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Hand Range Tool

Overview:

The Hand Range Tool lets you estimate an opponent’s range by eliminating hole card combinations based upon how he played each street.  It was inspired by Brian Townsend's videos on Card Runners.  I like the parts where he stops the action and busts out PokerStove.  Also by Stox EvCalc.  The program has a similar aim, but the user interface is quite a bit different.

 

 hand-range-tool-01.jpg

 


How it Works:

Click a Player Panel in Holdem Managers Hand Replayer. The Hand Range Tool will appear. You should see your cards for the hand at the bottom of the screen. In this case the action was folded to me in the small blind. I raised with KdJs and the big blind called.

 

 

All the hand combinations are shown in a grid. You can select these by moving the sliders. The combinations are selected based upon the ranking of the pre-flop hands. (AA then KK etc) You can change the order by choosing from the 4 pre-flop ranking systems.

 

Note: If you are really keen, you could make your own pre-flop ranking system in notepad and add it as a file in the Holdem Manager\Config\PreflopRanges folder. Your new ranking system will now be available in the preflop dropdown list 

 

When you move the top slider you will see pink boxes show under each of the hole cards. Each box represents one pre-flop combination. The suited cards have 4 boxes, the paired have 6 and the off-suit cards have 12. The Ts8s hand is the last hand you selected or deselected.

 

You may notice some of the boxes don't light up even when the slider is all the way to the right. This is because some combinations are excluded because you have two cards from the deck.

 

The 2nd slider excludes hands at the top of the range. This is used when someone took an action that would exclude the best hands. In this hand because my opponent just called in the big blind and he had been 3-betting a reasonable amount, I don't think he has anything better than AJs.

  • You can also manually select the hands, by clicking on them.

 

  • If you enter a % into the text box by the slider it will go to that position.

 

 


Now Click the Flop Tab.

hand-range-tool-02.jpg

You should see all the hands you selected pre-flop. You can now choose which of these hands are included or excluded from you opponents range.

The top slider selects the hands in order of their made hand value on the flop. The board is all diamonds so flushes come first then 3 of a kind ect. The actual value is shown in this case is "top pair" because that the last hand selected with the slider was Ah8d. The hands selected show in blue.

The 2nd slider below allows you to exclude the strongest made hands.

The 3rd slider (Draws) selects from hands that are currently weaker than a top pair hand with no flush draws or over cards. (Something like Ac2c here) They are selected in the order of their probability to beat top pair by the river. You can enter a desired probability in the box to the right. The draw combos show up in red.

As you select the hands by moving the sliders, your expected value (Ev) vs the range selected changes.

In this hand I lead out and got min-raised. I reraised the pot thinking I could fold the weaker hands in his range and I'm not in bad shape even if he calls. I have the nut flush draw and a pair. He actually called.

 





Now Click the Turn Tab.

 hand-range-tool-03.jpg

 

 

You will see all the hands you selected on the flop. Again you can select using the made hands and draw sliders.

In this hand I checked and my opponent bet all-in giving me around 30% odds to call. I don't really have EV to call, given the range we input. But there's a reasonable chance my opponent is doing something silly with air. I called.

 


Now Click the River Tab – No draws on the river.

 hand-range-tool-04.jpg

I'm toast. I was all-in but would have to fold to any semi-serious bet.

He had A6 for a flopped 2 pair. Doh!

 

 

 

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