Button's range: The button raises first in.
PlusEV's solver ranges. A cell is filled in proportion to how often the player is still here with that hand.
A poker range is every hand a player could hold in a spot, given their seat and what they have done so far. You almost never know an opponent’s exact two cards, but you always know which hands they cannot have. A player who raised first from under the gun does not hold 7-2 offsuit, and a player who just called a 4-bet rarely holds 9-4 suited. What is left is their range.
Each hand also carries a weight: how often that player would take this line with it, so a hand raised half the time is half in the range. The question at the table becomes “what could they have, how often, and how does my hand do against all of it?”
Your opponents are putting you on a range too. If you only ever raise with aces, your raise tells everyone you have aces, which is why good players take the same action with strong hands and some weaker ones.
A range chart is a grid of all 169 starting hands, 13 by 13. Pocket pairs run down the diagonal from aces at the top left to deuces at the bottom right. Suited hands sit above the diagonal and offsuit hands below it, with the higher card first: AKs is top row, second column, and AKo is second row, first column. To find your own hand, check the suits first: the ace of diamonds and jack of clubs are different suits, so the hand is AJo, below the diagonal in the ace column and the jack row. Each cell is every way that hand can be dealt: the AJo cell is 12 combos, a pair’s cell 6. Each cell is coloured by the action, and a cell split into two colours is a hand played both ways, in proportion. A hand is mixed when both actions are worth almost exactly the same, so the choice barely matters as long as you do not always make the same one; some players let the second hand of a watch decide.
The viewer at the top of this page uses the same grid to show a range shrinking through a hand. Our preflop charts show every 6-max spot this way, and the help guide to the range grid covers the colours used in the app.
Four ways, and good players switch between them without thinking:
| Form | Example | What it is good for |
|---|---|---|
| Grid | the 13 by 13 chart above | Seeing the shape of a range at a glance |
| Percentage | 17.5% of hands | Comparing how wide two players are |
| Combos | 232 combos | Doing arithmetic: a pair can be dealt 6 ways, a suited hand 4, an offsuit hand 12 |
| Shorthand | 66+, A3s+, ATo+, KQo | Writing a range down, or pasting it into a tool |
Shorthand follows a few rules:
Under the gun in PlusEV’s solver charts opens 66+, A3s+, ATo+, K8s+, K6s, KQo, Q9s+, JTs and T9s, plus thirteen hands part of the time. Type any range into the shorthand box of the combo counter on our poker combos page and the grid and the combo count update as you go.
Fast. Each action removes hands, and what is left gets stronger. Here is one hand in PlusEV’s solver ranges (6-max cash, 100 big blinds, 5% rake), counting each hand by how often the player gets there with it; the viewer at the top shows each step on the grid.
| Step | Range left | Share of all hands | Aces, kings, queens or ace-king |
|---|---|---|---|
| Button opens | 537.5 combos | 40.5% | 6.3% |
| Big blind 3-bets | 191.0 combos | 14.4% | 17.8% |
| Button 4-bets | 63.6 combos | 4.8% | 50.7% |
| Big blind moves all in | 40.7 combos | 3.1% | 68.8% |
| Button calls the all-in | 40.4 combos | 3.0% | 79.8% |
Five decisions take the button from 40.5% of all hands to 3%, four in five of them aces, kings, queens or ace-king. A range is cut down by every bet, call and check, predictably.
The hand above shows all four.
A linear range is the best hands down to a cut-off, like any opening range. The big blind’s 3-bet against the button is close to linear, top hands plus a few weaker ones such as ten-nine offsuit and ace-five suited, which makes it merged: linear, with no gap.
A polarized range is very strong hands and bluffs, with the middle taken out. The button’s 4-bet is about half aces, kings, queens and ace-king, and much of the rest is ace-ten, ace-jack and king-jack offsuit, whose high cards make the big blind less likely to hold aces (one ace in your hand leaves 3 combos of aces instead of 6). Ace-queen, king-queen and the middle pairs mostly call instead. Why those hands bluff is the subject of blockers in poker.
A capped range is missing its strongest hands, because they would have been played another way. When the button only calls the big blind’s 3-bet, just 1.2% of that calling range is aces, kings, queens or ace-king: those hands 4-bet instead.
A condensed range is mostly medium-strength hands, with few monsters and few weak hands, like the big blind’s call of the 4-bet: ace-queen, nines and eights, suited broadway hands.
Polarized ranges go with big bets: the strong hands want a big pot, the bluffs the most fold pressure. Linear and merged ranges go with smaller bets, called by the worse hands they beat.
Mostly, it misses. Here are the button’s opening range and the big blind’s calling range from PlusEV’s solver charts on a flop of K♠ 9♦ 4♣:
| Hand on K♠ 9♦ 4♣ | Button’s opening range | Big blind’s calling range |
|---|---|---|
| Set | 9 combos, 1.9% | 3 combos, 1.2% |
| Two pair | 11.0 combos, 2.3% | 5.9 combos, 2.4% |
| Overpair (aces) | 6 combos, 1.3% | none |
| Top pair | 69.6 combos, 14.8% | 30.7 combos, 12.6% |
| Any other pair | 124.1 combos, 26.3% | 70.9 combos, 29.2% |
| No pair | 251.6 combos, 53.4% | 132.7 combos, 54.6% |
Both ranges miss more than half the time: on this flop a little over half of each range has no pair at all. What differs is the top. The button has 26 combos of sets, two pair and overpairs, 5.5% of its range; the big blind has 8.9, or 3.6%. The big blind has no aces, kings or nines, because it 3-bets them before the flop, so its only set is fours. Its range is capped, and the button knows it.
A wet, low flop changes that. On 8♦ 7♦ 6♠, straights and sets are 5.9% of the button’s range (29 combos) and 6.3% of the big blind’s (15.5), and the big blind holds more flush draws, 9.3% of its range against 6.6%. The button keeps the overpairs, 36 combos the big blind cannot have, but its edge at the top is gone.
Range advantage is when one player’s range does better on a board overall: more good hands, more equity. Nut advantage is narrower: who holds more of the very best hands. On K♠ 9♦ 4♣ above, the button has both, with three times as many sets and all of the overpairs. That is why the preflop raiser tends to bet often on high, dry flops like this one.
The two do not always go together. On 8♦ 7♦ 6♠ the button still has more overpairs, but the big blind holds as large a share of straights and sets and more of the draws, so the nut advantage is level or leaning to the caller. Betting into a range that holds as many nut hands as yours is how range advantage gets misread. Postflop play sits outside what PlusEV trains, but all of it starts from knowing both preflop ranges.
No. Solver ranges assume an opponent who plays well, and most opponents do not. Charts are the baseline you deviate from on purpose, never by drift. Against a player who folds too often, open and 3-bet wider. Against one who never folds, cut the bluffs and bet more of your medium hands for value. Against a tight player’s raise, shrink their range below the chart before you call. The point of knowing the solver range is that you can tell which way a player differs from it, and by how much.
Start wide and cut. This part is standard theory rather than our data:
It splits into three: the hands that fold, the hands that call and the hands that re-raise. The range being raised starts from the opener’s seat. In the 6-max cash ranges PlusEV drills, at 100 big blinds, under the gun opens 17.5% of hands (232 combos) and the button 40.5% (537.5), and each seat in between opens everything the seat before it does, plus more; pocket deuces, which the cutoff opens and the button only mixes, are the one exception. The full charts are in our Texas Hold’em charts. Here is the big blind facing an open from each seat, as a share of all hands:
| Big blind facing an open from | Folds | Calls | 3-bets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under the gun | 72.9% | 20.9% | 6.2% |
| Hijack | 69.4% | 23.2% | 7.5% |
| Cutoff | 64.2% | 26.4% | 9.3% |
| Button | 64.8% | 20.8% | 14.4% |
| Small blind | 38.5% | 46.5% | 15.0% |
The earlier the raiser, the stronger their range, and the less the big blind continues with. Against the small blind, which opens wide and plays the hand out of position, the big blind continues with 61.5% of its hands. The reasons are in our guide to the small and big blind.
Learn the preflop ranges first, because every later read starts from them. Once the opening, calling and 3-betting ranges for each seat are automatic, the narrowing above becomes something you do at the table without stopping to think. Our guide on how to memorize preflop ranges covers the method, and the PlusEV preflop trainer drills those ranges until you stop needing the chart.
A poker range, in the end, is every hand a player could have, weighted by how often they would play it that way, and every action they take narrows it. Read the range, not the hand.
All the hands a player could have in a given spot, based on their position and the actions they have taken, each weighted by how often they would play it that way. A player who raised under the gun cannot have 7-2 offsuit, so it is not in their range.
Ace-ten suited and every suited ace above it: ace-jack, ace-queen and ace-king suited. The plus sign raises the second card up to one below the first. 22+ means every pocket pair, and KTo+ means king-ten, king-jack and king-queen offsuit.
A range containing the strongest hands that make up 20% of all 1,326 two-card combinations, about 265 combos. Under the gun in 6-max cash opens 17.5% of hands in the solver ranges PlusEV drills, and the button 40.5%.
A range made of very strong hands and bluffs, with the medium-strength hands taken out and played another way, usually by calling. 4-bet and river betting ranges are typically polarized.
A range made of the best hands down to a cut-off, with nothing weaker. Opening ranges are linear: everything from aces down to the weakest hand the seat opens. A linear range with a few bluffs mixed in is often called merged.
A range that cannot contain the strongest hands, because they would have been played more aggressively earlier. A player who only calls a 3-bet rarely holds aces or kings, since those 4-bet. In PlusEV's 6-max ranges, 1.2% of the button's call against a big blind 3-bet is aces, kings, queens or ace-king.
Holding more of the very best possible hands on a board than the other player. It differs from range advantage, which is about equity overall. On low connected flops the preflop caller often has the nut advantage, because calling ranges hold more small pairs and suited connectors.
When one player's range holds more strong hands than the other's on a given board. The preflop raiser usually has range advantage on high, dry flops like A-K-7, because more of their range hits it.
