Is Manipulating Your Own Table Image Beneficial?

Question

There really are only two perspectives here to think about: Online and Live.

In both scenarios you can alter what someone perceives about your playing style at any moment, but by how much? and how important is it anyway?

Regarding online, there are two obvious opportunities for this. The chat box and/or showing your hand. To a lesser extent IMO, your actual image (picture) if your preferred software provides that option.

As for live play, there are a few things to consider, mainly:

• Personality, e.g. Extrovert, Introvert, ...
• Dress sense, e.g. Smart, Formal, Grunge, Goth, Wizard , Vampire, ...
• Social Elements, e.g. Drinking habits, Talking habits, ...
• Table Presence, e.g. Big/Little stature, Chip tricks, Chip stacking method, ...
• Positional, Stack-Size, Behavioural Considerations, ...

Some, of course, are more important than others. What I'd like to know is, not necessarily when or who to look tight or loose against (that's a strategy question/discussion of it's own) but,

What are the things you find the most effective at promoting a particular image of your playing style?,

and importantly,

Whether you get any use out of it or just ignore it all together?

What are your experiences. Thanks.

Answer 1

Live Live is where you can do mostly of the image you project to people.

Some people just get irritated by some things like (your voice,how you dress, the way you talk etc..) These things depend on who your against to.

Everyone has something that he doesn't like you only have to find it out.

Player style

Agressiv type

Im an agressiv player and know when people have a hand or not mostly. That makes me a winner over the long term.

What i tend to do is make the table hate me (by playing lots of hands and 3-4bet alot)and put myself in a spotlight position, where i put everyone in a position where they just want to outplay me and often just loose money by trying.

It's realy risky strategy since i have to play lots of hands and do alot of decisions, but most of the time thanks to my reads im able to make realy good profits over the sessions.

Friendly type

I saw many players being realy nice to other players (making jokes, having nice conversation, animating table with nice talks etc..)

This type of players do benefit something from being nice.

A situation which happened in a tourney was that the nice guy was in a position where one guy who had flush A high (the nuts there) checked while the nice guy wanted to raise with his 3 of a king but the other guy persuaded him not to. He decided to check.

This way the nice guy didn't get busted because the other guy didn't want him out of the tourney because of that nice talk they had during the tourney.

Full stack Image

Having full stack when entering tables makes a huge difference in point of image you give.

Lots of players don't want to play against full stack player cuz they can stack them.

Those kind of player come to enjoy playing and don't come to gamble, they try to survive rather than going all-in in some good spots where they should to. You can easly spot those players who lose each round some blind and play realy rarely(tight players).

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Online

Online i think there's no point in manipulating your image unless your a regular and playing against another regular(who's playing <7 tables).

Someone who's playing >6 tables isn't checking for tells/user image mostly cuz he doesn't have the time to do so, trying manipulate image here makes no sense from my point of view.

Answer 2

In my opinion, it depends on what stakes you are playing. At low stakes, none of these matter whether live (1/2, 1/3) or online (upto 1/2). There are recreational players willing to take chance and gamble with their low stacks and when-ever they think the pot is huge to gamble. So its better to have something when you raise. It's like playing roulette for 200-300.

Also for Live play, it depends whether you are a regular or a recreational player. If the dealer knows you, its a sign of your known-presence and that does nothing to change the perceptions that you have suggested. Also, if you have played before at the same casino, players will enquire with others and find out your strategy. That has more bearing to any of the things you have suggested. Most of the poker players dress like homeless so whether you come in Formal or not it doesn't really matter - they are always waiting for that chance to trap you. Too much talking and too much betting will induce players with good hands -weak flops for them to call the raise on flop (if you hit a set or higher). This works well at low stakes. But even then these strategies only work for the first half-an-hour or so and by then everyone knows your play.

Lose play then and then and if the pot is low (for you) you should gamble with weak hands to tell others you are there to gamble is a good strategy that works. Tilting after losing a big pot (ofcourse only when you have strong hands or nuts or you fold) is the another way to extract money.