Strategy- using your image

Here is an article I recently wrote about image, and how to use it in your favour:

Consider these few hands from a poker tournament, and see if you can try to explain our hero’s action on the very last hand:

With our hero under the gun, he looks down at ace-king at makes a standard raise of the 200 big blind to 600. The big blind calls, leads out on a king high flop, and our hero takes it down with a re-raise. The next hand, he is on the big blind with ace-jack. The button raises, but looks a little nervous, and our hero wins the pot with a well-timed three bet. Two hands later, he finds aces on the button, makes the same raise to 600, and is disappointed not to get any action. The player in the small blind says to him “you like pushing people around, don’t you?”

The very next hand, he finds ace-ten on the cut-off, with the action passed to him. He quickly passes his hand. Why?

Being aware of your image

The answer to this question has all to do with image. In the last four hands of this tournament, our hero has done nothing spectacular. A three-bet with ace-jack is perhaps a little aggressive, but not overly so, and he knows that he has been lucky enough to see aces, and hit a king-high flop with ace-king. However, the others players at the table do not know this. They have seen a pattern of play which looks like it could be very out of line, and they may well be ready to make a 3-bet of their own if our hero raises with ace-ten.

Unless our hero would feel confident enough making something like a 4-bet all-in, he is very wise to pass. He is simply following our first key rule of image:

Key rule #1

The image that you are currently holding at the table may not be anywhere near the truth. Always be aware, not of how you have played, but of how other players will think you have played.

Many players are good at creating an image of the other players, but forget this other equally important task; being aware of your own image, and how it is changing. A crazy image of your own is the easiest to perceive, as other players will often be foolish enough to tell you, like the small blind player in our example.

Consider, however, the opposite scenario; you have sat down at a new table, ready to get involved, but looked down at completely unplayable hands for two whole orbits of the table. It probably won’t be mentioned to you by other players, but you have just built up the credit of a very tight image. You should be ready to use this credit whenever the opportunity arises.

The make-up of your image

Your image is of course not created just by how you play. A young player may automatically carry round the image of a bluffer and stealer, whilst many female players feel that they are wrongly given credit for being tight and predictable.

These are factors that you cannot control, but there are a number of things you can do to bend your image in your favour. They step principally from our second lesson:

Key rule #2

Poker players have very selective memories. In their mind, they will weigh hands they have seen in a very unbalanced way, with far too much weight being given to anything unusual or funny.

Let’s have a look at what we mean in our second example:

You have sat a table for half an hour, played fairly tight, and shown down only good hands. You then decide to raise with eight-deuce offsuit on the cut-off, and fail with your stab to take it down on a AK5 board. However, you get very lucky as you hit running deuces, and bust a player who tried to slowplay ace-king. He slams the table, calls you a “fish,” and the other players are much amused. You then play quite solidly for the next half hour. How do you feel your image is now, and how should you play?

Unless the players at the table are very strong players, they fall easily into the trap of selective memory. Some players make the mistake of not paying too much attention, and even more the mistake of believing what they want to believe. At the back of their mind, will be the many hands you played solidly, where you showed down the best hand. Strongly at the front of their mind, however, will be the image of a hand slamming the table as you turned over eight-deuce offsuit.

Even though you have showed evidence to the contrary, bad players have not seen it. The image you are playing at the moment is that of the man with the eight-deuce.

Bending an image in your favour

Aside from the funny or strange, there is another type of image that is held far too strongly in a player’s mind. First impressions are said to be the strongest, and this is particularly true at a poker table.

For this reason, it is not a bad idea at all to do something at first which is actually contrary to your image. If you feel that the make-up of the table means that you will be playing fairly tight, show your hand the first time you steal with a funky hand. If you feel that the table will be allowing you to steal, show your hand if you happen to have pocket kings and 3-bet from the big blind.

This will not work against the very strongest players. They are too clever, and will simply query the reason why you have decided to show your hand. However, many poker players are not in such good control of their own reasoning. They worry too much about being pushed around, and are happy to attach a mental image to a player. To this kind of player, you are now the man who was good enough to show pocket kings.

Playing against the guy with the crazy image

A player with a defined image can cause many players to behave in quite predictable ways, and this is especially true against the crazy guy. Many of his opponents will check to him when they make a big hand, and then come in with a check-raise on the flop or turn. However, most crazy players are also very strong players, and will easily through this plan to get all the chips in.

The correct plan of action is often the opposite one. Upon the fact that these players will bet so often when checked to, you should hinge all of your semi-bluffs by check-raising. If you are brave enough to delay a semi-bluff to check-raising on the turn, you can represent a trap, and successfully turn this player’s image right against him.

Poker is not a simple game. On each different table and against each different player, it is played between different parameters, and with different assumptions. Being keenly aware as to how these conditions are changing is the first step to being a good player.