Range Syntax

Slice has a powerful syntax available to define ranges for players hands as well as the board. There is also a PokerStove compatibility mode for people who want to use the familiar PokerStove syntax.

1. Card Types 
2. Card Ranges
3. Grouping Suited Cards
4. Filtering Ranges
5. Range Combinations Using Set Operators
6. Percentage Ranges
7. Weighted Ranges
8. PokerStove Syntax Mode

Card Types

Along with the familiar card ranks (A, K, Q, J, T, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2) Slice has a number of other ranks defined that represent more than one card.  For example the card type B represents Big cards including A, K, Q, J .  So giving a player a range (Omaha) of BBBB  would include all hands with 4 big cards in it.  All of the card types are defined below:

Card Ranges

Single Card Ranges 

Ranges of cards can be specified in Slice by using a pattern like "C₁-C₂" where C1 and C2 are one or more card ranks e.g. the pattern "9-6"  would be expanded to 6, 7, 8, 9.  As an example, if you wanted to specify a hand range that consisted of all hands that had an A and another card from 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 then you would write the range A"2-7".  The range A"2-7" is identically equivalent to A2,  A3,  A4, A5, A6, A7.

You can also use a pattern like "C1+" (or "C1-") to get all cards ranked higher (or lower) than C1 (inclusive).  e.g. "J+" is expanded as J, Q, K, A and "5-" is expanded as 5, 4, 3, 2 . So to get all Holdem hands that contain a T and a card higher than T you could write T"J+".

Multi Card Ranges

Multiple cards can  also be specified in range patterns like "_A1A2..._An-_B1B2..._Bn" where the gaps between An and An-1 are equal.  That is a bit confusing so some examples should help to clarify. 

• "23-78" is equivalent to 23, 45, 56, 67, 78.  
• "23-79" would be an error since there is a gap between 7 & 9 but not 2 & 3.
• "44-99" is equivalent to 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99
• "47-7T" is equivalent to 47, 58, 69, 7T.
• "2345-5678" is equivalent to 2345, 3456, 4567, 5678.
• "2345-5689" would be an error since there is a gap in the right hands side cards but not in the left.
• "469T-79QK" is equivalent to 469T, 57TJ, 68JQ, 79QK

 Of course you can use the pattern "A1A2..An+" or "A1A2..An-" as well:

• "JT98+" is equivalent to  JT98, QJT9, QKJT, AKQJ
• "9754-" is equivalent to 9754, 8643, 7532
• "JJ+" is equivalent to JJ, QQ, KK, AA
• "55-" is equivalent to 55,44,33,22

More Examples

• KQ"JJ-99" is equivalent to KQJJ, KQTT, KQ99
• 9c"8-5"c is equivalent to 9c8c, 9c7c, 9c6c, 9c5c
• B"JJ-KK" is equivalent to BJJ, BQQ, BKK which is in turn equivalent to AJJ, AQQ, AKK, KJJ, KQQ, KKK, QJJ, QQQ, QKK, JJJ, JQQ, JKK

Grouping Suited Cards

If you are familiar with other poker odds calculators, you know you can often specify AK suited by writing AKs.

In Slice, a different notation is introduced to allow a more flexible method of specifying suits.  To group cards of the same suit in Slice, you surround them in square brackets (i.e. [ & ]).  For example if you wanted to get all combos of AK suited in Hold'Em you would write [AK] (AK offsuit could be written as [A]K).  Again we will use some examples to more fully illustrate this concept:

• [45]  is equivalent to 4c5c, 4d5d, 4h5h, 4s5s
• [AB]** would give you all Omaha hands containing an A suited with a big card and 2 other cards of different suits.
• [AB][**] would give you all Omaha hands containing an A suited with a big card and 2 other cards which are the same suit as each other but different from the other group (e.g. a hand like AdKd4h5h).
• [KQ]c* would give you a range made up of all flops that contain the Kc & Qc plus one other non-club card.
• [56-] would give you all suited connectors up to and including 56 (e.g. 2c3c, 2d3d, 2h3h, 2s3s, 4c5c, 4d5d, 4h5h, 4s5s , 5c6c, 5d6d, 5h6h, 5s6s)
• [Jt98-9876] would give you all montone omaha rundown hands in the range JT98, T987, 9876.

Filtering Ranges

Slice poker odds calculator allows you to apply filters to restrict your range to hands that contain certain pairings or suitedness. This is achieved using a filter syntax where a range takes the form C1C2..Cn{ filters }. For example if we wanted to restrict an Omaha hand range of BBBB to hands that didn't have a pair, we would write BBBB{np}, meaning 4 big cards, filtered for hands without pairs. Likewise if we wanted all double suited Omaha hands we could write ****{ds}. This feature is most useful for Omaha and Board ranges but can also be used for Hold'em.   A complete list of filters and some more examples are given below:

Filtering Examples

• ***{op} - all 3 card combos (i.e. flops) that contain 1 pair
• AA**{tp} - all Omaha Ace's hands where the other two cards are also a pair
• AA**{ss} - all single suited Aces hands 
• BBB{ts} - flops that have all three cards the same suit (e.g. montone flop)
• ZZ**{qs} - Omaha hands containing at least two Small cards and where all cards are the same suit
• "AKQJ-"{ds} - All double suited Omaha rundown hands

Percentage Ranges

There are a number of different answers to the question "What are the top X% of hands for a given poker game?". For holdem a number of different methods of ranking hands have been suggested including ranking by heads-up equity, PokerStove's method (equity vs 3 random cards), evolutionary algorithms like the one described here (this is labeled the "propokertools" ordering in the Slice poker odds calculator) and so on. 

Slice currently has the pro poker tools method for Omaha and Omaha 8/b and 5 holdem methods of hand ranking including:

1. PokerStove
2. Heads up Equity
3. Sklansky-Chubukov
4. Sklansky-Malmth
5. Propokertools

Range Combinations

Slice poker odds  calculator supports a powerful syntax for adding and subtracting ranges from each other by treating them as mathematical sets or groups.

You are likely already familiar with this concept even if you are not aware of it. If you have ever used a tool like PokerStove and entered a range like 55-99, AKs, 4d9d than you are already familiar with the concept of a Union of hand ranges. That is the group of hands you get by adding each of the individual ranges: 55-99 (30 combos) , AKs (4 combos) and 4d9d (1 combo) together to get the overall, 35 combo range for the player.

In addition to the Union Operator (| or ,)  Slice also supports the Intersection Operator (&) and the negation or subtraction operator (!) as well as allowing you to group expressions together with brackets. The complete list of operators and there action on two sets/groups of hands A & B is as follows:

• A | B :: (Read "A or B") gives all the hands that are in A OR B
• A & B :: (Read "A and B") gives all hands that are found in both A AND B
• A ! B :: (Read "A not B") gives all hands that are in A but NOT found in B
• ( ) :: Brackets can be used to group expressions together like (A | B) & C

Some examples should help to make this more clear:

1. 99-AA , [45]
2. A2** & 2%
3. KK ! KcKd
4. BBBB ! AA
5. (BBBB ! AA) , MMMM{np}

Range 1 is just all pairs in the range 99-AA along with all 45 suited combos.

Range 2 is the intersection of all hands that contain an A and a 2 (A2**) with the top 2% of hands. We can think of this as the set of hands in the top 2% of hands that contain both an A and a 2.

Range 3 is all pairs of Kings except for the KcKd i.e. (KcKh, KcKs, KhKd, KhKs, KdKs).

Range 4 is all hands that  1) contain 4 big cards (BBBB) without a pair of aces in them (BBBB!AA).

Range 5 is all hands that 1) contain 4 big cards (BBBB) without a pair of aces in them (BBBB!AA) OR have 4 middle cards with no pairs (MMMM{np})   

Combining Filters

Filters can also be combined using the set operators in order to achieve more refined filtering.  For example if you wanted all Hold'Em hands that contained either a a pair or were suited you could write **{op|ss} e.g. filter all hands (**) for hands that contain a pair (op) OR are suited (ss).  More examples:

• AKQJ-{ss|ds} is all rundown hands that are single or double suited.
• BBBB{ss & op} all single suited hands that contain 4 big cards, 2 of which are paired.
• BBBB{ss | op} all hands that contain 4 big cards and are single suited OR have a pair
• MMM{rb & np} all unpaired rainbow flops that contain 3 middle cards.

Weighted Ranges

Slice also has support for doing equity calculations with weighted ranges.   The syntax for defining weighted ranges is RANGE1=WEIGHT1 RANGE2=WEIGHT2 and so on.  You may use up to 4 weighted sub ranges to make up one range. Some examples of weighted ranges follow:

• AK,22-99=30 AA-TT=70  
• KQJT=40 AA**{ss|ds}=50 "KK-QQ"BB=10
• A234=5 AA23=5 "AA-KK"**{ds}=5

As you can see from the last example, the weights do not have to add up to 100...Slice normalizes all of the weights so in the above example each subrange would get a weight of 33.33%.

PokerStove Syntax Mode

Slice also supports PokerStove like syntax for Hold'Em.  To put Slice into Stove Syntax Mode select the HE (Stove Syntax) option in the Game drop down menu.

 Examples of the syntax in Stove Mode are:

• 45s is all combos of 45 suited (equivalent to [45] or 45{ss} in regular Slice notation)
• 45o is all combos of 45 offsuit (equivalent to [4]5 or 45{rb} in regular Slice notation)
• 22-99 all pairs between and including 22 and 99 (same as regular Slice notation)
• KT+ is KT,KJ,KQ (equivalent to K"T-Q" in regular Slice notation, KT+ in Slice notation would give you KT,AJ)
• KcTc+ is KcTc, KcJc, KcQc (equivalent to Kc"T-Q"c in regular Slice notation, KcTc+ in Slice notation would give you KcTc,AcJc)
• ATs+ is ATs, AJs, AQs,AKs (equivalent to A"T-K"{ss} in regular Slice notation)
• 4c6c-8cTc is the same as 4c6c, 5c7c, 6c8c, 7c9c, 8cTc (same as regular Slice notation)