Gambling terms, explained straight

Poker

Poker range percentage

In poker, range percentage is the proportion of all possible starting hands that a player could hold in a given situation, shown as a percentage.

Also called
Range percentage
Applies to
Hand-range analysis in poker strategy, especially when estimating what portion of possible private hands an opponent can hold in a given situation12
How it works
A player or analyst assigns a set of possible hands to a player, then expresses that set as a percentage of the total relevant hand space. The percentage changes with betting action, position, board texture, and other inference factors12

Key points

  • A range percentage is the numeric proportion of a player's possible hand set, not the set itself12.
  • The percentage narrows or widens as the hand progresses, reflecting new information from actions and community cards12.
  • Range percentage applies to any street or situation, not only preflop12.

Where this term is used

Not the same as

  • Poker preflop ranges — a range used before the flop, whereas range percentage is a measurement that can apply to any street
  • Poker ranges by position — a positional chart or recommendation, whereas range percentage is a numeric proportion, not a strategy set

Sources

  1. PokerSkill: LLMs Can Play Expert-Level Poker without ... arxiv.org Defines range as a distribution over possible private hands and supports the concept of range percentage.
  2. Glossary of poker terms en.wikipedia.org Glossary entry that defines range and supports the explanation of range percentage.

Sources are drawn from regulators, universities and published research, and each one is labelled with what it actually is — a preprint is not called a paper. Bookmaker and affiliate pages are never cited here, because a page that sells betting is not a neutral authority on it.