As I study poker and get better at ranging my opponents I find myself with a lot more questions. First of all, it’s pretty tough to range someone. I am struggling a little bit but I think that’s probably normal as it’s relatively new to me. However, I do find myself pretty clueless at times (in game) when it comes down to making decisions. Even after reviewing the hands later, I still find myself in doubt about whether I made the correct decision, street-for-street. So, I figured I’d ask you guys for help. My goal is to develop a mental framework of which I can work from both in game and off the felt, to help me make better decisions. I feel like I am lacking something fundamental or there’s just something that I am missing. Is there some sort of way to approach each decision, each street, systematically?

For instance, preflop 200bb effective: We are in MP and it folds to us. Pretty straight-forward, do we want to raise or do we want to fold and if we raise, what are we going to raise it to? Let’s say we decide to raise and it folds to the BB who calls our raise. Without knowing anything about the BB, I can give him a 22% BB defend range of (this is just an example): TT-22,AJo-A9o,KQo-KTo,QJo-QTo,JTo,AJs-A2s,KQs-K7s,QJs-Q8s,JTs-J8s,T9s-T8s,98s-97s,87s-86s,76s-75s,65s.

Let’s say the flop comes (continuing the example) KcQd3s. The BB checks to us. What should I be thinking about here? Is there a priority of things I should be thinking? At this point, I am thinking “should I bet or should I check”. And that’s as far as I get. I don’t necessarily think about why I should bet or why I should check and that’s because I don’t know what factors make either of those decisions better than the other. And then it’s the same for the turn and the river. Sometimes, things seem more straight-forward. But I don’t think that’s always the case, and even if they seem straight-forward, I know that I don’t know. So it may not actually be straight-forward and I could be making a mistake anyway.

Like on the KcQd3s board. How does range vs range impact decisions? Like what does it mean to have a range advantage here? Like I can have AA, KK, and AK but it’s not likely my opponent has them because he just called. So that means I have more combos of AA, KK, and AK than he does giving me a stronger range because I have 12 more combos of Top pair, 3 more combos of sets, and 6 combos of over pairs? Is that what is meant when we talk about having a “range advantage”? Also, this seems extremely intimidating when ranging my opponent. Since I have the range advantage, how should that impact the way I make decisions and how I proceed ranging my opponent? I don’t know the big picture of what I am trying to ask. I know that I have a lot of questions and they may or may not flow together with everything I have said so far but I have to begin the process of decluttering my mind and trying to figure things out. I have this crazy hunger to learn more, I am just a little bit lost in the process I guess.

I realize this might just be a rant so if you’re still with me so far, I am very grateful. Thank you. Any help or dialogue would be awesome!