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Part 3: Realistically narrow your opponent's range from preflop to the current decision.
I showed above that it's important to get your opponent's range correct preflop. Even more important is appropriately narrowing that range as you get more information in the hand. Our opponent's actions, bet sizes, tendencies, and timing tells are all important information to consider when evaluating their possible holdings.
This may at first seem like a daunting task. In reality, all we have to do is use the information at hand and process it step-by-step to arrive at a useful, reasonable conclusion.
Let's use an example. We're playing 6-max, a 50/5 limps the HJ, we isolate J 9 from the CO, everyone else folds and HJ calls. We have seen HJ raise AA and AQo, and we have never seen him limp/fold. In PokerStove, the top 5% of hands is 99+,AJs+,AKo. This seems like a reasonable place to start, but let's adjust HJ's raising range slightly to be TT+,AQs+,AQo.
Now let's look at top 50% of hands. In PokerStove:
We need to adjust this slightly. Fish love suited hands, especially suited connectors, so it is much more likely that he's limping in with 54s and 53s than Q7o. We also need to remove the hands that he is raising with:
So now we have a (pretty wide) range for Villain.
The flop comes J 8 5 and Villain (who has a 0 AF on the flop so far) checks to us. From past hands, we know that he will call a 3/5 pot cbet with any pair, any gutshot, A high, 2 overs, or 1 over with a backdoor flush draw (don't tell me this isn't realistic, I see it all the time!). Before we proceed, let's see how we're faring before our bet:
Clearly our top pair is a monster against his range. We bet, and as expected, he calls. This is the point in the hand where we narrow his range again. It turns out that on this board, we're only removing a few hands, namely KTo, K9o, KTdd-K9dd, K6dd, K4dd-K2dd, Q7dd-Q6dd, Q4dd-Q2dd. This is where we stand going to the turn (Villain has 42% of all hands):
Now the turn comes Q and Villain again checks. This board may look super-scary... all those Q hands got there, T9 got there. But let's reason this over. Assume that Villain now calls any Ax or Kx pair, any other pair that beats 8s, any pair or A-high + gutshot, and any flush draw or 8 out straight draw. Villain will check/minraise any hand J8 or better.
First let's evaluate the scenario where we bet and get checkraised. We have a gutshot. Can we continue?
Clearly we can't. This point is very important. Convince yourself all you want, Villain's range does not include combo draws. We already know that Villain check/calls his draws and check/minraises with his nuttish hands. We do not have implied odds because our 9 might not be good, our J might not be good. We might be drawing to 1 of only 3 Ts only to split with T9. We could even hit the T and be up against J 8. Villain's range is super-strong, we have about 5 outs to his range, and we aren't even sure which of those are clean. Once you use the information at hand to appropriately narrow an opponent's range, justifying a bad play by then widening that range is a huge mistake that costs otherwise good players a lot of money!
So with that said, perhaps we were in error to bet this turn. Perhaps we should have checked it back to take our 3 outs to the 3rd nuts? Absolutely not. Villain is check/raising 6% of all hands or less than 14% of his range on the turn, and when he does we can easily fold. But what about the Q or better Js? Let's see what Villain calls the turn with:
Villain is calling with 23.4% of hands, meaning that he's folding 30% of the time. Over 55% of the time he's calling, and we have 59% equity when he does. Clearly a bet here is good.
The river is an exercise that I'll leave to you. Make a reasonable assumption about what hands Villain will call with on different rivers (K8 or better on a blank is a decent start). Paste the river range of:
99,AJs-A8s,Ah7h,Ah6h,A5s,Ah4h,Ah3h,Ah2h,KTs+,Kh9h,K8s,Kh7h,Kh6h,K5s,Kh4h,Kh3h,Kh2h,QTs-Q9s,Qc7c,Qh7h,Qs7s,Qc6c,Qh6h,Qs6s,Qc4c,Qh4h,Qs4s,Qc3c,Qh3h,Qs3s,Qc2c,Qh2h,Qs2s,J9s+,J7s-J2s,T8s,Th7h,96s+,8h7h,8h6h,85s,8h4h,76s,7h4h,6h4h,AJo-A8o,A5o,KJo+,K8o,QTo-Q9o,J9o+,T8o,98o
into PokerStove, eliminate the hands he folds, then evaluate that against J9 to see if you have better than 50% equity. If not, a check behind is best, and if so, a properly-sized value bet is the most +EV play. Experiment with different rivers and different calling ranges. Should we bet a 9? J? A (he probably won't call with K8 or 99)? 2? You may be surprised by what you learn.
After the hand, check out what hand is showed down and see if you should change your perception of his play.
That is just one illustration of how we can take a range from preflop to the river and use it to determine the most profitable action throughout the hand. Of course, countless such examples exist. The most important point to take home, and I'll repeat it again, is:
Once you appropriately narrow a Villain's range based on the action and his tendencies, do not later widen it to justify a bad play!
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