You’re
in trouble, dude. It’s about as bad as things could be
considering that you flopped the usually joy-provoking top-pair,
top-kicker.
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THE PLAYING ZONE
By: Lou Krieger©
The concept of a "playing zone" is one that’s
frequently alluded to by poker theorists, though more often
in analyses regarding how specific hands were played, than
in a broader, more conceptual context.
When one thinks of a playing zone in poker, it’s usually
in regard to flop games such as Texas hold’em, Omaha/8,
or Omaha high-only, rather than "board" games, like
7-card stud or razz. Visualizing a playing zone facilitates
decision-making during a hand æ as well as during port-mortem
analyses of hands already played æ by focusing in on
how likely some cards are to help opponents while understanding
that others might not help them at all.
Here’s an example. Suppose you’re playing $20-$40
hold’em and have been dealt A-Q in the big blind. Someone
raises and you call, along with a few other players. The flop
is Q-J-T, and for the sake of this example we’ll assume
that the suits are irrelevant and the possibilities of a flush
are non-existent. With your cards and this flop, how do you
like your hand? The up side is that you’ve flopped top
pair with top kicker, and that combination wins plenty of
hold’em confrontations. But there’s a dark cloud
gathering too. Those three cards that flopped were all in
the playing zone æ that area where many other active
players are likely to have holdings.
With a sequenced flop of high cards coming on the heels of
a raise, it’s entirely possible that your top-pair, top-kicker
combination is already a big underdog, and even if you’re
not losing the race right now, there are rafts of turn cards
that can kill you. The raiser is far ahead of you if he’s
holding pocket aces, pocket kings, or A-K. He also could have
raised with pocket queens, jacks, or tens, and flopped a set.
Even if he raised with a modest pair of nines, he’s got
a few outs to beat you, and if anyone called the initial raise
with a hand like Q-J or J-T, they’re ahead of you too.
You’d love to see a king jump out of the deck on the
turn, since it’s the only perfectly safe card you can
catch. But it has a downside too. Anyone with as little as
a naked ace would chop the pot with you. An ace on the turn
gives you two pair, but kills you if any of your opponents
were in the hand with a pair of kings or a hand like K-10.
Even a queen would be a mixed blessing, because the trip queens
you’d make might already be bested if any of your adversaries
had flopped a straight or a set. You’re in trouble, dude.
It’s about as bad as things could be considering that
you flopped the usually joy-provoking top-pair, top-kicker.
But lets look at a somewhat different set of circumstances.
All the players are the same and you’re still holding
A-Q, but this time the flop is Q-7-2, and once again we’ll
assume that suits are irrelevant. Now top-pair, top-kicker
looks a lot sweeter. While you’re still running behind
the preflop raiser if he has a pair of aces or kings, you
are not at all in jeopardy to much else. Anyone who called
the raise before the flop with a smaller pair than queens,
or with connectors like A-K, K-Q, Q-J, J-10, or other generally
playable hands, is an underdog and likely to throw their hand
away, leaving you and the preflop raiser to duel it out heads-up.
Sure, you could be skewered if someone was playing Q-7, Q-2,
or even 7-2, but most sane players are going to avoid those
hands in a $20-$40 game. Your only real danger is if one of
your opponents flopped a set of sevens or deuces, because
by the time you arrive at the conclusion that he might have
three-of-a-kind, it will have cost you some chips and there’s
really not much that can be done about it. Whenever an opponent
flops a set to a safe looking board it will cost you some
chips before you realize just how good a hand he might be
holding. Still, this scenario is a lot safer for you than
the previous one because the board was not coordinated, and
two of the three cards that flopped were far outside of the
playing zone.
But poker is never so simple as it first appears. Suppose
you were in a loose, passive, low-limit hold’em game
æ where seven or eight players routinely see the flop.
In a game like this, the playing zone is very different. In
fact, in a game that’s loose enough, the playing zone
often embraces the entire deck. Players are liable to turn
up with any kind of hand, and losing to an opponent who runs
down your A-Q with a hand like Q-2 because he was fortunate
enough to catch one of three remaining deuces on the river
might be exasperating, but it’s not all that uncommon.
With an extended playing zone you can’t take too much
for granted, and a hand like top-pair, top-kicker can be very
vulnerable simply because any card that doesn’t directly
help you might help another player. The playing zone’s
width goes directly to a hand selection and playing strategy.
In a loose, passive, game with seven or eight players staying
to see the flop, holdings like A-x suited gain in value because
they can improve to very big hands, while others æ the
kind that figure to leave you with top-pair, big-kicker when
you catch part of the flop æ can be as vulnerable as
they are valuable in games with much narrower playing zones.
In loose, lower limit games an ace on the board frequently
extends the playing zone dramatically. It’s a pretty
rare day when an opponent is holding a hand like K-3 and makes
two pair because a trey jumps out of the deck on the river.
But since many players in these games are prone to play any
ace they are dealt, you’re never too sure which cards
are safe. While it’s a lot more likely that a board with
an ace and all big cards is likely to give another player
two pair, even unseqenced lower cards can help someone æ
particularly when the majority of players take the flop and
any one of them who catches any part of it is likely to stick
around for the duration. You can lose a chunk of change in
these games with hands like A-K. You flop top pair with the
best possible kicker and the board looks like it didn’t
help a soul. But wait. In loose, lower limit games the board
might just help someone simply because he or she is prone
to play any ace at all, and just got very, very lucky.
In Omaha, the playing zone concept is equally important. Perhaps
it’s even more so, because with six combinations that
can be made from the four cards in your hand, a lot of probable
hands become possible, and knowledge of the playing zone becomes
vitally important. For example, if you’ve been dealt
A-2-K-K in an Omaha/8 game and the flop is K-3-8 of mixed
suits, two playing zones have been touched. The two low cards
that flopped means anyone with a low draw that hasn’t
been counterfeited will stick around to the river trying to
capture half of the pot. You don’t have any worries at
this juncture about a straight draw panning out, so your set
of kings is currently in the lead, but sets are not the powerhouse
in Omaha/8 that they are in Texas hold’em. Even if they
hold up, you might wind up with only half the pot instead
of the whole enchilada. Nevertheless, you are drawing to the
nut low, so even if another player also holds an A-2, you’ll
get half of the low end of the pot as long as a third low
card doesn’t duplicate the ace or deuce in your hand.
And even if you don’t improve your set, those trip kings
may hold up for the high end of the pot.
In Omaha/8 the playing zones lie at the deck’s polar
extremes. You’d like to jump into the fray with a hand
full of big cards, a handful of babies, or some combination
like A-2-3-K that gives you big and little coordinated combinations
æ and if your ace and king are suited to one or both
of the babies, so much the better. The vast mid-range of the
deck is not where the playing zone is located at all. While
you could make a straight if you begin with hands like 9-8-7-6,
someone else is likely to make a low hand, and another player
could make a bigger straight and you’ll find yourself
doomed in both directions.
But in an Omaha high-only game, a run of four mid-range cards
like 9-8-7-6 is playable because the playing zone extends
down to the middle of the deck. Although mid range cards are
dogs in Omaha/8, they are part of the playing zone for Omaha
high-only. Low cards, which are death in Omaha high-only,
can be raising hands in Omaha/8.
When you’re playing poker, always look to the playing
zone when attempting to determine what kind of hand other
players might be holding, or when you’re trying to make
an assessment about how safe or vulnerable your own hand might
be. But always remember that the playing zone is neither fixed
nor immutable. It changes depending on the game and your opponents.
Sane players play sane hands, and you can often determine
where you stand in relation to them by understanding the playing
zone and how your hand and your opponents’ probable holdings
relate to it. But in loose games æ the kind where everyone
sticks around to see the flop æ the playing zone is
unbounded and might even extend across the entire deck. When
you’re in a game like that, be careful. When it’s
tough to put your opponent on a hand, it’s difficult
to know how your hand stacks up against theirs.
It’s times like these when you are likely to find yourself
losing pots you figured to win. But the silver lining in this
cloud of increased fluctuations and variance is that all of
those excess callers make for bigger pots when you win them.
And winning money is what poker is all about.
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