Narrowing Your Opponents Range By Raising

[PokerBroker]

Ryan Holland the Psychic

People ask me the same question very frequently in live cash games I play.

"How do you always know what cards your opponents have?"

Most often I hear this question after I have made a sick laydown or monster call.

Of course my response is always that I have ESP and they should just fold to me every chance they get.

Daniel Negreanu the Psychic

We've all watched High Stakes Poker or some other cash game on TV and been amazed by the fact that Daniel Negreanu always seems to know his opponents hole cards (within a very specific range at least). He also is perceived to be a very aggressive player who raises and reraises alot with a wide range of starting hands depending on position. I think many live cash players I play against fail to recognize the important correlation between these two observations.

Daniel is king of knowing his opponents cards BECAUSE he attacks early with raises and reraises to determine the range of the cards they are holding. While he is betting to take down pots, he is also betting to get more information about his opponents hand at every stage of the pot. This is key to outplaying your opponents postflop.

Daniel has discovered how much MORE important it is to know what your opponent is holding than to know what your own two cards are. Many poker players claim that they are good enough to win with any two cards but the simple bully tactic that they use simply is not a +EV play in the long run unless you know what your opponent is holding and can avoid trying to overrun aces.

If, in the course of a hand, you never raise, you are truly at the mercy of who has has the better hand, you or your opponent. In a cash game, you HAVE to win pots when you don't have the best hand or you will never maximize your earning potential. This doesn't mean that you have to be a crazy bluffer, it just means that you need to be able to know when your opponent is weak and take advantage of it. Crazy bluffers get caught and lose a lot of money when they don't accurately determine the strength of their opponents hand.

How can you apply this to your game?

To understand how I apply this to my game you must first have an understanding of my raising ranges (assume full ring game).

A) I will open raise in early position with the strongest hands (AA, KK, AK, etc) and the speculative hands (any pairs, suited connectors, etc).
B) I will open raise in late position with just about any two cards. I prefer hands that I can call a reraise with and take advantage of my position postflop obviously.
C) I will reraise a pot in early position with the strongest hands and any pair (generally to limit the range of hands that can re-re-raise with position on me).
D) I will reraise a pot in late position with the strongest hands and the speculative hands.

Now onto how this helps me narrow the ranges of my opponents hands.

What my opponents do in response to my raises tells me a lot about their hand. Obviously they can fold and are no longer a threat. They can reraise, giving me lots of information about their range taking into account their position, table image, perception of me, stack size, etc, after which I can carefully choose how to proceed. They can call, which also tells me a lot about the strength of their hand, but will be more useful to refer back to following postflop action. I now have much more information with which to proceed to postflop play.

But narrowing the range of your opponents holdings does not stop once the flop comes. Simply resorting to a bullying tactic because you think you have discovered the range of your opponents hands is not enough. You now have to consider the range of your opponents 5 card hand and proceed with more information gathering. If you flop the nuts, you need to use the information you have gathered about your opponents range to extract the maximum value with your betting decisions. If you flop weak, flop draws, flop nothing, etc, you need to proceed with extracting more information about your opponents hand (remember you do this by opening pots and raising, not by checking or check calling) to determine if you will be able to take down the pot with weaker holdings.

Information is king. The more information you can extract from your opponents the better. It will help you make more informed and profitable decisions. How you bet is only one of the many ways you can extract information from your opponents but it is a very important one that I feel many people often miss. I truly feel that by using your betting habits to extract information you will make more money in the pots you win and lose less money in the pots you don't.

Any feedback?

Stay tuned for my follow up post: Why Raising Saves You Money

[dyehard]

Very nice Ryan. One aspect I think I struggle with in both cash and Tourny play is bet sizing. If you flop air and are first to act, how many chips are you risking to gain information? 1/4 pot, 1/2 pot, 3/4 pot? Every situation is different, but in general what advice can you give?

[cusecrusher]

First off Ryan, awesome post. I pride and pattern my game after physical tells and reads I gain off people, so I echo a lot of what you said...can't wait for part II

One aspect I think I struggle with in both cash and Tourny play is bet sizing. If you flop air and are first to act, how many chips are you risking to gain information? 1/4 pot, 1/2 pot, 3/4 pot? Every situation is different, but in general what advice can you give?

The answer to that is whatever works. You have to learn through playing with different opponents what will work. Why bet 3/4 pot with air if you know your opponent will lay down for 1/4 pot with air. Through trial and error and proper note taking and paying attention you'll figure out what the appropriate number is against certain opponents.

[ThrillCory90]

Great post. Aggresion gives opponents chances to fold. Aggresion makes opponents uncomfortable. Aggresion gives you control of the hand. AND aggresion gets information. I'm interested to see part II.

[PokerBroker]

If you flop air and are first to act, how many chips are you risking to gain information? 1/4 pot, 1/2 pot, 3/4 pot? Every situation is different, but in general what advice can you give?

One glaring thing I want to point out here is position. You state "If you flop air and are first to act." This really stresses the importance of playing pots in position. Obviously you do not want to avoid ALL pots out of position but, as an example, I am more likely to fold AQ out of position than I am QJ in position.

I like to attempt to see roughly 90% of my flops in position. This should be very attainable as you are raising and reraising more often in late position than in early position.

That being said you must never be afraid to bet at pots when you are out of position, especially if you were the preflop aggressor. However, with continuation betting becoming such a common aspect of the game you need to be very aware of your table image.

Say you have a very tight table image and only raise with strong hands. You raise early position with AQ and get two callers. The flop comes 852 rainbow and you whiff and are out of position. There is a good chance that a continuation bet is going to be challenged here if they can come to the conclusion that you missed (your bet size may not matter).

Think about what hand you are actually trying to represent. What hand would actually bet at this flop? I'm not going to put you on A8 with an early position raise. If you lead into me and I have 89suited I am probably going to raise you as a challenge to your continuation bet putting you on AK, AQ, etc at which point I am right and you probably have to fold.

Maybe you are trying to represent an overpair, but what would your play be if you actually have an overpair (TT, JJ, QQ or better)? Maybe you would check raise. Do you have a table image where a check raise here would better represent an overpair to the board than a continuation bet? This should definitely be considered. Check raising IS a continuation bet, it is a continuation of the strength that you were communicating preflop. However, this continuation bet doesn't get challenged as often and if it does you can simply get away from the hand knowing you are probably well behind your opponent.

In general, playing out of position is rarely prefered and may require you to make plays outside of your comfort zone to win pots you don't connect on. It is something you should probably work into your game in small spurts until you get used to it. In the meantime, make sure you exploit your table image regardless of the position you are in.

-----Added 24 Feb 2009 at 04:53:48-----

I like to attempt to see roughly 90% of my flops in position. This should be very attainable as you are raising and reraising more often in late position than in early position.

Note that this may apply more to cash games than tourneys. In cash games you have the luxury of waiting for the right combinations of position and hand selection as the blinds never increase. In tourneys you may not always have this luxury as the increasing blind levels force you to attempt to accumulate chips at more regular intervals. I still struggle in tourneys due to this variable, it is a difficult adjustment for me to make, even though my cash game is very strong.