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Silver-State • Strategy: NL tournament: your opponent's hand ranges
by HoRRoR |
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In this article
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.
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.
2.6% QQ+, AK
4.2% JJ+,AQ+
8.7% 99+, AT+ KQ+
18.6% 66+, A6+, KT+, QJ+
32.7% 44+, A2+, K6+, Q9+, JT+
40.9% 22+, A2+, K2+, Q8+, J9+
48.1% 22+, A2+, K2+, Q5+, J7+, T9+
Ranges like 0% and 100% are almost impossible
Example hand:
Blinds (200/400), 4-handed
CO 100 Chips
BU 3200 Chips
SB 8000 Chips
BB 1000 Chips
CO folds, BU folds, SB ?
Here you should assume that the SB will push 100% of hands. But experience shows that the SB will often fold hands like 32o or 72o.
Of course, it's not possible to guess the range exactly, but starting from the ranges 0% and 100%, we know that the right value can only lie in one direction. So start by assuming a range of 90-95% instead of 100%.
Sometimes, you might give an opponent a range, for example: any ace, any king, any pair. You call his push since you believe yourself to be ahead against this range, all in all. And then he shows aces. Many players are frustrated by this since they believe they have made an incorrect assertion about that opponent's range.
But like the name says, you are guessing a range of hands; all the hands that you believe this opponent might make some move or other with. In single cases, the current hand might fall into the higher or lower end of the range. If he shows a strong hand, that doesn't mean that you made an error of judgment, only that, in this single case, his hand belonged to one of the better hands in his range. But in this limit, he will have these as often as hands in the lower end.
A mistake only occurred when he showed a hand that you did not include in the range. If you believe his calling range to be any ace, any king, or any pair and he calls a push with 84o, then your assessment would've been incorrect.
In some cases, it is recommendable to fit your own range to the opponent's. PokerStove is helpful for seeing how various starting hands fare against a particular range.
Example:
Hero is in SB
Villain is in BB
Villain has a calling range of 4.2% (JJ+,AQ+), so he's a very tight player.
ATo has an equity of 26% against these hands together.
87s, however, has an equity of 32.4%.
It follows that pushing against such a player with 87s holds more chance of success than pushing with ATo.
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You can find this article and many others at www.PokerStrategy.com
Over 2.000.000 registered users at PokerStrategy.com. Join now!
www.pokerstrategy.com |
