At any given point in a poker hand, there is a possible range of hands that you could have. Your range in a given spot is made up of every hand you would have played the same way as you have the hand you're holding, and the strength of your range determines what sort of strategy you should have. Understanding hand ranges is one of the most important skills in poker.

In general terms, a range can be described as being weak, strong, or balanced. Your range is balanced whenever you have a ratio of strong hands to weak hands in your range that makes it difficult for your opponents to play against you. With that in mind, there are four basic ways to change the strength of a range. You can add strong hands, add weak hands, remove strong hands, or remove weak hands. Adding strong hands or removing weak hands will make your range stronger, while adding weak hands or removing strong hands will make your range weaker.

Your opponent's play usually determines what kind of range you want to have to make the most money in a specific situation in a poker hand. For example, if your opponent calls continuation bets in no-limit hold'em with a very large, weak range of hands, then you want your continuation betting range against that opponent to be super strong to take advantage. On the other hand, if your opponent folds to a lot of continuation bets, then you want your continuation betting range to be especially weak so that your opponent will be folding the best hand a lot of the time.