Range balancing is one of those concepts that online players love to talk about, but live players and casual players often think it’s too complicated and just not worth it. In this article I’m going to discuss a very simple example of a spot where you can really benefit by analyzing your range and trying to protect it.

I’m going to use a hand from a deep-stacked six-handed NL tourney I was playing. It was still fairly early on and we were not in the money yet. The blinds were 200/400 with a 50 ante. My opponent was Phil Galfond a.k.a. “OMGClayAiken”. In case you aren’t aware, he is regarded as one of the best high stakes cash game players in the entire world. He’s not an easy guy to play against and although he plays fairly tight, he uses his tight image very well to make big bluffs in all the right spots. He is not someone you want at your table. Phil’s stack was just over 29k, and I covered with about 36.5k.

Phil raised UTG to 1,050, and I called in the small blind with 2-2 (note that folding in this spot is just fine, and calling is not automatic). We were heads up to the flop which came 7-5- 2 rainbow.

This is a good spot to go for a check-raise, right? No, it’s not. I’ll explain why in a second, but first I have to explain what I mean by balancing and protecting ranges.

A range of hands is simply a list of all the possible hands you can have. If you want to get exact, it’s weighted based on the likelihood of each hand as well. If someone has a weak range, and you just so happen to have a weak hand in what is normally a very strong range, that’s a great time to bluff. Think about that for a second because it’s important:

If A) Your opponent has a range full of medium and weak hands, with very few strong hands and B) you have a range with lots of strong hands, and very few weak hands and C) you just so happen to have one of the unlikely weak hands in your range, then…

This is a great time to bluff. Basically, your opponent has to be afraid you have a monster, and at the same time he rarely has a big hand he can call you with. He simply has to fold a lot and your bluff will show a huge profit.

Now let’s go back to the hand against Phil. Pretend you’re in his shoes. You are a tight player and have raised UTG. Already, you are likely to have a strong hand. A loose, spewy, terrible tournament player named Justin Bonomo has just called from the small blind. If you’re Phil, what hands do you expect me to call with? Maybe small pairs, suited connectors, and Broadway hands? Sometimes I’ll have a huge hand, but generally you’d expect me to reraise those. Now that the flop has come 7-5-2, there are a ton of weak hands in my range and not many strong ones. If I were to check the flop, you were to fire a continuation bet, and I were to call, what would you now put me on?

Sure, I could have a huge hand I was slowplaying pre-flop like aces or kings, but A) you’d probably expect me to raise that pre-fl op, and B) you might expect me to raise it on the fl op. I could have a set, again, if and only if I decided to just call pre-flop, and just call on the flop. What about 7-6 suited, 8-7 suited, A-7 suited, and A-5 suited? Those hands make a lot of sense. What about 4-4, 6-6, 8-8, etc.? Those hands also make a lot of sense. I can also have strong no-pair hands like A-Q if I expect you to be firing most of your hands that missed the flop here.

The problem with this plan is that it becomes too easy for Phil to bluff me. Not only is he likely to have a bigger pair than I can reasonably have, but whenever overcards fall on the turn or river, he can represent those cards without any fear of me having them. Take a ten on the turn for example. It’s not exactly reasonable to put me on 10-7 suited or A-10 suited given that I called preflop and then checked the flop. Phil on the other hand can very easily have all kinds of hands with a ten in them like Q-10 suited. That means there are all kinds of cards that can fall on the turn that scare me, but not Phil. If I just check and call with the range of hands I listed above, Phil is going to own me on the turn and river. He’s not going to bluff every single time, but he will quite often, and he’ll get the best of me.

The solution to this problem is of course to beef up an otherwise weak range by putting strong hands in there. In this case: bottom set. Without the possibility of me having a set, Phil is going to have a huge advantage. The truth is that even if I do have sets in my range, I’m still going to be in a very vulnerable spot because it’s still so much more likely I have a weak or medium strength hand than a strong one. That is why it is important to always check and just call with my sets in this spot against such a strong player.

The beauty of this is that there’s very little downside. The flop is 7-5-2 rainbow, so it’s unlikely Phil has a draw. He raised UTG so even 8-6 suited is very unlikely. There are no flush draws, and very few straight draws. It’s extremely unlikely that Phil has more than two outs to the best hand, so I don’t really need to worry about giving him cheap cards.

What about if he does have aces or kings? I’m better off check-raising so that he can reraise me and we can get all the money in when I’m a huge favorite, right? Not really. If he has aces, the money is going in. Occasionally, an ace will flop to scare his kings from betting, or maybe the board will make a four-straight, but the vast majority of players when I check-call this flop with a set against his big overpair, all of the money is going to go in on a future street. He’s going to keep betting, and he has no reason not to. The same logic actually applies to when he has a bigger set. The money’s going in one way or another, so it doesn’t really matter what I do against those hands. When that’s the case, you try to maximize value against the other hands he can have.

Quick side topic: If it doesn’t matter what you do when A is the case (i.e., when your set is beat by a higher set), but it does matter what you do when B is the case (i.e., when your set is the best hand), then you can simply ignore A while making your decision. This applies to a lot of real life scenarios too.

What about if he has nothing? Q-10 for example. Even more reason to check to him. Maybe he’ll catch a queen or a ten on the turn and change his bluff into a value bet, and I’ll be able to get even more money from him. If instead I just raise the flop, I win the minimum.

If you read through this article and think that I’m telling you to slowplay more often, you need to read through this again, because that is not what I’m saying. Pretend instead that the flop came down J-10-2 with a flush draw. Check-calling here with bottom set would be worse than checkraising for several reasons:

1) My check-raise range is really weak and includes lots of draws. It’s important to balance that range by putting real hands into it.

2) Because it looks like there’s a good chance I’m on a draw, I’m going to get a ton of value from hands as weak as 10-9 on this flop from Phil. If he has a stronger hand like A-J, he’s going to go all in against my check-raise virtually every time.

3) Against hands like A-J, check-calling is a huge disaster. Not only am I missing a spot to get the money in now, but if the turn card is a ten, queen, king, or flush card, there’s a good chance that will scare Phil (correctly) from putting more money in the pot. It really is a huge disaster when that happens.

4) Phil can have a draw himself. Maybe by just check-calling the flop, I’ll give him a chance to check behind on the turn with his flush draw or gut shot, when I could have instead made him pay for his draw.

The 7-5-2 flop, however, is the perfect time to just check and call with a set because none of the four points above are the case.

Next time you play poker, think about what your range is in various spots. If you find yourself up against an expert player that is taking advantage of spots where your range is weak, now you know exactly what to do against it. In spots where the downside isn’t too big, you can really give your opponent a hard time by playing your strong hands in a way that you would normally play a weak or medium sized hand. Not only does it make it harder to bluff you, but you will often trick your opponent into bluffing right into your monster.