What a range is
A range is the set of all hands an opponent could hold in the current spot, weighted by how likely each one is. Not a guess at their actual cards — the whole set, because you will face this spot many times and only the distribution is knowable.
Ranges are written as a shorthand that reads the same everywhere: `77+` means every pocket pair from sevens up, `ATs+` means ace-ten suited and every stronger suited ace, `KJo` means exactly king-jack offsuit. A preflop chart is nothing more than a range drawn as a grid.
The question is never "what does he have". It is "what does this action do to the set of hands he can have" — and then, "which of my hands do best against what is left".
Counting combos, which is most of the work
Ranges are compared by counting the actual card combinations behind them, and the counts are not intuitive. From a full deck:
| Hand type | Combinations | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Any specific pocket pair | 6 | AA is 6 combos |
| Any specific suited hand | 4 | AKs is 4 combos |
| Any specific offsuit hand | 12 | AKo is 12 combos |
| Any specific unpaired hand, both forms | 16 | AK is 16 combos |
This is why "he could have AK or he could have aces" is not a coin flip: AK is 16 combinations and AA is 6, so before any other information AK is nearly three times as likely. And it is why removing cards matters — if you hold an ace, their AA drops from 6 combos to 3 and their AK from 16 to 12.
Board cards do the same. On an A72 flop, an opponent’s pocket aces are down to 3 combinations and their AK to 12, while their 77 is down to 3 and their 22 to 3. Counting this properly is the difference between "he might have a set" and "he has a set roughly 4% of the time here".
Narrowing a range street by street
A range starts wide preflop and narrows with every action. The discipline is to narrow it by what the action actually implies, not by what the hand you fear would do.
- Preflop. Start from their position’s opening or defending range. This is why charts are worth memorising even when you are the one out of position — the chart is your opponent’s range too.
- Flop. Remove hands that would not have taken their line, and reweight the rest. A continuation bet on a dry board barely narrows anything, because good players bet nearly their whole range there. A check-raise narrows enormously.
- Turn. The street where ranges polarise: strong hands and bluffs continue, everything in between gives up. A large turn bet usually means the range has split in two.
- River. Whatever is left, split into value and bluffs. If the value combinations vastly outnumber the plausible bluffs, the call is bad no matter how strong your hand feels.
The most common error in this process is narrowing on the wrong evidence — deciding the opponent "has it" because the board is scary, rather than because their line excluded the hands that do not. A scary board changes what they can represent, not what they were dealt.
Blockers, and what they actually do
A blocker is a card in your hand that reduces the number of combinations of some hand your opponent can hold. Holding the ace of spades on a three-spade board removes every nut-flush combination from their range.
Blockers are widely misunderstood in two directions at once. They are weaker than people think in the sense that removing one or two combinations from a wide range changes very little. They are stronger than people think in one specific place: bluffing. When you are choosing which of your worthless hands to bluff with, picking the one that blocks their calling range is nearly free expected value, and it is the main way solvers select bluffs.
- Blocking their value hands makes bluffing better — they have fewer hands that can call.
- Blocking their bluffs makes calling worse — there are fewer bluffs left to catch.
- Unblocking their folds is the underrated one: a bluff is best held with cards that keep the hands they *will* fold in their range.
This is why a solver so often bluffs with the hand that had some showdown value and checks the one that had none — the choice is about which combinations are removed, not about which hand is worse. It is one of the clearest examples of why solver output looks strange.
Range advantage and nut advantage
Two different questions about the same flop, and confusing them is the source of most bad continuation-betting.
Range advantage
Whose overall range has more equity on this board. A preflop raiser usually has a range advantage on high, dry boards — A72 rainbow hits an opening range far more often than a defending range. Range advantage justifies betting often, and small.
Nut advantage
Who holds more of the very strongest hands. These come apart constantly. On a 765 two-tone board, the big blind defender has more sets and straights than the button opener even though the opener has more high cards — the defender has the nut advantage and the opener may still have the range advantage. Nut advantage justifies betting large, and less often.
The practical rule that falls out: bet small with a range advantage and no nut advantage; bet big when you have both; check when you have neither, however strong the individual hand in front of you looks.
Turning range thinking into a reflex
Range thinking is not learned by reading about ranges. It is learned by repeatedly being wrong about one and being told so immediately, which is a narrow and slightly unpleasant activity that nothing replaces.
What makes it work is the feedback arriving while the hand is still in your head. A hand history reviewed the next morning teaches very little; the same hand priced against the solved range two seconds after you act teaches a great deal. That is the loop in the bootcamp — it deals the spot, you act, and the solver reports what the decision cost in big blinds. Chapter one is free and needs no account.
To see ranges directly rather than play against them, the chart shelf renders solved ranges for every position and depth, and the browser solver will show you both players’ full range on any flop you care to build.
Frequently asked questions
What is a range in poker?
A range is the complete set of hands an opponent could hold in a given spot, weighted by likelihood — not a guess at their specific cards. Thinking in ranges rather than hands is the foundation of modern strategy, and every solver output is expressed as a range rather than as a single play.
How many combinations of each hand are there?
From a full deck: any specific pocket pair is 6 combinations, any specific suited hand is 4, and any specific offsuit hand is 12 — so an unpaired hand in both forms is 16. That is why AK is nearly three times as likely as AA before any cards are removed by your own hand or the board.
What is a blocker in poker?
A blocker is a card in your hand that removes combinations of a hand from your opponent’s range. Holding the ace of spades on a three-spade board removes every nut flush from their range. Blockers matter most when selecting bluffs: bluffing with a hand that blocks their calling range is close to free expected value.
What is the difference between range advantage and nut advantage?
Range advantage is having more total equity across your whole range on a board; nut advantage is holding more of the very strongest hands. They often belong to different players on the same flop. Range advantage without nut advantage argues for betting small and often; holding both argues for betting large.
How do you narrow an opponent’s range?
Start from their position’s preflop range and remove, street by street, the hands that would not have taken the line they took. Narrow on what their action excludes, not on what the hand you fear would have done — a scary board changes what they can represent, not what they were dealt.