Hand 2 Hand Combat: Derric Haynie Shares How to Estimate an Opponent’s Hand Range From Start to Finish, and Beyond

Event: Full Tilt Poker six-max cash game
Blinds: $5-$10
Players at the Table: 6
Stacks: “ActionDJ” – $2,130.55; Villain – $1,042.25

Craig Tapscott: Give us a rundown on the villain.

Derric “ActionDJ” Haynie: He’s a very good, aggressive player, but I don’t have a ton of experience against him directly. I do know that he employs a David “raptor” Benefield type of strategy, which involves three-betting small in position with a ton of hands, and selectively applying pressure post-flop.

ActionDJ raises from under the gun to $30 with the 9♦ 9♥. The villain reraises to $80 from the button.

CT: What’s his three-betting range?

DH: Certainly, he would three-bet strong hands for value, such as A-A to J-J, A-K, and A-Q. He could “merge” his range and three-bet hands like A-J, K-Q, Broadway hands, and medium pairs, but I believe that he would flat-call with these hands most of the time, as that is the most common way to play them. So, he also must be three-betting a fair bit of air-type hands that include a lot of suited gappers and suited junk, like 10-7 suited, K-6 suited, and so on. According to my PokerTracker stats, he has a 15 percent three-betting range from the button — which means that 15 percent of the time it is raised to him, he will three-bet from that position. This is important, as it will inform us of how to define the range of hands we are up against. But completely determining his range is rather tricky, and there is a large margin for error when calculating it in this spot.

CT: I know that you’re a very meticulous player. So, can you further define his three-betting range from the button, to give us a better idea of the EV (expected value) of your hand preflop?

DH: There are six combinations of any pocket pair and 16 combinations (four suited and 12 offsuit) of any non-paired hand. He won’t three-bet every combination of his strong hands. Sometimes he might prefer to slow-play or mix it up, so we need to take out some combinations of his strong hands in order to more accurately define his 15 percent three-betting range preflop from the button. While this is not a completely correct analysis of the villain’s range, this is what I perceived his range to be during the hand: He has 5/6 combos of A-A to J-J; 15/16 combos of A-K; 12/16 combos of A-Q; 4/6 combos of 10-10; 12/16 combos of A-J; 3/4 combos of K-9 suited to K-4 suited, Q-8 suited to 10-6 suited, Q-9 suited to 8-5 suited, J-9 suited to 6-4 suited, and 7-6 suited to 5-4 suited; 9/12 combos of J-10 offsuit to 9-8 offsuit, and J-9 offsuit to 9-7 offsuit; and 2/6 combos of 9-9 to 5-5. Using a poker EV calculator, I determine that I’m a 61 percent favorite preflop, given this assumed range of hands.

CT: So, that begs the question, should you four-bet?

DH: Given that his range is so wide, it could be profitable to four-bet every hand, because he would likely fold a large percentage of the time. But there are three problems that will arise from essentially being a monkey four-bettor. First: He would start to adjust his range so that he no longer three-bets air-type hands, and he would then start to shove to a four-bet a huge percentage of the time. Second: With chips behind and position, he will have the opportunity to flat-call and put me to some tough decisions post-flop. Third: It would be very unclear what his five-bet shoving range is, and I would just have to guess whether or not I was getting the odds to call off. That being said, 9-9 is stronger than the average hand, and there is merit in four-betting it sometimes.

ActionDJ calls.

Flop: 7♠ 5♦ 4♣ (pot: $175)

ActionDJ checks. The villain bets $100.

CT: What now? It seems like a good flop for your hand.

DH: Well, I am still a 61 percent favorite against his range. But again, because I assume that his range is polarized, it means that he has about 50 percent complete air, which still has a little equity against me. The rest of his range is made up of 50 percent strong made hands, weak draws, weak made hands, or combo draws, which have strong equity against me.

CT: Is check-raising an option?

DH: I don’t want to check-raise and face off against the strong part of his range. I would rather have his entire range look to three-barrel me, as on most board run-outs, I will be able to easily call down with my 9-9. So again, shoving obviously has +EV (positive expected value), but keeping your opponent’s bluffs in his range and letting him bluff you can often have more +EV.

ActionDJ calls.

Turn: J♦ (pot: $375)

CT: What’s going through your head at this point? Many amateur players would give up when they see an overcard hit.

DH: Some of his hands make top pair or pick up flush draws here. More importantly, because this card hits his range so well, I think it’s clear that he will barrel every hand that has made it to this point. Looking back on the hand, this might be a decent spot for me to shove all in. I may just want to “protect” my hand, as well as get value from any draws that are willing to stack off.

ActionDJ checks. The villain bets $215.

CT: You have to be thinking ahead to the river, in case another scary card comes.

DH: Yes. Some things to factor in at this point might be how often he bets the river for value, how thin he can bet for value (that is, will he bet 10-10 or J-X on every river?), and how often he bluffs the river. All in all, the more he bluffs the river and the less he value-bets thin, the more likely we should be to call rather than shove. This villain is certainly capable of bluffing the river, but he is also capable of value-betting a wide variety of hands, making the factors kind of cancel each other out. All in all, he still has a plethora of air and bluffing hands, and calling is the best way to ensure that those hands continue to bluff on the river.

ActionDJ calls.

River: K♦ (pot: $805)

CT: That’s not a pretty card.

DH: It’s ugly. This card hits more of his range, including hands that a lot of players will always “put you on,” like A-K and maybe even K-Q.

ActionDJ checks. The villain shoves all in for $647.25.

CT: Can you come close to further defining his range now?

DH: I think it’s actually less likely that he would have a hand like a weak jack and more likely that he has either air, a set, or a king (and he would shove any king). But when you factor in the fact that he does check back some weak made hands, you can take them out of his range and recalculate. It ends up polarizing his range even more, making it nearly an exact coin flip. And with all of that money in the pot, it’s clearly a call.

ActionDJ calls. The villain turns over the A♥ 6♥. ActionDJ wins the pot of $2,099.50.
DH: What is interesting is that I didn’t estimate his range correctly; he had a hand I didn’t think he would show up with. This goes to show that my estimation of his hand range needed to be adjusted.

CT: So, what did we learn?

DH: Hmm. Is it that you should just become a [calling] station with medium pairs to a lot of aggression? No, it’s about estimating your opponent’s range, as well as your margin for error, based on all of the information you can gather about your opponent; then, calculating EV and determining which line (reshoving, check-calling, donk-leading, and so on) will yield the most profit. The next time you’re in a tough spot, load up PokerStove and start plugging in what you believe to be someone’s range. Then, make sure that the percentage-of-hands box for the calculator matches up with the percentage of hands that your tracker stats show him as having. This will help you understand two of the core concepts of no-limit hold’em: combinatorics, and expected value against hand ranges. Remember, you don’t have to be a favorite to call; you just have to be getting the correct pot odds. ♠

_Derric Haynie plays $5-$10 to $25-$50 no-limit hold’em cash games and high-stakes multitable tournaments under the name ActionDJ on PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and UltimateBet. He had two final-table cashes in the 2010 World Series of Poker, and enjoys spoiling his wife and playing drinking games when he’s not working on his poker game. He is a popular instructor and coach at CardRunners.com, where he writes articles and blogs, and posts training videos. _