$2,500 deposit bonus

Get Your 100% Bonus

Poker Hand Combinations

How to use a poker range calculator? In order to be able to calculate a range of hands, the first thing you need to keep in mind is how many possible hand combinations there are for different types of hands:

Hand Type	Combinations
Pocket Pairs	6
Non-Paired	16
Suited Non-Paired	4
Off-Suit Non-Paired	12

Range Matrix Poker Strategy

So what does the table tell you?

There are more variations of non-paired hands than pocket pairs.
For example, if you think an opponent’s hand range is 44 and 87, it’s more likely for the opponent to have 87 (16 combinations) than 44 (six combinations).
There are four combinations of suited non-paired hands and 12 combinations of off-suited non-paired hands. Knowing this makes it easier to calculate the likelihood of an opponent having a suited hand.

Using Hand Ranges in Poker

Here’s a scenario: you raise with AK-offsuit pre-flop and the opponent calls. You know the opponent calls in this situation 15% of the time. According to Equilab, here’s the top 15% of poker hands (although someone’s 15% can include different hands–for example, one might play 66 rather than KT-offsuit):

Top 15% of all poker hands (in blue).

You have AK-offsuit, and you’d like to figure out how your hand matches up against the opponent’s hand range. So you use Equilab to calculate it and you see that AK-offsuit has 61.36% equity while the opponent has 38.64%. Sounds like a good deal for you.

Most players assume they’d do well but they have never thought their opponent’s hand range through and evaluated it against their own hand. Once you get the habit of using an equity calculator, you’ll be surprised by how much or little equity certain hands have against certain hand ranges.

Your idea of an opponent’s hand range changes with every decision the opponent makes. So let’s say, instead of calling your raise, the opponent decides to raise, which he does 3.75% of the time. Here’s the hand range:

Top 3.75% of all poker hands (in blue).

Based on the opponent’s hand range, he’d now have ~57% equity. When he just calls, you’re still ahead of his hand range; when he re-raises, your AK-offsuit is in trouble.

Weighted Hand Ranges

But an opponent may play certain hands out of his hand range more often than others. For example, instead of re-raising 100% of the time with 99, he may only do so 50% of the time. Based on your reads, you assign more or less weight to a certain hand in a range of hands and, just like before, calculate how your hand does against it.

And it can make a big difference. For example, an opponent’s hand range is AA and QQ while you have KK. In case the opponent plays both AA and QQ 100% of the time in that situation, you might consider your chances of winning poker around 50%, but if the opponent plays AA 100% of the time and only plays QQ some other % of the time, your chances of winning take a hit. You’d be going against AA the majority of the time.

How to Calculate a Weighted Hand Range

So let’s say you have JJ pre-flop and you’re up against an all-in raise. You think the opponent could do this with AA, KK, QQ, AK, and AQ. How many hand combinations do you beat and how many beat you?

Hand combinations that beat you:

Hand	Combinations
AA	6
KK	6
QQ	6
Total	18

Hand combinations that you beat:

Hand	Combinations
AK	16
AQ	16
Total	32

Poker Range Matrix

You beat 32 of your opponent’s hand combinations and the opponent beats you with 18 combinations. By using Equilab, we can see that your equity is 42.60%. If, however, the opponent only has AK and AQ 50% of the time (which is a relatively realistic scenario), here’s what happens:

Hand combinations that beat you v2:

Hand	Combinations
AA	6
KK	6
QQ	6
Total	18

Hand combinations that you beat v2:

Hand	Combinations
AK	8
AQ	8
Total	16

And by using Equilab, we can see that our equity drops to about 36%. That’s a dramatic difference in the long run. which can make the difference between whether you should call or fold, which obviously depends on pot and bet sizes and how much money you and your opponent have left.

Learning to weight poker hand ranges is worth your while. Weighting hand ranges gives you more accurate information about your chances in different poker situations as long as you determine the hand combinations right. Like in almost every skill game in the world, the more complicated a theory is, the harder it is to execute and the more profitable it is when executed perfectly. With a little bit of work and thinking you’ll get more accurate calculations.