Polarized Versus Merged Ranges – What’s the Difference?

One of the key concepts in poker is hand ranges. Without this as a starting point, there’s no way you can feasibly narrow down what your opponents could be holding. Hand ranges can be broken down into two broad categories – polarized and merged.

This article guides you through the differences between polarized and merged hand ranges, when they are used, and when to switch it up.

What Are Hand Ranges in Poker?

In poker, your opponent’s hole cards are always hidden. You can only make predictions based on their behaviour and how they bet. This leads to an interesting dynamic. How can you make informed decisions when you can never know with 100 percent accuracy what cards someone is holding?

The answer is by working with hand ranges. Rather than trying to figure out individual hands, you can work out possible combinations – a range that includes all the reasonable hands they could have based on the action so far.

When it comes to online poker tournaments in particular, in which you’ll have no ability to read an opponent’s expressions or body language, the only way to narrow down someone’s hand is by looking at their betting patterns and bet sizing, along with factors like position, board texture and stack sizes.

Advanced players know all about the concept of hand ranges and will “construct” ranges based on a given situation, whether that’s opening ranges from the button and three-betting from the blinds. This is a vast topic, but what’s important to know here is that hand ranges should always be balanced.

As a simplified example, imagine a player only ever raised when they had pocket aces or kings. They would never get value because everyone else at the table could simply fold, safe in the knowledge that they are getting out of the way of a strong hand.

To become less predictable, strong hands are disguised by including weaker hands and bluffs in the same range. As well as raising aces or kings, it’s important to raise with lower combinations and even occasionally to bet with air.

Poker strategy depends nearly entirely on achieving this balancing of ranges and reading other player’s ranges based on how they balance theirs. It's a topic explored extensively in this resource here, which looks at the differences between GTO and exploitative play.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to construct a balanced hand range – polarizing and merging.

Preflop Ranges – Polarized and Merged

It’s easier to understand the concept of polarized and merged ranges if we start with the preflop betting round.

Usually, the earlier the position, the more polarized the range will be. This is because early position raises should be tight and consist mostly of very strong hands. The under the gun player, for example, should only be raising around 5 – 10 percent of hands.

To balance this, early position players should also add a select few bluffs to their hand range to stop them from becoming too predictable, hence the range becomes polarized between very strong hands and bluffs.

In a late position, such as on the button, the situation is completely different. The player on the button should be opening around 40 percent of hands or more, so they naturally have a merged range consisting of strong hands, medium hands and weak hands.

Merged Ranges Postflop

Merged ranges, also known as linear ranges, are made up of a mixture of different hands, from very strong to weak, along with some semi-bluffs and complete bluffs.

Ranges are generally merged on early streets, especially on the flop. At this point, you’ll usually be continuation betting with a wide range of hands. With two more cards to come, there’s less distinction between value hands and bluffs, as there’s still the chance hands will improve on future streets. Even the lower strength hands in your range will have some equity.

On the flop, therefore, it’s still possible to get paid for medium strength hands by weaker hands or by players chasing draws. At the same time, you’ll be able to pick up pots when your opponents fold after completely missing the flop.

With a merged range, you should use a smaller bet sizing of around 20 – 50 percent of the pot. This allows you to get thin value from weaker hands, keep draws in the pot, while still being optimal for bluffing.

• Balanced by having strong, medium and weak hands, along with bluffs
• Smaller bet sizing is more effective
• Can be used to find thin value
• Can be used to exploit opponents who call too much

Polarized Hand Ranges Postflop

Polarized hand ranges contain very strong hands balanced with bluffs. In other words, when someone’s betting with a polarized range, you either have it or you don’t – there’s no middle ground.

For example, let’s say you make the river and the board is J-Q-3-6-8 with four hearts. If you bet here, you’re only going to get called by a decent flush. There’s no point betting with a pair, two pairs or even a set. You’ll need a very strong flush yourself to get value.

You could also bluff on this board, as your opponent will be forced to fold if they don’t have the flush.

By betting only flushes and bluffs, the range is kept balanced because opponents still won’t know which end of the polarity you are on. They are reduced to deciding whether to risk calling, which could see them run into a big hand.

Hand ranges tend to become more polarized on later streets. As the pot becomes bigger relative to your stack, it makes less sense to bet medium strength hands, as they will only get called by worse. It’s only worth betting very strong hands for value, or to bluff to make your opponent fold their weaker hands.

When betting with a polarized range, you should use a larger bet sizing of 50 -100 percent of the pot. This will allow you to get paid maximum value when opponents also have a strong (but losing) hand, as well as helping you to ramp up pressure when you’re bluffing.

• Very strong hands balanced by complete bluffs
• Larger bet sizing more effective
• Maximize value with nutted hands
• Maximize pressure with bluffs

Article by

Alex Zlatanovic

As an avid online casino player, Alex strives to stay in touch with the latest gambling trends. He likes to share his passion for the industry with other players through his writing work. You can connect with Alex on LinkedIn .