The Gap Concept

Once upon a time, a great poker theorist named David Sklansky wrote about an important part of tournament poker (and to a lesser extent, poker in general) which – while well known among professional players – wasn't really part of the knowledge of the average poker player. It dealt with raising, and the kinds of cards that could call a raise, and was called the Gap Concept.

The Gap Concept goes something like this: say you know the exact range a player will raise with in front of you. When they raise, you cannot call with the same range, as the hands at the lower end of that range do very well against the entirety of the raiser's range. For instance, if a player will raise with TT+ and AJ+, calling a raise with AJ means you'll never be ahead and virtually always be behind.

2025 Posted on Monday, March 8th, 2025 at 11:42