Ranges for Opponents

[OhMyHa]

Hey all,
I would like to hear other peoples thoughts on Ranges for Opponents.

At the moment I sometimes make notes on the types of hands that opponents are showing up with at showdown, but I would really like to focus more on the ranges that they are playing.The complexity of PLO vs NLHE seems to make thinking about ranges more difficult.

Just wondering what sort of techniques or methods or tricks you use to classify the range of opponents when playing?

Any ideas of suggestions about how to think of ranges, rather than focus on specific hand types, beyond the most broad types of hands AAxx, DS rundowns, 2pair hands etc.?

Any thoughts or ideas?

Cheers
OhMyHa

[germanfalcon]

In one of the ebooks related to 6max NLHE, which advise a very aggresive style and talk about ranges, there was a phrase: "Dont try this in Omahaha".
I think this sums it up real good. Its not as easy, because of the 4 cards, to say this is a setminer, a solid TAG or a totally clueless, put them on ranges and readjust your ranges and bluffs so easily.
I think its good to have read at least one of these 6max NLHE books, doesnt matter which one (CTS, Miller, balugawhale, BobboFitos, Visto, slowhabit to mention a few) and understand the range thing, but you cant fully use it for PLO.

[felt fishing]

I think that understanding the playability of your hand comes first preflop. Since the value of Omaha hands are so close together as long as you are not playing attrocious hands preflop you should be fine getting to the flop where it matters in Omaha. (That doesn't mean that as your experience and knowledge increase, you don't look at preflop play to see where you are losing value.)

The flop comes....ROH? I think it is situation dependent. I don't think you can go by some chart - this guy has a VPIP of 20 so his range is this, a VPIP of 25 is this, etc...

A good example of this is in using Pokerstove for NLHE. If you assign the villan a VPIP of 20, you get hands such as A4s+, A9o+, K9s, K8s, Q9s. Does that mean a 20 VPIP player plays these hands? Of course not. He may opt not to play A6s or A7s for whatever reason, but might add back in something else all depending upon other variables such as position or stack size or player type, etc...

So, what can a player have on the flop? I think it comes down to board texture, bet sizes, player tendencies, position, image, stack sizes, etc... There is no real answer. What about as you increase in stakes? Players play more deceptively. How do you take something like this into account?

Personally, I gave up on trying to create a set ROH. It doesn't make sense to me. Instead, I look at the board texture, then think about the action that has already occurred and go from there. I adjust to what makes sense at that moment in time. This means that each and every hand I must be thinking because each one is different.

If I am OOP, I try to think about what my action means to the other players and how they might respond based upon what ROH they could be holding and their likely responce to my action.

Doing this the game becomes much more fluid allowing me to adjust instead of playing a more static type of game because I categorize and assign ranges in an almost robotic fashion.

[surprise and fear]

[Willem]