In poker, players are constantly making assumptions and putting their opponents on ranges of hands. Anyone who plays for a little while does some sort of range calculations in their head even if they don’t consciously think about what their opponent could be holding.

The other night, I was playing in a relatively deep-stacked cash game and was up against a very strong tournament player as well as a talented poker player all-around who didn’t seem all that experienced playing deep-stacked cash games. I had straddled the button and the tournament player raised. I defended and we played a pot where I ended up betting and raising every street and the other player folded to a good-sized bet on the river.

The hand itself wasn’t all that interesting. I either had a big hand or was three-barrel bluffing with nothing or a missed draw, but the comment the other player made as he was analyzing the hand caught my attention. As he was deciding to fold, he was ranging my hand and said he was 100% sure I didn’t have three particular hands because I didn’t raise pre-flop. While I didn’t happen to have any of the hands he mentioned, he was incorrect that I couldn’t have them, as all three were solidly in the range of hands I would have potentially called with pre-flop.

He thought I would have raised with those hands, but he was transposing his tournament theory and strategy onto me and applying it to cash game play where we were both over 300 big blinds deep. I would actually have been more likely to just call with the hands he was naming than raise with them, especially since I was in position and we were so deep.

While I am sure he was exaggerating in his statement that he was 100% sure I didn’t have those certain hands, it made me realize how far off we can be as players when we start with incorrect assumptions when we are ranging our opponent’s hands. Had he taken a little more time to consider the groundwork of the situation, he is more than talented and accomplished enough as a player to more accurately range my holdings and make a more informed decision.

We all tend to get in our comfort zones and fall back to what we are most familiar and experienced with. In this situation, falling back to tournament strategy caused him to make some false assumptions and ultimately make a decision using less accurate information than he usually would have.

I played a tournament the other day for the first time in a while and caught myself making some of the same mistakes in strategy and especially in what sort of mindset I was applying to my opponents. I found myself falling into the trap of expecting them to play like they would in cash games, or even worse, thinking they would play like I would in a cash game.

As I am gearing up to play a few WSOP events starting in a few weeks, it is time to start putting in a little mental work on getting back into the tournament mindset and not letting my cash game tendencies cause me to make tournament mistakes.

Court Harrington has worked on the business side of the poker industry in roles including tournament reporting for PocketFives, radio hosting for PokerRoad Radio, coaching for the WSOP Academy and privately, and a variety of behind-the-scenes responsibilities. He also plays in cash games and tournaments. Harrington is currently doing consulting work and exploring business opportunities outside of the poker industry. You can contact him at Court@CourtHarrington.com.