Typical player ranges and how to play against them

Below is a list I made myself a while back to help beat certain player types by associating their typical hands with their typical actions. These are not secrets but it does take a while to work out and it really opened up my cash game beyond a strict 'nit' style of play. Good mirostakes cash poker advice is hard to find although there are some easily available online pdfs that advise ABC tight aggressive poker with huge bet sizing for your good hands. This type advice was perfect a few years ago but the average player has got a little better these days so it cannot hurt to review fundamentals and really narrow down your opponents ranges and weaknesss to best exploit them

Fish are defined as players with no poker knowledge, slp as players who understand the need to select good starting hands but play with no discipline or aggression. These are the player types it is ok to raise big and bet really big into. Often they will hit top pair and only min bet, allowing you to chase draws as well if you want to take a passive but profitable line. You cannot bluff these player types ever so do not try since even Queen high on a paired board is a calling hand to the passive player types so just keep betting. It can be frustrating to bet bet bet and then get raised by these player types, however they are not 'representing' anything but have simply backed into two pair or flat called a set for 2 streets: you can safely fold to a passive player's river raise on any wet board without the nuts, or on a dry board without top two pair+ or a set. All weak passive players suffer from under- betting good hands so they often price their opponents into catching a better hand. Since this is the case bluff raising minimum bets with absolutely nothing is a bad idea although I still catch myself doing it sometimes!

Tight-bad players are an interesting proposition since they limp in with hands like AQ often and it is best to avoid fancy plays like raising KJ against them for this very reason. These players can go on tilt after a passive player has chased a flush down and beaten them, so your timing in a pot against them is a big factor. They will come out swinging after a big loss, pot betting A9 on a 986 board for example which is when you want to be in there with T7 or 57 of course;) This player type will hold onto top pair ace kicker for dear life so get all in as quickly as you can. Tight-bad players also cannot fold AK unimproved, at least for two streets so bet a decent amount with any pair. Some players of this type minimum raise preflop with broadways and suited aces, raising more with premium hands and some minimum raise with all their decent hands and limp the rest: you have to see a few showdowns to work out which type you are facing to narrow their ranges.

TAG and NIT players are best avoided if you want to make money, which you are almost certain to do if a maniac is sitting on your right. Maniacs do not know why they are betting, but it is fun and those suckers just keep on folding! The best thing about maniacs is how they will bet second pair like it is the nuts e.g. KT on AT4 board. This can equate to massive profit if you hold Ax and they don't catch a K on the turn and river to send you to the lunatic asylum!

Fish at 65%

All aces, all pairs

All broadways

Xxs down to T2s

Xxo down to J60

Most suited and connected cards less 2x 3x

No raising range and non-standard lines post flop. A lot of flush and straight draws in range-often weaker flushes and weak two pair hands. Always chasing, often hitting losing hand.

Fish at 42%

22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q6s+, J7s+, T8s+, 98s, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, A2o+, K8o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o, 76o

Slightly more discerning in playing less junky hi-low unsuited but must play most pic-small suited and all SCs. Always chasing, often hitting losing hand.

Likes to call down genuine monsters, ie will not raise a set (until the end usually)

SLP at 33%

All aces, all pairs

All broadways

All suited aces

Most middly suited Kx, Qx and some connected cards

After raising easy to put on premium overpairs, pairs and high sets if active. If passive hitting tptk, tpgk, weak aces, nut flush draws, broadway straights Kx,Qx and concealed two pair hands. Often min betting eg tpsk just once.

Tight-bad at 18%

All pairs

Most aces excl low unsuited

Most broadways, slightly less of the tens and nines

No junky suited kings or queens

If you eliminate the top 3% or so (AA-TT AK,AQs) left with mostly pairs, Ax and often hit decent KQJ on flop when limping in.  Likely to call down top pair type and strong underpairs.

If they click raise turn or river you are usually dead.

Tag 17% ish (14 pfr)

All pairs

Most aces from mid position, all from LP

Most broadways, including all with T or 9 in LP

Some junky/suited stuff if HU, or IP

Range is position dependent (the only player type which will be). No limping or calling unless set mining or SC mining so strong lines in passive multiway pots easy to fold to.  Able to often bet twice for value but 3^rd bet only if beating all obvious hands they face. Will often bet once and give up if board is wet.

Nit 10/8 ish

66+, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo

A lot of sets, strong top pair, strong broadway draws, nut flush draws. This player type often bet bet bet in the same way with 100% of range. 

Maniac 75% (approx 25 pfr)

No range as such just varying play based on mood, spite plays, randomness.

All high-low suited combos

All junky suited down to 8x suited small

All vaguely connected cards

All high low unsuited down to Jx and medium Ts and 9s etc.

Hard to put on a range based on starting hands or post flop action. Tends to slow play super good hand with checks and smaller bets (and min raises pre). Tends to overplay marginal made hands and turn them into bluffs. Can be cautious and slow down vs obvious rock players or paired boards eg will do lines like pot-min, min with decent pair hand that is easily beaten vs a tight player.

glossary side note for my readers who do not spend any time on poker forums:

slp=semi loose passive player type
tag=tight aggressive player type
nit=extremely tight, but usually aggressive player type
rock=extremely tight, but usually passive player type

TPSK means top pair, shit kicker eg A5 on A2Q board. (gk is therefore good kicker)

Min-betting is a bet of one big blind: a sign of a losing poker player

Broadways are picture cards that can make TJQKA straights.

18% refers to a percentage of all possible i.e. close to one in 5 (20%) hands is worth playing an 18% player. This is a player's range of hands.

Rock means a super tight player who only bets the nuts

pfr stands for pre flop raise, which is the percentage of hands raised by a player

SC is suited connected hands

click-raise is a minimum raise back to you

Swingy Saturday

I decided to gamble with a chunk of money from my roll this weekend on some cheap tourneys and 6 max cash games at the next level up. I consistently get spanked when I play cash at the next level and this weekend was no exception. I went into my tired and stubborn call station mode when clearly beaten in some fairly tough spots, that are probably routine for cash regulars at 4nl and dumped nearly 3 stacks worth. Initially I decided to gamble with $14 and move back down to 2nl if I lost the lot, but I quickly lost around $11 before I decided to pull the plug and lick my wounds.

I am having great difficulty adjusting to 6 max as a game which is part of the problem, since I am used to playing uber-tight in full ring games. If I sit down at a 6 max table  I enjoy raising more hands and quickly get stuck into the action. I tend win or lose around 10-20bb or so and then suddenly dump the lot with pair vs set, or keep betting into draws that get there and then check call off my stack when they bomb the river.  In full ring I have a good sense of when to release a lost cause of a hand on the river, but for some reason (maybe adrenaline?) my calling reflex is more itchy in the fast and furious 6 max games.

I had more success in the cheap tourneys and just finished cashing in 68/762 runners in one event. I am once again speechless at some of the plays I have seen such as suited connectors calling off half their stack preflop with around 25-30bb left, or fancy players calling an ace turn card (a so called 'scare card') and then bluffing small on the river with nearly all their remaining chips only to fold to a river raise.

In the end I lost around $8.50 since I offset my 4nl losses with some 2nl cash wins and the one small tourney result. I will not return to 4nl until I have regained my mojo, and gone over some hand reviews and stuff. I think being slightly under-rolled is part of the reason for my bad play, combined with a lack of reasoning out from street to street whilst hands are in play. I like the fact that I set out to gamble and achieved this, since you learn more about your game under pressure and the next time I man up and double the stakes I will be better prepared for it. The graph below shows the downwards spike of this weekend's excesses  just before the tiny upswing of some 2nl recovery! (My hem lost a load of data which is why the amounts only read up to the last peak of $67 ish. Current roll is actually $126.40.

Active participation

You can sit at an online poker table with all sorts of motivations such as for entertainment, for diversion or for profit. However you can only make a profit if you actively participate in the game. This means making reads based on bet sizing, speed of bet and frequency of actions. If you actively participate in the game then you constantly make judgements as to whether the table is profitable and aim to sit in the most profitable spots. This is less easy when multitabling but can still be achieved in a limited sense once you have gleaned stats of the other players. I noticed this afternoon that I was in a profitable spot with position on some sticky/calling station type players and better still the players behind me were tight, known regulars who will happily fold their blinds to a button open most of the time. The table was thinning out so I was due to leave in one orbit or so.
I played the following hand in this game which typifies my active 'A game' decision making skills and highlights where some of the regular players are routinely making mistakes. It was on the face of it an entirely ordinary hand of absolutely no note but it is in the details that the benefits of active participation can be found.


$0.02/$0.04 Blinds No Limit Holdem Table Maraba 6 Max (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 2: top_jimmy ( $5.44 )
Seat 4: ROCK ( $2 )
Seat 6: TIGHT REG( $4 )
Seat 7: TIGHT REG ( $4 )
Seat 9: FISH( $4.94 )
top_jimmy posts small blind [$0.02]
ROCK posts big blind [$0.04]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to top_jimmy [ Kd, Qs ]
TIGHT REG folds
TIGHT REG folds
FISH calls [$0.04]
top_jimmy raises [$0.14]
ROCK calls [$0.12]
FISH folds
** Dealing flop ** [ 9d, Jh, 3c ]
top_jimmy bets [$0.14]
ROCK folds
** Summary **
top_jimmy did not show his hand
top_jimmy collected [ $0.35 ]




I raise preflop for value and to try and get heads up with the fish with a strong hand KQ, which even in the blinds/out of position will play well against his limp-calling range. However the rock in the big blind calls and the fish folds so my initial plan is out the window. On the flop I bet as a semi-bluff with 4 outs to the nuts safe in the knowledge that I can lay it down to a raise and the rock merely folds his 22,44,55,66,77,88,AQ,AK,AJ,KQ, and occasionally a random suited-connector or Ax suited but I doubt it in this case. I made my bet size small (14:35) because I thought that puts some pressure on small pairs and does not waste money should he give me 'the business' on the flop (JCarver TM) and raise it right back.

If the rock had been actively participating in this hand, instead of waiting to flop the nuts then he would have noticed a few things about this hand.....


1. My raise the small blind range is pretty strong but based around decent Ax, best Kxsuited, all pairs, maybe higher suited broadways.
2. His flat the big blind range is pretty strong also, probably stronger than my raise range, even after a limper.
3. He is in position on the flop once the fish folds so he can call flop and see what I do on the turn
4. The flop can conceivably hit a flatting range better than it can hit my raising range so he can call flop and
know that it would set alarm bells ringing with me, the out of position player. He would likely get a free turn card on a lot of middly turns since he should have seen me back away from wet boards in this game and others.
5. I was varying my cbet size in this game and therefore he could reasonably conclude I am likely to be weak when I bet out small, since this is how most bad microstakes players play.As it happens he cannot actually know this about me specifically since I also bet small for value against rocks and on drier textures but most players always bet proportionally to their hand strength.
6. If he reraises the flop then I have a very difficult decision, even with AJ which would have made top pair top kicker, since he he is so uber tight and passive.

ABC

ABC poker can mean a lot of things but to most exponents it signifies 'bet or raise when you have a good hand and fold if not.' I should have moved up in limits by now but have had a break from poker, returned and played terribly so I have now set about fixing my game at the lowest limit before moving up. I have adopted an ABC style which means interpreting the strength of my hand in the face of fishy actions and then asking myself the question 'can I bet for value?' and if the answer is yes I bet and if it is no then I check.

I took a break from poker because my priorities in life were out of balance and poker easily swallows up a lot of time. I decided to concentrate on guitar playing for a while, practicing determinedly to get my 'chops' back together. Sadly my RSI flared up yet again so I have had to cool it on the guitar front and having just emerged from a long holiday I couldn't help but drift back into poker when I was unable to sit and stroke my axe all day (ahem!)

I have a tendency to turn into a stubborn call station if I do not play for a while. I imagine all sorts of trickiness on the part of my opponents. This is a terrible disease and the cure is ABC poker which I am now taking in regular doses in the hope of a swift cure. Last night I sat down with a note which said 'only bet for value', plus a further note regarding tightening up my cut-off range.  I proceeded to lose more and more and more and more and more until.....I actually flopped a hand. I made a flopped underfull on JJ9 board holding 99 and almost tripled through versus a calling station chasing a straight which he made (70/9 below) and another hopeless case who folded the river, presumably with Ace-high (AQ likely) or a small pair in the pocket. By this time I had watched showdowns, made some notes, amassed some stats on my opponents and I realised I was on a table with the 4 weakest players I have ever seen.  I was so tired my vision was blurring a bit and my head was thick but I kept going determined to stick to my ABC plan on a table where it would be most profitable. I simply bet when I made a hand and checked when I did not. Apart from one accidental semibluff in a bad spot and one disciplined laydown (with set on 4 to a str8 turn, multiway when led into for pot by a station) I rallied against creative thinking and kept it simple.

For stats fans I enclose a HEM screenshot of the table, the most revealing stats are the first two numbers vpip and pfr: 'voluntarily put into pot' and 'pre flop raise' stats respectively. An ABC player at 6max/shorthanded will run at something like 22/18  entering a pot with just over 1/5 of hands dealt and raising most of those before the flop. Below is a screenshot the worst set of stats I have ever seen on any one table all at the same time. By the way I know my 15/11 is incredibly tight but those stats are cumulative and I mostly play full ring/9 handed where 15/11 works profitably. I have yet to play enough 6max to effect my stats significantly. In the shot below I 4x'd QQ pre and got 4 callers so I should have raised it more preflop but I was tired and had to leave soon after this hand even though it pained me! 70/9 in the small blind was chief donator.

Donk day afternoons

I've drifted back into microstakes no limit holdem again, partly out of a need to distract myself from health worries and partly out my insane need to be good at things, to win basically. I have had several big sessions this weekend dodging min bets, bluff shoves, 4bet flats with 64o you name it. I have luckily run better than ever before and turned my downswing around which is nice. An interesting point to note about my win rate is that it is unsustainably high, and that I am now running at around expected value, after running way over it for 10,000 hands or so. I get the feeling a spell running under expected value may be long overdue, as is a drastic cut in my winrate.

Examples of my luck include backing into a full house holding 44 and stacking 2 players simultaneaously: one holding trips, and the other with the underfull made up of the case 3 and the case 4 on a 3394 turn card! I seriously expected to stare down an overplayed pair of 10s vs the overfull when we got it all in, but luck prevailed this time and the two loose-passive fishes got sent to the rail. I also managed to spike a river King calling all in with KK on a 64x board when 64o shoved me on the flop. This is despite me telling myself not to call fish shoves without top two pair or better!

I need to make some serious improvements to my game since I am basically waiting for strong hands and then playing them very hard. I see a lot of players using this style to poor effect at the next level up so I need to learn to slow down and have different gears of play depending on my opponents.  For now though I am happy again to spend the odd sickly afternoon playing poker for pointlessly small amounts of money just for the sake of winning;)

Out Of Love?

I have had a long absence from online poker because of major surgery, which drained me and left my mind very foggy for quite a while after it. Essentially I got out of the habit of playing poker all the time. Now fully recovered (touch wood) my head is clear and I am getting the energy back to return to my hobbies but something has changed in my relationship with poker, something is missing. I still like analysing the game, making critical decisions based on mathematics and knowing the habits of my opponents better than they know themselves, but I am on the verge of withdrawing my profit and saying goodbye to the online game.

The period of reflection during my recovery made me prioritise my life and to cut a long story short messing about online for fractions of dollars at a time seems like time wasted.  I have reset goals in my personal and professional life and there is little time left for daydreams of 'crushing the microstakes.' The lack of any clear and definable skill edge in no limit holdem has also dampened my enthusiasm for mastering the game and since winning largely depends on sitting down with richer but weaker players and also getting lucky, the most important skill in poker is choosing the right game to be in and hoping it lasts long enough for the luck to even out. I honestly do not believe any more that anyone wins in the long run at nlhe except for websites, casinos and poker publications: Websites get our money, websites sponsor players, publications sell us the idea that the websites are a good thing and that the players are winners who we can aspire to be like. The players do not actually have to be any good for this cycle to continue, which the real ace in the hole for the industry. In fact the poker industry routinely promotes players above their effective pay grade and they become victims of the Peter principle, gambling away the website's (what used to be our) money until they are replaced with the next big thing.

Since I love the buzz of the game, enjoy shuffling, dealing and stacking chips I will of course continue playing home games. It is all about the banter, horrible cooking lager, even more horrible turn cards, accidental glances at chip stacks (revealing intentions) and so much more. Poker is where you match minds against minds, drop them in a boozy gambling pit and see who manages to sucker punch the other first. Poker (holdem anyway) is being dealt two random cards, lifting the first one to see a glorious A in the corner and lifting the second to see a heartbreaking off suit 6 (which btw without the straight potential is arguably worse than A2 in many situations.) I love getting together with friends, laying out the baize and getting stuck into a poker session and feeling the evening stretching out before you with such treacherous and exciting potential. I have just come to the conclusion that online microstakes poker is a ball busting effort for too little reward.

I have therefore turned my continual learning bug to preparing for a guitar exam, memorising countries of the world, plus scrabble, chess and backgammon for the gaming itch. The latter has me firmly in the grip of it's pointed (!) claws and bad beats in poker have absolutely nothing on the twists and turns of backgammon dice. I also like the way backgammon seems to be a more refined older person's game and not so dominated by sports cap wearing teenagers. It is a game where I feel like I can really fit in, and will probably end up losing the bankroll I worked so hard to grind up from online poker. Lol donkaments ;)

“Why do you bet so much before the flop?”

“Why do you bet so much before the flop?” (an answer to a question raised at the table)

I was asked at my home game last night why I raise such 'large amounts' and potentially shut out action at the poker table. Or to split the question into three sub questions: Why do I raise? Why not raise small? and Why not limp every hand instead and bet from the flop onwards? At the table I did not manage to fully explain the nature of the 'tight-aggressive' style of play I adopt and why raising substantial amounts holds many advantages compared to limping preflop but I shall attempt to give an overview here.

Tight-aggressive or TAG for short is a style of poker play that became popular the mid 2000s, as a direct result of the strategy manuals penned by Dan Harrington and to a lesser extent Phil Hellmuth.  The style is defined by a twofold approach to the game: 'Tight' in terms of hand selection and 'aggressive' in terms of betting amounts and frequency. The style maximises profits from carefully chosen starting hands and avoids difficult decisions after the flop. Since the style is aggressive you are always leading the betting and in doing so you ask a question of your opponents, “My hand is good, how good is yours?” and when your opponent's call they are answering “Mine is somewhere between o.k and good, let's see a flop.” The first reason for betting then is to take initiative in the hand and learn something about your opponent's hand strength before the flop comes down.

The second reason for raising is that often, the tight-aggressive player is aiming to get heads-up in a pot and see a flop against one other person. This is done to seize a greater equity share (potential profit share) of the money in the pot from blinds/antes and preflop calls. If 4 players see a flop then typically no one has greater than 35% or so equity share of the money. The chances might be something like 35%/25%/15%/25% for the respective hands JTs,98o,22,A2o if you just deal them out and no one bets from start to finish. If the 22 had raised in this example and the JTs had called then the chances change to 48%/52% in favour of JTs. The 22 has therefore gained 33% equity in the hand by raising and driving out the 98o and the A2o from calling. This simple example demonstrates  why raising is sometimes necessary in poker to get maximum value from the  hands you are dealt.

If we accept for a moment that raising is a good idea then why not raise smaller to lure other players into the pot with dominated hands? The answer to this question is that one person's concept of a large and off-putting preflop bet is different from another person's. It is up to the discriminating TAG player to sell his good hands for as much as the market is willing to pay. In a sense tight-aggressive poker relies on your opponent's making the mistake of calling the preflop raises with dominated hands and if players will not do this, then I may decide to scale my bet sizes downwards. I may not want to risk returning to the four way flop scenario outlined above with my 22 so if I make a small raise and receive three callers I only have myself to blame for not adjusting to table conditions. If you are playing heads-up poker there is definitely an argument to be made for scaling your preflop bet sizes down, since there is no risk of multiway pots and losing your equity share to other prospectors.

The third and final part of this discussion is to compare the merits of a strategy based around limping all the time to see flops and then judge how much you would like to invest in the pot from this point onwards. This is called a passive strategy and you are considered 'loose-passive' if you limp more than around 30% of hands dealt and 'tight-passive' if you limp less. The advantages of a passive style are that it is low in terms of initial investment, and your hands are well disguised. If you limp in with AA, 107s, JTo,88 etc. no one can get a feel for how strong your hand is preflop, unlike the TAG player who has raised and already told you he/she has a good hand. People who play a passive strategy are limping into pots hoping to flop a concealed hand such as two-pair and above and then hoping that someone will follow them all the way to the river with a worse hand. Passive styles are inherently risky since you see many multiway flops where the best hand possible is more often in play compared to heads-up. You are trying to turn a low equity share preflop into a big profit post flop and hoping that when this happens it coincides with somebody else holding a good but not better hand and paying you off. You will lose many small pots fishing around around for the big catch and you must have the patience to wait for the right moment combined with the skill to recognise when it is time to land your big fish. From experience I know I cannot successfully play a limping strategy unless I am heads-up against certain types of opponent, so I usually choose to adopt a TAG approach in games with more than two players.

Additional note re stealing from the big blind

In our home game we also discussed a unique scenario at the table: whether the big blind should automatically raise a small blind who meekly limps when it is folded around to them, regardless of his/her hand. In this pseudo heads-up situation I routinely raise the big blind since the small blind has told me they do not have a good hand and I stand to gain in this hand and in future folded small blinds by bullying anyone who limps into me by stealing their money the first time they do this. Unfortunately for me on this occasion both myself and the small blind were dealt good hands and the small blind was limp-trapping and I felt I had to fold on the flop when I bet and was raised. The potential victim of my bullying tactic turned out to be David to my Goliath. I can count on one hand the number of times this has happened, compared to the countless times it has been successful so I will not be changing my strategy any time soon, I just got unlucky on this occasion ;)