Range calculation

I'm starting to see how creating someone's range is soooo important.  It's not an exact science and it will really take a lot of practice for me to understand what players' ranges might be.

At a game like 1/2 and 2/5, I think starting with a narrower range is better.  People typically play pretty tight and don't bluff a ton, so it's good to give them credit for good hands until you see otherwise.  And even then, you probably don't want to adjust the range too much.  Just slight adjustments over time.

This is probably why playing with the same people over and over is way more advantageous if you are paying attention.  I started a note in Evernote where I'm going to take notes on individuals. Right now it's mostly for social reasons (remembering names, etc) but I could also put notes on ranges in there.  Then over time as I play more with these people, it could really help.

Definitely tricky though.  If someone reraises you preflop, what is their range?  Like in a $1/2 game, you raise to $10 and someone makes it $30.  Is it QQ+/AK+?  Or is TT+/AQ+ a better range?  The first has 34 combinations of hands (16 for AK, 6/6/6 combos of QQ/KK/AA).  The second has almost double the hands.  It adds an additional 28 combinations.  Those ranges seem pretty similar but one is almost DOUBLE the other one.

And if you pick the tighter range, you might feel safer.  I'll fold more because I'm putting them on a stronger range.  But if the board comes out JT732 and you have 77, thoughts like "this guy only has AK+/QQ+, I have to have the winner" can screw you pretty hard if his actual range was TT+/AQ+ and he has JJ/TT in his range for bigger sets.

I guess at the end of the day there's no way to do this perfectly and that's why poker is such a beautiful game.  Using ranges to determine what people have seems flawed when you walk through it like I just did, and it makes you think why should I bother?  But if you don't do that, it's just worse.  On the river in the example above you might just look at the board and think "what beats me?  JJ, TT, 98, and I might beat JT, T7, 33, QQ+".  But if it makes zero sense for JT, 98, T7, 33 to be in his range, that is not good.  Even if you get the edges of the range wrong (the hands like JJ, TT), you are still better off constructing a range and going with it.

Poker is complicated.  I'm loving digging into the details.  Although I know there is so much I don't know, I think I'm on the path to understanding it all.