Blockers and combinations

There are one thousand three hundred and twenty six ways to be dealt two cards. Ace king is sixteen of them, four suited and twelve offsuit, while aces is six. So a range containing both is more than twice as likely to be ace king as it is to be aces, even though the chart shows one box each.

This is the correction that makes range reading work. Asking whether somebody has a set or a flush draw is not a question about two options, it is a question about how many combinations of each remain, and the answer is usually lopsided in a way intuition gets backwards.

Every card in your hand is removed from every range at the table. That sounds obvious and its consequences are not, because the effect is largest on exactly the hands that matter most: the pairs and the nutted holdings that are already rare.

It works in both directions. The ace that blocks their aces also blocks the ace high hands they would have folded, so it cuts the bluffs out of their range as well as the value. Which half matters more depends on what you are trying to do with the information.