The Playing Zone by Lou Krieger

Lou Krieger Poker Strategy Articles

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 ¾ as well as during port-mortem analyses of hands already played ¾ by helping the analytical player to zoom 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 overhead too. Those three cards that flopped were all in the playing zone ¾ that area where many other active players are likely to have holdings. 

Lou Krieger is the co-author of 'Poker for Dummies' and the host of Royal Vegas Poker

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 might also 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 some 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 any opponents in the hand with a pair of kings or K-10 will destroy you. 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 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 conclude that your opponent 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 usually 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 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 ¾ 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 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 ¾ the kind that figure to leave you with top-pair, big-kicker when you catch part of the flop ¾ 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 ¾ particularly when the majority of players take the flop and anyone 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 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 for the high hand, 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 ¾ 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 ¾ the kind where everyone sticks around to see the flop ¾ 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.

Lou Krieger

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