Range betting — when it works

A "range bet" is a continuation bet you make with your entire opening range — every hand, every combo, for the same small sizing (typically 25–33% of pot). The strategy comes from solver outputs on flops where the preflop raiser's equity advantage is decisive enough that even your air can profitably bet, because the caller folds out most of their range.

The textures where range betting works

The hallmark of a range-bet flop:

• A high card the raiser hits more often than the caller. Axx, Kxx, broadway-heavy flops.
• Low connection / few draws. Disconnected high cards (A72, K83) more than connected ones (KQT, QJ9).
• Few flush draws. Rainbow textures beat two-tone, two-tone beats monotone.

The classic range-bet flop is A72 rainbow: the BTN's opening range hits ace-high or better with ~70% of combos, while the BB's defending range hits only ~25%. Even a flopped pair like K2 has more equity than most of the BB's range. Betting 33% pot with everything extracts value from BB's pairs, folds out BB's overcards, and leaves the BB at a strategic disadvantage on every future street.

Where range betting is a leak

Wet middling flops — boards like 987 two-tone, T9 8 rainbow — are not range bet textures. The caller's range hits these as often as the raiser's, sometimes more. Range betting here:

• Fails to fold out the caller's many draws (open-enders, gutshots, flush draws).
• Gets check-raised by the caller's strong made hands (sets, two-pair).
• Doesn't extract thin value because the caller's range is mostly equity-having stuff that calls anyway.

Low connected flops (654 two-tone) are even worse. The caller actually has the equity advantage here — most of the raiser's range is overcards that miss this texture. Range betting blasts off chips with no fold equity.

Paired flops (AAK, 7 7 4) need a different approach. The raiser's strong stuff is concentrated in a small slice of combos (trips and overpairs); the rest is air. Betting wide hits a turn where neither range improves and you're forced to give up. Solver outputs c-bet ~40-50% with a polarized betting range.

The practical heuristic

Ask yourself: when called, does my range have equity to barrel turns and rivers profitably? On A72 the answer is yes (top pair sticks around, draws don't run that often). On 987 the answer is no (caller's range is full of equity, your range is mostly air that whiffs turns). Bet sizing and frequency should reflect that.

The interactive postflop tool shows the solver-derived c-bet frequency for any flop you drop in — useful for building intuition on where the line falls.