How to Put Someone on a Range in Poker (Step by Step, With a Worked Hand)
By Todd · Sep 2, 2026 · 11 min read · Updated Nov 3, 2026
"Put him on a range" is the most repeated advice in poker and the least often shown. A range is the list of hands this player would have played the way they've played this one, with some hands more likely than others. You build it from the player, not from a chart. The same bet means different hands from different people, and the numbers show by how much.
Below are the five steps, then one $1/$2 hand worked street by street against a tight-aggressive regular. After that, the same cards against a nit, a calling station and an aggressive fish. The opponents' ranges and decisions come from Soul Read's player models, the ones the app deals you against, so every number here was counted by a script rather than estimated.
The five steps
1. Type the player. How many hands do they play, and do they play them by betting or by calling? An orbit or two of watching gives you a first guess at tight or loose, but that guess is noisy. Showdowns tell you more. With nothing to go on, assume a tight-aggressive regular for the stakes and revise at the first showdown.
2. Set the preflop range. Position plus action plus type. A raise from a tight player under the gun is a short list. A button raise from a loose one is a long list. Don't assume a loose player's raise is wide: passive players limp most of their hands, so the few they raise are often stronger than a regular's.
3. On each street, ask how often this player would do this with each hand. A few hands leave the range completely. Most just get less likely. A regular who checks the turn with top pair a quarter of the time still has top pair, a quarter as often. Sometimes the honest answer is "this action tells me nothing," and writing that down stops you from inventing a read.
4. Count what's left at the decision. A pocket pair is 6 combos, a suited hand 4, an offsuit hand 12. When you can see cards of a rank, multiply what's left: with one queen on the board, QJ is 3 × 4 = 12 combos and QQ is 3. Sort what survives into hands that beat you and hands you beat, then compare with the price.
5. Commit, then check. Decide before the cards are shown. At showdown, if their hand was outside your range, find the street where you removed it and ask why. If a player keeps showing hands outside the range you gave them, the mistake was step one: they're a different type, and the next hand starts from a different range.
Four words for the shape of a range
- Capped: the strongest hands are mostly gone. A player who checks back a blank turn is usually capped.
- Uncapped: the strongest hands are still there. Some players check their monsters as often as their air.
- Polarized: very strong hands and bluffs, with few medium ones in between. Typical of big river bets from aggressive players.
- Linear (also called merged): the best hands down through the medium ones, no bluffs. Typical of a passive player's bets, and of most calling ranges.
Two of these show up in the hand below, and which one you get depends on who's sitting there.
The hand
$1/$2 no-limit, six-handed, everyone about $200 deep. The cutoff is a tight-aggressive regular. In Soul Read's model a TAG plays about one hand in five, raises nearly all of them, continuation-bets 62% of flops, and bluffs the river less often than they should.
They open to $6. The button and small blind fold. You call in the big blind with 9♠ 8♠. Pot: $13.
Preflop: 270 combos
That's 270 of the 1,326 possible starting hands. Once the flop is out and you account for your own two cards, 224 of them are still possible.
Flop: Q♥ 9♦ 4♣
You check. They bet $4 into $13. To call, you need 4 ÷ (13 + 4 + 4) = 19% equity.
Soul Read's TAG bets this flop with about 68% of their range: 151 of the 224 combos, once each hand is weighted by how often it bets. (The grids count every combo of a hand; the numbers in the text take out the cards you can see.)
On a dry queen-high board, a small continuation bet comes from almost everything. It takes out about a third of their range, mostly the weakest hands with no pair, and leaves the rest roughly where it was. Note "this action tells me nothing" and move on. Treating the bet as strength would fold you out of a pot where you're doing fine.
Against the hands that bet, 9♠ 8♠ has 49.9% equity, counting every possible turn and river. You need 19%. Call. Pot: $21.
Turn: 2♠
You check. They check back. Pot: $21.
This is the street that does the work. Soul Read's TAG bets this turn with 75 to 85% of their top pairs and sets, about half of their second pairs and middle pocket pairs, and only 8 to 30% of their hands with no pair. So the hands that check back look like this:
Of the hands they bet the flop with, 37% were top pair or better. Of the hands that check back the turn, 15% are. Their range is now capped, but the top isn't empty: AQ and KQ are still possible, a quarter as often as before. Cross them off completely and you're playing against a range that doesn't exist.
About 79 weighted combos check back: ace-high hands that missed (AK, AJ, AT), king-high hands and busted draws (KJ, KT, JT, small suited connectors), pocket pairs below the queen, a few weak queens, and a thin slice of strong hands.
River: 9♣
You have trips. Pot: $21.
Count what beats you. The only nine left is the 9♥, so A♥9♥, K♥9♥, J♥9♥ and T♥9♥ are one combo each, and 9♥8♥ ties. The full houses are QQ, 44 and 22, three combos each. That's 13 combos before weighting. After the turn check, it's 2.9 of the 77 weighted combos they can still hold (the 9♣ took out a few). You're ahead of 96% of their range.
So you're value betting, and the only question is the size. That depends on which of their hands call. Facing a river bet, Soul Read's TAG:
- calls with top pair top kicker and overpairs at any size;
- calls with weaker pairs, which here means QJ, QT and JJ down to 33, up to about two-thirds of the pot, and folds them to a pot-sized bet;
- folds ace-high, unless they see the bettor as aggressive;
- raises only with trips or better, which on this board means they beat or tie you.
| Your bet | They call (weighted combos) | They raise | Your profit vs checking, per hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| $7 (⅓ pot) | 29 | 3 | +$2.37 |
| $14 (⅔ pot) | 28 | 3 | +$4.57 |
| $21 (pot) | 7 | 3 | +$1.07 |
| Check, then call their bet | +$2.71 |
The two-thirds bet earns about four times what the pot-sized bet does, because it stops just short of the size where their pairs fold. Every hand that calls it is worse than yours. A value bet needs to be ahead more than half the time when it's called, and this one is ahead every time. Every hand that raises is better or equal, so against this player a raise means you fold trips.
The theory baseline for comparison: against a two-thirds pot bet, a balanced player has to continue with about 60% of their range, 1 ÷ (1 + ⅔), or the bettor profits by betting any two cards. That's the number solver-based training teaches. This TAG continues with 40% against two-thirds and 13% against a pot-sized bet. The gap between the two is what reading them is worth.
You bet $14. They call and show J♠ J♣. Now check the read: JJ bets the flop 85% of the time, checks this turn 45% of the time, and calls a two-thirds bet with a pair below the queen. It was in the range at every step.
The same hand against three other players
Same seat, same cards, same action: a raise from the cutoff, a flop bet, a turn check. Change the player and the range changes at every step, and so does the right river bet.
| Nit | TAG | Calling station | Aggressive fish | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raises first in from the cutoff | 180 combos (13.6%) | 270 (20.4%) | 144 (10.9%) | 622 (46.9%) |
| Bets this flop | 46% of their range | 68% | 17% | 77% |
| Checks back the turn after betting | 46% | 53% | 86% | 32% |
| Left on the river (weighted combos) | 32 | 77 | 18 | 118 |
| Mostly | JJ–55, AQ, KQ | ace-high, small pairs | AQ, KQ, AA, KK | ace-high and air |
| Best river play | ⅓ pot (+$4.72), or 1.5× (+$6.42) | ⅔ pot (+$4.57) | 1.5× pot (+$22.75) | Check and call (+$9.37) |
Profits are per hand, compared with checking it down, using each type's rules in Soul Read.
The nit
They raise fewer hands, 180 combos, and bet this flop less often because they check most of their unpaired hands instead of bluffing. After the turn check they hold mostly pocket pairs, plus the overpairs and top pairs that slowed down. Facing a river bet they call with any pair at a third of the pot, fold their medium pairs to anything bigger, and never fold AA, KK, AQ or KQ.
A third of the pot gets called by 23 of their 32 combos (+$4.72). Two-thirds gets called by 8 (+$2.90). The middle size is the worst of both: too big for their pairs, too small to charge the hands that never fold. In the model a 1.5× overbet earns a little more (+$6.42), because those 8 combos call any size. That only holds if this nit really never folds an overpair. If you haven't seen them do it, bet small.
The calling station
Their preflop range is the narrowest of the four. A station limps most of what they play and raises only 144 combos from the cutoff, so for this hand "loose player, wide range" points you the wrong way:
Their flop bet carries the most information too. They bet this flop with 17% of their range, about 70% of it top pair or better, and your equity drops to 28%. That's still above the 19% you need. The turn check, though, means nothing: they check back 86% of the hands they bet, including most of their top pairs. Their range stays uncapped, and AQ or KQ is the most likely single hand.
On the river they call any bet with any pair, and call ace-high up to two-thirds of the pot. You're ahead of almost all of it, so bet big. A pot-sized bet earns +$15.41, and a 1.5× overbet +$22.75. Checking earns almost nothing (+$0.49), because they almost never bet.
The aggressive fish
They raise 622 combos, bet 77% of flops and fire again on most turns. When they check back the turn, what's left is the weak end of a huge range: 118 combos on the river, 82 of them ace-high or worse.
Bet into that and about 25 combos call (their pairs), 11 raise (top pair top kicker or better, about half of which you beat, so you call), and the rest fold. Your best bet, a 1.5× overbet, earns +$6.24. Checking earns +$9.37: checked to, they bet 62% of their range, mostly with nothing, at 65 to 100% of the pot, and you call. Against this player, the best value bet on the river is a check.
What changed
The cards never did. The range changed because each step asked how this player plays, and the answer moved the best river play from a third of the pot to an overbet to a check. A solver gives one strategy for this spot because it plays against one opponent, a perfect one. None of these four is that player.
Mistakes that break a range
- Crossing hands off instead of making them less likely. The TAG's turn check made AQ less likely. It didn't make it impossible.
- Assuming a loose player's raise is wide. The station's raise was the tightest range at the table.
- Reading a check from a player who checks everything. Against the station, the turn check was worth nothing.
- Widening a range mid-hand to fit what you're afraid of. Within one hand, hands only leave or get lighter. If the showdown proves you wrong, re-type the player for next time.
- Forgetting your own cards. Holding the 9♠ and seeing two nines on the board left exactly one nine for them, which cut every 9x hand to a single combo.
Practice this
The procedure gets fast with repetitions that end in an answer. The free browser demo runs the real app: a short tutorial, then three hands, and it grades every range you commit to. The steps are on one page in the hand reading cheat sheet, and hand reading exercises has drills for the table.
