1. Introduction

In this article

• Basic procedures
  
• What are the typical ranges
  
• Adjusting your range according to the opponent
  

The ability of the player to estimate the hand range of his opponent is a substantial part of the game in the high blind rounds of a tournament according to the independent chip model (ICM): that is, the range of starting hands with which the opposition will call a push or will push himself.

Since this estimate is always specific to the situation and the player, experience is the most important factor here.

1.1 Basic Procedure

In principle, when trying to place the opposition into a particular range in a given situation you will answer the questions: what would my hand range be if I were this player? With which hands would I call? With which hands would I push? What would be my optimal range for this situation?

Of course, your opposition will usually not play optimally. Some play too tight, others too loose. By observing your opposition over the course of hands played, you need to detect deviations from optimal play, in order to use them in later considerations. Here it's particularly helpful when hands go to showdown and you get to see the hole cards.

Another good indicator for his calling and pushing ranges are the Pokertracker statistics of the opposition, namely PFR and Attempt-to-steal, for the pushing range, and VPIP and defending-blinds, for the calling range.

You can draw conclusions about the ranges from this information. For this purpose, you can also use PokerStove by continuously adding hands to a range and calculating their percent contribution and percent of all starting hands to get an impression of which hands an opponent is prepared to play given his Pokertracker values.

In general, you can say that players in the lower buy-ins tend to call a bit too loose and push too-tightly. On the other hand, you will often find players on the higher buy-ins who call too tight and push too loose.