Poker Image At The Table
- Filed under: Poker
- Date: Feb 28,2010
The poker game that relies on creating an image is in another dimension than rule or tactic-based poker, although all of these are essential to a good game. Image concerns everyone at the table and is the total of all you know about your opponents and all you let them know about you. Image-making will sometimes cause you to make moves which your opponents perceive as odd or ill-conceived.
Everything you do or not do at the table creates an image which your opponents then try to analyze. It is possible to either minimize or increase your image. Some players try to be as unobtrusive as possible. But each player still has to play his hands and the other alternative is to create a show of activity, of a vivid style of game which is disorienting because unpredictable or indecipherable.
Bluffing is usually undertaken to increase your advantage (and earnings) for a few bets. Image creation, on the other hand, will probably diminish the advantage of a few of your bluff-style bets, but will enhance your advantage in the long run. An example: make a few weak moves in a certain circumstance. You will probably lose this round, but in the same situation in the future, when your hand is strong and your play is good, your competent, unbelieving opponents will think you once again have a weaker hand, while the true experts cannot fathom what you are doing at all. Just a seemingly idiotic play like this has long lasting effects on your opponents and give your strong hands much more value.
Image-based tactics are common in chess. Often a player whose strength you don’t yet know and players whose strength is well known will make believable wrong moves or strange seemingly useless moves. They will sacrifice figures, neglect to fortify or take positions. Disorienting the player buy deliberate “bad” strategy, they then perform a sudden and subtle swoop into a long breach or attack a soft spot which hitherto did not appear to be the object of attention.
The main idea is the same in both games: you sacrifice current advantage in order to seize greater advantage later in the game. Instead of playing every concrete hand the best way, you envision less palpable but likely future possibilities. The move seems for the present to have put you at a disadvantage, but the game allows you to recover later and when you are ready to recover with a vengeance, your image will be your primary means.
You need to learn to project a wide variety of images. You will educate yourself on which “bad” moves to make to reach which goal and with which image. You may wish to disorient your opponents only in certain situations involving certain of your skills. Or, you may want to impress upon them how weak your game really is, or that you are the perennial bluffer.
Better to get your image going early in the game when the bank is small, else several ‘bad” moves in a row when the bank is large may result in more losses than any offsetting wins can overcome.
The author of this article plays online poker and gets Rakeback at Victory Poker where they offer the highest Victory Poker Rakeback.
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