What is your approach to preflop ranges?

[turnupthebb]

Preflop could be the most important thing to learn because if you are for example calling 3bets with T6s then you will most likely be bleeding money even if you are a good postflop player and hand reader.

There are lots of preflop open raise charts, that's easy to find and not a problem. But what is more challenging is finding complete preflop ranges because you also need to know what to do against an open raise from every position. What to do against a 3bet, 4bet and 5bet. What do do if you get squeezed when you PFR or when you flat a PFR. When to squeeze, when to cold 4bet. And you should know all these ranges for different stack sizes like 50bb 100bb 200bb.

Finding these kind of complete preflop ranges is not easy to find. Some websites sell somewhat complete ranges but usually not entirely complete.

Is this what you have done? Did you buy ranges from a website?
Or what are you doing otherwise?

I guess at micros you can get away with not having these complete ranges. You can have a lot of leaks and still be profitable. But if you want to crush and be prepared for moving up to tougher stakes, then you need complete ranges.

So what's your approach?
Even if you don't like GTO ranges, you still probably need these kind of ranges for exploitative approach because if you cold call a fish then what do you do if you get squeezed?
Or maybe there is a very loose player who limps or opens 70% of all hands in UTG, so you are in HJ and decide to cold call with Q8s because it's good against the fish range. But what about the remaining players left to act? You can get in lots of trouble if you don't have ranges prepared for this situation. Probably just thinking without plan then it's probably going to have to fold to a squeeze. And you would have to fold so many hands to a squeeze when you are playing 50% of all hands in HJ whenever the fish in UTG VPIPs, so you will be exploitable by players left to act.

Did you create your own complete preflop ranges?
How did you do it? Used PioSolver? I haven't used that tool yet but I hear it can take like weeks or months of work for a powerful computer to create those ranges.
It seems difficult to create own ranges because if I for example cold call when I'm in CO, well it's just difficult to plan for every situation and the EV of every situation that comes from that, like maybe button calls as well, or maybe squeezes, or maybe one of blinds squeezes or calls. If they squeeze I need to plan ranges for 4betting and calling and how is EV if villain calls or 5bets etc etc. It just seems incredibly complicated to work out these kind of ranges.

Or if you don't have any complete preflop ranges, then how are you doing it? What's your approach?
I'm thinking about buying preflop ranges but I want to hear what others thing about this first so I don't make a too quick purchase and then regret it. Maybe there is something I haven't thought of.

 

[Tero]

Preflop charts can definitely offer some guidelines but one has to be always ready to deviate from them. There are just tons and tons of chart available online and trying to learn even handful of them is a daunting task. Preflop is just one part of the game and what comes next is also very important.
But if you love charts then take a look at Jonathan Little's site. Even on his free version of the content there is lot of charts.

 

[turnupthebb]

Preflop charts can definitely offer some guidelines but one has to be always ready to deviate from them. There are just tons and tons of chart available online and trying to learn even handful of them is a daunting task. Preflop is just one part of the game and what comes next is also very important.
But if you love charts then take a look at Jonathan Little's site. Even on his free version of the content there is lot of charts.

Yeah you're probably right. I have heard many say that we should be deviating a lot from these preflop ranges. Because just for example if they make a small 3bet, like 2.7x instead of 3x then that means we need to defend much more, so we can't just stick to our charts. We have to deviate based not only on villain ranges but also on their bet sizing.

So it probably just takes a lot of time to get good at preflop ranges and probably there aren't many who can do it perfectly without RTA. Unfortunately RTA seems very common. I found a video on youtube of someone trying out a popular RTA tool and it's so simple to use and shows perfect GTO decision for every single decision.

So maybe I won't buy any preflop ranges then. It's probably better to learn to do it in my head and just get better at it with lots of time and experience. I think an App that trains me would be useful and I know there exists Apps like that online already, those apps help us to memorize and to go through the process of counting the combos and everything.

Because that is what we would need to do. First we need to know what is the range we are for example PFR in CO. Maybe there was a limper too so that changes our range so what is our ISO range now, how many combos is that.
Then someone 3bets with 3.1x sizing, so how much % must I defend? How much combos is that? etc.
As you can see it's pretty crazy how much work it takes to get preflop ranges right and that's why it takes lots of time, work, studying and exp to become good at it.

Maybe this topic can discuss that, things that can help with this long process of becoming good at this.

 

[Aballinamion]

Preflop could be the most important thing to learn because if you are for example calling 3bets with T6s then you will most likely be bleeding money even if you are a good postflop player and hand reader.

There are lots of preflop open raise charts, that's easy to find and not a problem. But what is more challenging is finding complete preflop ranges because you also need to know what to do against an open raise from every position. What to do against a 3bet, 4bet and 5bet. What do do if you get squeezed when you PFR or when you flat a PFR. When to squeeze, when to cold 4bet. And you should know all these ranges for different stack sizes like 50bb 100bb 200bb.

Finding these kind of complete preflop ranges is not easy to find. Some websites sell somewhat complete ranges but usually not entirely complete.

Is this what you have done? Did you buy ranges from a website?
Or what are you doing otherwise?

I guess at micros you can get away with not having these complete ranges. You can have a lot of leaks and still be profitable. But if you want to crush and be prepared for moving up to tougher stakes, then you need complete ranges.

So what's your approach?
Even if you don't like GTO ranges, you still probably need these kind of ranges for exploitative approach because if you cold call a fish then what do you do if you get squeezed?
Or maybe there is a very loose player who limps or opens 70% of all hands in UTG, so you are in HJ and decide to cold call with Q8s because it's good against the fish range. But what about the remaining players left to act? You can get in lots of trouble if you don't have ranges prepared for this situation. Probably just thinking without plan then it's probably going to have to fold to a squeeze. And you would have to fold so many hands to a squeeze when you are playing 50% of all hands in HJ whenever the fish in UTG VPIPs, so you will be exploitable by players left to act.

Did you create your own complete preflop ranges?
How did you do it? Used PioSolver? I haven't used that tool yet but I hear it can take like weeks or months of work for a powerful computer to create those ranges.
It seems difficult to create own ranges because if I for example cold call when I'm in CO, well it's just difficult to plan for every situation and the EV of every situation that comes from that, like maybe button calls as well, or maybe squeezes, or maybe one of blinds squeezes or calls. If they squeeze I need to plan ranges for 4betting and calling and how is EV if villain calls or 5bets etc etc. It just seems incredibly complicated to work out these kind of ranges.

Or if you don't have any complete preflop ranges, then how are you doing it? What's your approach?
I'm thinking about buying preflop ranges but I want to hear what others thing about this first so I don't make a too quick purchase and then regret it. Maybe there is something I haven't thought of.

This is a hell of a good question! Let me try to help you. We should never follow preflop charts as if they express the reality of the game. Charts guide us but they are not definitive.
And yes, preflop ranges are the core of the game because if we don't have a solid preflop opening range, we are in big trouble.
Our preflop ranges will rely essentially on our opponents. For example, some standard charts will put that we must open 15% range from UTG, for a 6-MAX cash table: this is true for some occasions but not true for other occasions.
We are going to open 15% range from UTG when we find ourselves on a very soft and easy table. Which means that players ahead to speak will be quiet, allowing us to get a call from the SB or BB.
We are opening 15% range from UTG so we do not expect to get many calls from CO or a bunch of 3-bets from the BU, okay?
Because of these whole 15% range we cannot continue with all of it when we get a 3-bet of a player IP.
Thus there's the rule of thumb: if the table is very, very easy we open 15% range from UTG to try to play versus the guys in the blinds.
But if the table is not that easy, let's say a normal table, with opponents ahead that will 3-bet and call our raises from UTG to try to play in position against us, then we would open 8-10% range from UTG.
And if the table is very hard, full of calling station and maniacs, we are simply opening 5-8% range from UTG.
And we can use UTG to define the ranges of other positions. For example, if we open at max 15% range from UTG, we will open at max 20% range from MP, and so on.
Try to play easy tables, with calling stations instead of maniacs. Choose your opponents by finding their weak points and let the chips fall as they may!

 

[Spondzile]

IMO those charts are pointless, you cant play poker like a robot, you should adjust your opening based player who you are against.Tight player you have to respect and battle with better range.Loose calling station you could calling lighter and so on.Keeping looking how your opponents tend to play,make notes and go for it.

 

[evthealien]

Rather than having hundreds of charts, you can figure out what do to in specific preflop situations on the fly by narrowing ranges based on position and actions, and what you know about villain.

 

[turnupthebb]

Rather than having hundreds of charts, you can figure out what do to in specific preflop situations on the fly by narrowing ranges based on position and actions, and what you know about villain.

Good advice!
The only thing is it would take a lot of time to count all the combos and so on, especially if you are multi tabling. So I think you probably do need charts, either make your own charts or buy charts that you think make sense. Different charts for diferent villain and situations and stack depths etc. That's why you can easily end up with 100 charts or 1000 charts depending on how how many situations you want to play optimally in.

 

[eetenor]

Preflop could be the most important thing to learn because if you are for example calling 3bets with T6s then you will most likely be bleeding money even if you are a good postflop player and hand reader.

There are lots of preflop open raise charts, that's easy to find and not a problem. But what is more challenging is finding complete preflop ranges because you also need to know what to do against an open raise from every position. What to do against a 3bet, 4bet and 5bet. What do do if you get squeezed when you PFR or when you flat a PFR. When to squeeze, when to cold 4bet. And you should know all these ranges for different stack sizes like 50bb 100bb 200bb.

Finding these kind of complete preflop ranges is not easy to find. Some websites sell somewhat complete ranges but usually not entirely complete.

Is this what you have done? Did you buy ranges from a website?
Or what are you doing otherwise?

I guess at micros you can get away with not having these complete ranges. You can have a lot of leaks and still be profitable. But if you want to crush and be prepared for moving up to tougher stakes, then you need complete ranges.

So what's your approach?
Even if you don't like GTO ranges, you still probably need these kind of ranges for exploitative approach because if you cold call a fish then what do you do if you get squeezed?
Or maybe there is a very loose player who limps or opens 70% of all hands in UTG, so you are in HJ and decide to cold call with Q8s because it's good against the fish range. But what about the remaining players left to act? You can get in lots of trouble if you don't have ranges prepared for this situation. Probably just thinking without plan then it's probably going to have to fold to a squeeze. And you would have to fold so many hands to a squeeze when you are playing 50% of all hands in HJ whenever the fish in UTG VPIPs, so you will be exploitable by players left to act.

Did you create your own complete preflop ranges?
How did you do it? Used PioSolver? I haven't used that tool yet but I hear it can take like weeks or months of work for a powerful computer to create those ranges.
It seems difficult to create own ranges because if I for example cold call when I'm in CO, well it's just difficult to plan for every situation and the EV of every situation that comes from that, like maybe button calls as well, or maybe squeezes, or maybe one of blinds squeezes or calls. If they squeeze I need to plan ranges for 4betting and calling and how is EV if villain calls or 5bets etc etc. It just seems incredibly complicated to work out these kind of ranges.

Or if you don't have any complete preflop ranges, then how are you doing it? What's your approach?
I'm thinking about buying preflop ranges but I want to hear what others thing about this first so I don't make a too quick purchase and then regret it. Maybe there is something I haven't thought of.

GTO Wiz has a free version it is great for preflop solves--- you can even play one hand all the way to showdown each day. It solves all the issues you raised for most of us

 

[jonaselloco]

For now I play NL2 but I'm already making shots in NL5, it's more to test I've made some in NL10 as well.
The range I have of hands is quite limited for preflop both in call, raise 3 bet, reraise 4 bet or more, etc.
I only play hands that can either complete a flush and a straight in both, plus pairs logically and I make some calls in position especially defending the Big Blind.
I think that to organize yourself you must build your ranges and know when to go off the chart.
In cash you have to fold a lot, not everything is a call, that's what recreational players are for.
I think that consolidating preflop play is very important, although my thought is that consolidating postflop play is even more important and even more difficult.
Playing AA, KK, QQ, AKs is very easy in any position, the issue is what to do when the flop falls and you have those hands. If the flop is dry or wet, how do you act??? If the scenario is 3 straight or one-color, or Ace high or an aggressive flop, how do you act???
How do you act on turn and river according to the situations???
Great players are there in the postflop where they make the big difference. For me, all attention must be focused there.
Greetings

 

[Recreationalplayer]

Good starting point to use a default. Then adjust depending on opponents/population.