Let's imagine you are playing against an opponent, he’s splashing around and you’re splashing around playing quite a few hands. He is calling a lot of your river bets, you’re seeing a lot of his hands shown down. You’re losing some pots on failed bluffs, but also winning some pots on successful value bets.
In summary, things are quite messy in this heads up match, and you are seeing a lot of hands shown down.
You've got a lot of information to digest and put in to tangible concepts / reads on your opponent - what to do with it all, you say?
Range analysis!
It's easier than it sounds.
Poker Range Analysis
Range analysis in poker is using a set of hands that is played and pitting them up against another set of hands, typically your opponent’s hands. You could see how your hand fares against villain’s range of hands (this is the most common tool) or you could see how villain’s hand or range does against your range in a particular spot.
One of the cool things you can begin to do once you get a lot of showdown hand information is to begin to classify villains. General categories include maniac (LAG), nit (TAG), and everything in between including some of the more optimal styles.
Another neat thing you can do is to begin exploiting villains and their play styles by formulating your own actions and ranges to combat what your opponents are doing, and if you find the sweet spot of check/raise bluffing or isolating in position or whatever it may be and the villain doesn’t adjust his game then you, have arrived. (to the gold mine.)
These are just some of the fun things you can do, there are others and we will touch on them next time. But it all begins with getting good reads and taking even better notes. So make sure you do these things and do them well. This will help you arrive to the gold mine and not somewhere where you don’t want to go to, like the dog house.
Make sure to fully understand Omaha Poker Rules because knowing the game is a huge advantage.
You can also check out this 5 Top Poker tips that I have gathered that will make you crush every Omaha table you join!