Hi, as Ranges relates to a set of hands that either you or an opponent might hold in a particular situation you must consider all your opponents’ possible holdings. Inexperienced players think their opponents can’t have a particular hand when they should be looking at all their opponents’ possible hands as the basis for their decisions. Given a Poker Range is a compilation of hands that a player could have at a particular point in a hand and as the hand progresses, you can narrow down a poker range based on the Betting action, Betting pattern, Betting Size, Player type and the overall whole situation. For example, pre flop note the actions of your opponents in order to refine an opponent’s starting hand: Pay attention to your opponent’ pre-flop action what is his/her position, playing style, (limp/raise/3bet etc.), what the frequency of that action, delete any hands that shouldn’t be in the mix and consider if any factors would skew their play. IOW play the player and the whole situation and make sound deductions given the information you have so far in the hand and any patterns that you have noticed. Having said all of this, yes it is good to be unpredictable however, against decent opponents you will probably be put into difficult decisions post flop if you try to play too wide a range for the early positions especially when they see your exposed hands ie too wide a range from EP and or too many bluffs. This will result in being called down and put into too many negative EV plays and then you will have to tighten up your range against the good opponents who will see you adjusting your range and trying to mix it up. So IMO you asked about a linear range or a polarized range as like most things in poker "It Depends" on the whole situation I like to map out the table for the first few rounds, try to identify the weak and strong opponents ie who is over folding from the blinds or who is calling out of position with too wide a range be more exploitative and use the hand range as a basis and adjust my range based on that type of information. IE if the whole table is limping alot I have a wider range from early positions especially with hands that have good post flop playability and could get someones stack if I hit the flop hard or get a good draw and it won't cost me more than 10-15% of my stack to continue. I use a linear range on the good regs the TAGs the thinking players that can fold, read ranges and know what you are representing given the texture of the board if it is better for you and a more polarized range on the Calling stations those that won't fold and can't be bluffed just make a solid hand and value bet them. So good luck hope this helps.
