Return to site

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection

broken image


A new beer garden at ellis island casino, hotel & Brewery A note about the new restrictions We are OPEN doing all that we can to keep everybody safe. With the newest round of restrictions from Governor Sisolak from November 22nd, we are currently operating at 25% occupancy, with mandatory reservations and no parties larger than FOUR people. Ellis island casino beer garden nyc. Since pouring our first ice-cold glass of beer in 1998, the Ellis Island Brewery has risen to become the #1 brewery in all of Nevada, not to mention being awarded the 'Best of Las Vegas' by the Las Vegas Review Journal in 2015 and 2016.

Have you ever found yourself mid-game staring at your HUD while facing an open from a player with an RFI stat of 21% and thought to yourself, 'What hands are in his range?' Or while playing live, have you estimated that your opponent calls an open 40% of the time but didn't know what hands comprise that range?

Well, I'll show you the easy way to learn poker ranges for quick reference in the future.

Poker strategy hand range selection questions

First, here's a Poker Range Chromatic I created for my own use:

I wanted to learn where each hand falls within a range and the above is what I came up with. I used Flopzilla to figure out which hands fall within each percentage grouping. I just started with a 5% range, then went by 5's up to 40%, then followed that with 10's up through 60% then 75%. I used color coding to help visualize the ranges.

I then took the following steps to learn the ranges:

Poker Starting Hand Chart (6-max Cash, 100bb): Hand Chart Notation Getting to know which hands to play and in which positions is even more important than the actual hand. This 6-max Cash Hand Chart details the hands you should play and the position. Solid poker strategy begins with good preflop hand selection. Having well-structured ranges will lead to fewer tough spots and more profitable ones. Here are 6-handed preflop charts for every position at the table (starting from the LJ) from the Upswing Lab: Click here to enlarge the image or you can save it to your device. Against this range, K-Q has 51% equity, giving you an easy river call. If your opponent is well versed in poker, he will tailor his river betting range such that you have a break-even decision. He can do this by eliminating a few of his bluffing hands from his range.

  1. Printed the chromatic I made, laminated and posted it on the side of my computer monitor for quick in-game reference.
  2. Created 11 flash cards for use each night as part of my warm-up, and I put the following on them:
  3. For one week during my study session I would do a hand history review from the previous night's session and each time I faced an open I looked at their RFI Stat in that position and determined what range it fell under. I would say aloud, '20% in the CO… that's 22+, A7s+, ATo+, K9s+, KTo+, Q9s, QTo+, JTo and 98s+.' That's all there was to it. After that first week I got them all down. This is especially helpful when playing live as I can't glance to the side of my screen to get an estimate on an opp's range. Now, it's easier to remember the bottom of the ranges as you're trying to learn these. So, when thinking about 20%, the bottoms are 33, A7s, ATo, Q9s, JTo and 98s. If you just remember those 6 hands for 20%, you know it includes everything better than those. So if the question arises for a hand like K8s, you know that K9s is the bottom at 25% and K7s is the bottom of 30%, so it's within the 30% range and just under the 25% range.

Please let me know if you would make tweaks to these ranges as I always love feedback.

Study hard and make your next session the best one yet!

  • The 12 Days of Christmas 2020 Podcast Episodes - December 14, 2020
  • Strategies and Action Steps from the Quick Wins Poker Course - November 24, 2020
  • How to Quickly Understand Online Tournament Players – Podcast #318 - November 18, 2020

Caesars casino atlantic city pool. Starting Hand Selection:Chen Formula : Sklansky Starting Hand Groups

The Sklansky & Malmuth starting hands table.

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection

First, here's a Poker Range Chromatic I created for my own use:

I wanted to learn where each hand falls within a range and the above is what I came up with. I used Flopzilla to figure out which hands fall within each percentage grouping. I just started with a 5% range, then went by 5's up to 40%, then followed that with 10's up through 60% then 75%. I used color coding to help visualize the ranges.

I then took the following steps to learn the ranges:

Poker Starting Hand Chart (6-max Cash, 100bb): Hand Chart Notation Getting to know which hands to play and in which positions is even more important than the actual hand. This 6-max Cash Hand Chart details the hands you should play and the position. Solid poker strategy begins with good preflop hand selection. Having well-structured ranges will lead to fewer tough spots and more profitable ones. Here are 6-handed preflop charts for every position at the table (starting from the LJ) from the Upswing Lab: Click here to enlarge the image or you can save it to your device. Against this range, K-Q has 51% equity, giving you an easy river call. If your opponent is well versed in poker, he will tailor his river betting range such that you have a break-even decision. He can do this by eliminating a few of his bluffing hands from his range.

  1. Printed the chromatic I made, laminated and posted it on the side of my computer monitor for quick in-game reference.
  2. Created 11 flash cards for use each night as part of my warm-up, and I put the following on them:
  3. For one week during my study session I would do a hand history review from the previous night's session and each time I faced an open I looked at their RFI Stat in that position and determined what range it fell under. I would say aloud, '20% in the CO… that's 22+, A7s+, ATo+, K9s+, KTo+, Q9s, QTo+, JTo and 98s+.' That's all there was to it. After that first week I got them all down. This is especially helpful when playing live as I can't glance to the side of my screen to get an estimate on an opp's range. Now, it's easier to remember the bottom of the ranges as you're trying to learn these. So, when thinking about 20%, the bottoms are 33, A7s, ATo, Q9s, JTo and 98s. If you just remember those 6 hands for 20%, you know it includes everything better than those. So if the question arises for a hand like K8s, you know that K9s is the bottom at 25% and K7s is the bottom of 30%, so it's within the 30% range and just under the 25% range.

Please let me know if you would make tweaks to these ranges as I always love feedback.

Study hard and make your next session the best one yet!

  • The 12 Days of Christmas 2020 Podcast Episodes - December 14, 2020
  • Strategies and Action Steps from the Quick Wins Poker Course - November 24, 2020
  • How to Quickly Understand Online Tournament Players – Podcast #318 - November 18, 2020

Caesars casino atlantic city pool. Starting Hand Selection:Chen Formula : Sklansky Starting Hand Groups

The Sklansky & Malmuth starting hands table.

GroupHands
1AA, AKs, KK, QQ, JJ
2AK, AQs, AJs, KQs, TT
3AQ, ATs, KJs, QJs, JTs, 99
4AJ, KQ, KTs, QTs, J9s, T9s, 98s, 88
5A9s - A2s, KJ, QJ, JT, Q9s, T8s, 97s, 87s, 77, 76s, 66
6AT, KT, QT, J8s, 86s, 75s, 65s, 55, 54s
7K9s - K2s, J9, T9, 98, 64s, 53s, 44, 43s, 33, 22
8A9, K9, Q9, J8, J7s, T8, 96s, 87, 85s, 76, 74s, 65, 54, 42s, 32s
9All other hands not required above.

This table comes from the book Hold 'em Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth.

This is a strategy book for limit Hold'em, but the starting hand groups do have some practical use in no limit Hold'em.

What is the Sklansky and Malmuth starting hands table?

The table is a general ranking of hands in Texas Hold'em.

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Questions

The Sklansky and Malmuth starting hands table groups together certain hands in Texas Hold'em based on their strength. Starting with the strongest set of hands that you can be dealt in group 1, the hands get progressively weaker working down the table until the virtually unplayable hands in group 9.

The rough idea is that a hand in one group has roughly the same value and can be played the same way preflop as any other hand in that group.

How to use the starting hands table.

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Chart

In their book, Sklansky and Malmuth provide some in-depth guidelines for starting hand strategy in limit Texas Hold'em using this table. Unfortunately, I'm not going to work out any guidelines for you for the NL Hold'em game using this table because:

  1. It would be quite a tricky job.
  2. It would be difficult to remember and implement.
  3. Like any starting hand strategy, it would have its flaws.
  4. You should avoid using strict guidelines and set rules as much as possible during play.

So really there is not a lot to take away from this table from a purely strategic perspective. Nonetheless it's interesting to see how specific starting hands compare to one another based on their preflop value.

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Strategy

If you're really after a starting hand strategy guideline, try the Chen Formula.

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Examples

Sklansky and Malmuth hand rankings evaluation.

Although it's a very popular hand group rankings table, it's not going to do you too much good to learn the whole thing off by heart. In my opinion, the real value of this table is being able to see how different starting hands can be grouped together and ranked based on their value before the flop. Ron howard printing casino.

For other useful charts and tables, see the odds charts page from the Texas Hold'em tools section.

Go back to the awesome Texas Hold'em Strategy.

Comments





broken image