What is a capped range?
A capped range refers to a player’s range that cannot have any nutted hands, or has very few.
A range becomes capped in two situations:
1. A player takes an action that he would not take with any of his strong hands
Button open raises to 2x. SB folds, BB calls.
Flop comes down:
BB checks to BTN. BTN checks behind.
In this situation, I will say BB is capped at a single pair. Why?
Ask yourself what you would do with any overpair, two pair, set, or straight. There are so many draws on this board to charge, and so many worse pairs that won’t fold. BB can hold any straight draw, flush draw, overcards. Value is everywhere, and nobody wants to give free cards to BB’s range on this board.
Thus, BTN would have bet anything he had that was worth getting at least two streets of value from. He cannot have anything better than, perhaps, a pair of 5x or 6x. Thus, his range is capped at 6x.
2. A player’s range totally misses a flop, turn or river and he cannot hold the nuts.
UTG opens to 3x. BTN 3bets to 9x. SB cold 4bets to 20x. UTG folds, BTN flats.
Flop comes down:
In this spot, SB is cold 4betting no more than 3-4% of hands. Some players are 4betting purely QQ+ AK, some might have AQs, JJ, TT.
In any case, his range is capped at overpairs. He cannot hold 22, 66, 44. He has basically no 3x, 5x
Meanwhile, an aggressive BTN can hold 67s, 68s, 78s, 45s, T9s. On dangerous turn cards, the BTN’s range gets scarier as it has way more 9x, 5x and Tx than UTGs. UTG will generally be capped and on the defensive on this flop.
How to attack a capped range
A capped range is inherently easy to play against because you know the strongest possible hand your opponent can hold. Against capped ranges, two general strategy principles apply:
- Any drawing or blocker hand becomes an excellent multi street or check-raise bluff since your opponent will have a hard time finding a 3 street calldown with a range capped at one pair.
- Any hand you hold stronger than the capped range becomes a value bet. You can value bet extremely thinly in some situation if you know your opponent is capped worse than your hand
