RangeSharp
RangeSharp
Walk through building a full 6-max cash strategy in FreeRangeLab. From empty workspace to training-ready in 30 minutes.
Most poker study tools make you feel like you need a PhD in spreadsheet management before you can start training. Import from here, convert from there, map to some other format. By the time you've got your ranges loaded, you've lost the motivation to actually study them.
FreeRangeLab takes a different approach. You can go from zero to a complete 6-max cash game strategy in about half an hour. Here's exactly how.
Click "New Strategy" (or the plus button in the strategy tree). Name it something useful. I use "NL200 6-max Cash" so I know the format and stakes at a glance.
You'll land in the main workspace: left panel with the strategy tree, right side with the 13x13 hand matrix grid. The grid is canvas-rendered, so it's responsive. You'll paint actions directly onto it.
The strategy tree shows decision nodes, not folders. Each node is a spot: a position plus an action line. You expand by adding children. That structure matters because poker decisions are nested. BTN Open leads to "vs BB 3Bet" and "vs SB 3Bet." The tree grows as you add spots. When you click a spot, the grid loads that spot's range. No switching between files or tabs. Everything lives in one workspace.
Start with the opens. You need one spot per position that can open first:
BTN Open Raise
CO Open Raise
HJ Open Raise
UTG Open Raise
Then the blinds. SB vs Limps (for when everyone folds to the small blind). BB Defense vs each position: vs BTN, vs CO, vs HJ, vs UTG.
Right-click a spot or use the context menu to add a child. The spot gets added to the tree. Click it and the grid loads empty. Now you paint.
For each spot, you have three options. Paint the range manually by clicking and dragging on the grid. Shift+click sets frequencies if you're using mixed strategies. Or import from a solver (PioSolver, HRC, Equilab, Flopzilla, Simple Preflop, GTO Wizard). Or grab a pre-built range from the GTO Library with one click.
I'll be honest: for the first pass, I grab from the library. The GTO Library has "Simplified GTO" (rounded to 25%) and raw solver output. Click "Add to strategy," pick the spot, confirm. Done. You can tweak later. The point is to get a structure in place fast.
As you add spots, the decision tree expands. BTN Open has children: vs BB 3Bet, vs SB 3Bet. CO Open has vs BTN 3Bet, vs BB 3Bet. The hierarchy reflects how the hand plays out. You're not organizing files. You're building a decision map.
Each spot loads its own grid. The left panel shows where you are in the tree. Breadcrumbs or a path view help when you're deep (e.g., BTN Open -> vs BB 3Bet -> vs BB 4Bet). Click through. Add ranges. The auto-save kicks in after 500ms of no changes, so you're not constantly hitting Save.
Once the opens are in, add the response spots. For BTN Open, add "vs BB 3Bet." For that spot, you're painting what the BTN does when the BB 3-bets. Fold, call, 4-bet. Same idea for CO Open vs BTN 3Bet, HJ Open vs CO 3Bet, and so on.
For BB Defense vs BTN, you need the BB's response: 3-bet or fold (and sometimes call, depending on the spot). Add "vs BTN 3Bet" as a child of "BB Defense vs BTN" and paint the 3-bet range.
The grid supports 40 custom action colors. Assign fold (gray), call (blue), raise (green), 3-bet (orange), 4-bet (red), or whatever scheme you prefer. Consistency helps. When you switch spots, the colors stay the same so you can read the grid quickly.
Undo/redo supports 100 levels. Mess up a paint stroke? Hit Undo. Change your mind? Redo. No sweat.
Here's the part that sold me. You don't have to finish the entire strategy before training. No "build everything first, then study" gate. You can have BTN Open and CO Open done, leave HJ and UTG empty, and still run Decision mode on the spots you've built. The training module only cares about spots that have ranges. The rest of the tree can be blank. As soon as BTN Open has a range, you can hit "Train" on that spot.
Decision mode: the system deals you a hand, you're shown a poker table with position-accurate seating, and you choose the action (fold, call, raise, 3-bet, etc.). You get feedback. Wrong answers get scheduled for sooner review. Right answers get spaced out. FSRS v6 handles the scheduling.
Recall mode: you paint the entire range from memory on the grid. Harder. More useful for cementing the shape of the range in your head.
You can train BTN Open while still building CO and HJ. There's no gate. Build a spot, train it. Build another, train that too. The strategy grows incrementally.
My actual 30-minute run looks like this:
Minutes 0-2: Create "NL200 6-max Cash," add BTN Open, CO Open, HJ Open, UTG Open from the library (Simplified GTO).
Minutes 2-8: Add BB Defense vs BTN, vs CO, vs HJ, vs UTG. Same source. One click per spot.
Minutes 8-15: Add 3-bet spots: BTN Open vs BB 3Bet, CO Open vs BTN 3Bet, etc. Import from PioSolver for a few, use library for the rest.
Minutes 15-20: Add SB vs Limps. Tweak a couple ranges manually where I know my local game differs (e.g., tighter vs UTG).
Minutes 20-25: Add notes to the spots I care about most. BTN Open gets a note: "Wider in soft games." BB vs BTN gets "3-bet more vs passive BTN."
Minutes 25-30: Start a Decision mode session on BTN Open. Run 20 hands. Check accuracy. Already training.
By the end, I have a study-ready strategy. Not a spreadsheet. Not a half-finished import. A strategy with spots, ranges, and the ability to train.
I don't add every possible sub-spot. BB vs SB open, SB vs BB 3-bet, cold 4-bet spots, etc. Those matter, but they're not the core. The core is: open ranges, BB defense vs each position, and the main 3-bet branches. I add the rest when I'm ready to study them.
I also don't obsess over perfection. If the library range says 38% and my solver says 40%, I'll take the library for now. I can swap it later with a paste and Enter. The goal is to get a working strategy in 30 minutes. Optimization can happen in week 2. Perfectionism in the build phase is what kills momentum. Get it good enough. Train. Refine later. I've watched people spend two hours "building" a strategy and never train a single hand. Don't be that person. The strategy is a means. Training is the end.
The grid has five overlays: Actions (default), EV, Frequency, Heatmap, and Diff. When you're painting, Actions is what you want. When you've got two versions of a spot (yours vs a solver, or two different strategies), switch to Diff to see where they diverge. Red for differences, green for matches. Helps when you're tweaking a library range to fit your game.
Heatmap is useful for spotting positional patterns across spots. EV and Frequency are for when you've imported solver output that includes those values. You don't need them for the initial build. Get the structure in place first.
Each spot has a notes field. I use it for reminders. "Tighter vs UTG in live games." "3-bet more when BTN is passive." "Check solver for 50bb." When I come back to a spot weeks later, the note tells me why I built it that way. Takes five seconds to add. Saves confusion later.
Before I lock in a strategy, I run Compare mode. Side-by-side view of my range vs a GTO library range or a solver export. I see the diff. Am I too tight in spots? Too loose? The visual helps. I fix the big gaps, then train. Compare mode is in the workspace menu. Load two strategies or two spots, view them side by side. No guessing.
Other tools make you build the strategy before you use it. You're doing data entry. Here, building and training overlap. You add a spot, you train it. The strategy grows organically. You're studying while you're building.
Thirty minutes. A complete 6-max structure. No wizard, no conversion, no spreadsheet. Just create, add, paint or import, and train.
Master your preflop ranges.