Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Chart
Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Questions
Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection Examples

The Poker Hand Range Calculator instantly show equities, combination counts, and hand value breakdowns. Use the reset buttons to start over the calculation. First, we start with a preflop range. Get started by selecting a preflop range for the scenario you are analyzing.
You can use the poker statistic folded to 4-bet preflop (F4B) to help with your decision. If a player is folding 40% or less to 4-bets, then the range of hands that you 4-bet with needs to be primarily for value. If your opponent is folding 60% or more against 4-bets, then your range of hands to 4-bet can be more focused on bluffs.
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.

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?

Whether you are new to poker or just looking for pre-flop range advice on which hands to play in certain situations, you have come to the right place. I have been playing and winning at poker since 2008 and have put together some charts for you. The chart will work well both online and live, in cash games and tournaments. Poker Range relates to a set of hands that either you or an opponent might hold in a particular situation. So, instead of thinking of one holding like J♣10♦, you would include several hands in a range. For example – K9s, Q9s, J9s, etc. – is part of a poker range of hands. This concept is what we call a range in poker.

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

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.

Poker strategy hand range selection examples

I then took the following steps to learn the ranges:

Printed the chromatic I made, laminated and posted it on the side of my computer monitor for quick in-game reference.
Created 11 flash cards for use each night as part of my warm-up, and I put the following on them:
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!

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When you bet the flop, you force your opponent to fold some hands. This makes his range narrower and stronger than it was previously. When you bet again on the turn, Villain is again supposed to fold the weakest his weakest hands, leading to a further contraction in his range. By the time you reach the river, having bet both the flop and the turn, and having been called, Villain will hold a high concentration of made hands above a certain strength and no air apart from maybe missed draws. Therefore, it would make no sense for you to bet the river with medium strength hands. If you did that, your opponent would simply be folding the missed draws and anything worse and calling only when he has you beat. This is the definition of a bad bet. It is a bit like playing Russian Roulette. Either nothing happens (he folds) or you blow your brains out (he calls with a better hands). There is nothing to achieve by making such a bet.

Understanding Polarised Ranges

A polarised betting range is one which bets with either strong hands which expect to be a favourite if they get called and weak hands which can make a lot of Villain’s better hands fold. These notions are more commonly referred to as ‘value betting’ and ‘bluffing’. A polarised betting range bets no medium strength hands. It does not bet any hands with the sole purpose of denying equity to the worse hands in Villain’s range. For example, on the turn after c-betting the flop we do not bet JJ on A64K. Even though we could deny a little bit of equity to a hand like 88 by making it fold with two outs to improve, this is not a trade off in our favour. JJ is not a value bet, nor is it a bluff, so we check because we want to bet with a polarised range here when Villain has called a flop bet and strengthened his range. We bet this turn with Ax+ for value (like AJ for example) and bluffs that lack showdown value such as QJ.

When Villain calls your bet, the quality of hand you need for value betting on future streets goes up. Your range should become more and more polarised as Villain’s range gets narrower and stronger.

Playing Against a Polarised Range

Poker strategy hand range selection strategy

Against a polarised range we want to raise rarely because Villain has defined his holding as something either very strong or very weak. We would gain little by raising against the nuts and we do not need to raise to beat a bluff. Raising against a polarised range, then, normally just means paying extra money against Villain’s strong hands and making an unnecessary play against a bluff. We have all chuckled (good heartedly of course) at the rank beginner who states that he is raising a pair because he thinks his opponent is bluffing. It is possible to have some raises against a polarised range, but we would want to be raising an even more polarised range ourselves. If Villain’s range is extremely polarised, for example when he over-bets the turn, we usually just want to play a call or fold strategy because we have so little to gain by raising against either the nuts or air.

Identifying When Villain’s Range is Polarised

A competent player will usually be polarised if he:

Bets big on a later street
Raises a flop bet
Raise the turn
Raises the river
Over-Bets the pot
3-Bets from the big blind

But a weaker player might not be polar even when he takes these actions due to having a poor understanding of why he is betting.

Understanding Merged Ranges

A merged betting range is one that contains medium strength hands as well as stronger hands and bluffs. These medium strength holdings can be hands like thin value bets or vulnerable made hands which are betting to deny equity to some weaker hands in the opponent’s range. It is often correct to bet with a merged range on the flop wh

Poker Strategy Hand Range Selection