How to Read Poker Range Charts

If you want to be a winning poker player, you must understand ranges.

A range is the combination of all hands a player is likely to hold. Each action that a player takes gives away information about what their range is. As the hand progresses you get to narrow your opponent's range and remove hands that wouldn't take their chosen action.

For example, if someone goes all-in preflop, their range likely consists of only premium hands and you can remove most offsuit lower ranking combos.

How to Read a Range

You will see ranges most commonly displayed as a grid, such as this:

The top left tile AA denotes just that, pocket aces. If you look one tile to the right, you land on AK. But if instead you went down a tile you would also land on AK?

The difference is the top right half of this grid represents suited combos of the given hand, while the bottom left half represents the unsuited combos.

These charts need to separate suited and non-suited hands because you should usually play them differently.

Let's take an example from the range above. Look for K6 suited and offsuit (also denoted K6s or K6o respectively). K6s in the top right half is green and represents a good hand to open with on the button in this scenario. K6o in the lower right half is not included in the button's opening range so it's not filled in.

That's how to read the coordinates on the grid and tie them to a specific hand.

Understanding Range Situations

The above example range is labeled BN RFI, meaning this chart only applies when your position at the table is the button and you have the ability to Raise First In (meaning everyone before you folds and you can be the first raiser and open the hand.

A quick refresher, all positions at a 9-max table are button, cutoff, hijack, lojack, utg+2, utg+1, utg, big blind, and lastly small blind.

And along with RFI, these are some of the most common scenarios you will see:

• RFI: open the hand, or "raise first in"
• 3b Defense: how to respond when a player 3bets your RFI
• vs CO: how to respond to an RFI from the player in the specific position, in this case the cutoff

Lastly ranges can get a little more complicated when there are multiple actions you can take within a range. The above button RFI example only wants to raise or fold, but there are many situations where you might have more options, like calling, limping, or shoving all-in.

We include a legend that displays colors associated with each action, looking something like this:

And that pretty much covers everything you need to know about reading range charts.

The more you use them and practice with them, the quicker you will be able to navigate to your specific hand. You will also be able to memorize common spots over time which is a must for live play. I'd recommend you look into when to adjust your opening ranges next for a taste of exploitative play too.

With a good set of range charts it's pretty easy to play a very optimal pre-flop game, so definitely check out our free range charts!