quick background on me: i just turned 21 so i've only been taking poker "seriously" for a about 5 months. i play mostly live MTTs at a casino nearby. im not a good player by any means but i read as much as i can to improve.

today i was browsing the poker subreddit and read this blog post. its on stackemcoaching.com, im not sure if its ok to post links so i apologize if its not. im just gonna copy/paste it.



ive usualy go to the casino with a couple friends who have a couple years experience on me, and they talk a lot about table image. i'm wondering, is this author right and are my friends just donks? ive been playing pretty tight since im just learning and want to get better, and ive noticed other players at the table commenting on how tight i play. sometimes i play a little bit looser postflop if i think a guy is playing too many hands overall, but ive been pretty unlucky playing these loose guys.

so is table image a myth or is it important?

People often use table imagine as an excuse for bad/donkish plays and over-adjustment, but imagine is still an important part of reading a live poker situation to maximize profit.

just make sure to wear a hoodie and sunglasses and your table image will be just fine

"I've played with a lot of different players over the years, and I’m sure some would call me a nit (tight) and others would call me a maniac (loose) even though my true style is somewhere in between. Second, how often have you thought someone is playing back at you when much to your surprise they actually have it this time! Truth is, they’re likely to just be playing their own hand."

This whole thing is stupid. His first mistake is that he takes himself, where he probably considers himself online tag, where he can open suited connectors, maybe widen a lot in LP, 3 bet light sparingly, etc, And uses this to justify reads dont matter. What he doesnt seem to understand is that for a player like this, deviation can put him in both the bottom(uber nit), and top(uber aggressive). However people in the nitty range, who onyl open hands that are good, and 3 bet only with like QQ+ or something, are rarely gonna hit the variance that allows them to appear like a maniac. And even when they do, they probably give off the fact they are a nit in the hands they showdown and the sizing.

Maniacs on the other hand, will rarely hit the variance to play like an absolute nit. They may have an image close to that of a TAG, but again hands they may show down will tell you different.

The whole thing about calling down thinking you are right to find out you are wrong is so ****ing stupid. Of course sometimes you make light calls and get shown the nuts, that doesnt mean its a bad call.

I am fairly new to live poker but was in vegas for a month and had decent success at both tourneys and cash. The thing in tourneys(which is the subforum you are asking this in) is that image is rather important. Image(both your and opponents) is important in every form of poker. A bigger key live is that you can usually tell you is capable of adjusting, and how they will react to certain players. Certain old guys will station cause **** internet kids, certain old guys will station only pre and play fit or fold post, certain old guys will fold AK to a single raise preflop. Certain young guys will be too busy playing doodle jump on their iPads in the early levels to care that you are 3 betting them light. Certain young kids will try to be table captain, and assume role of raising 35% of hands at a full table.

If you go on a dry run and havent played in a while, 3 betting some older people who are not like 80 and playing aa by limping, works a lot, because they havent seen you play. So many times I have just been hungover or bored and playing nitty, and then just 3 bet an old person and he is like, you have been playing way too tight, and folds AQs or TT face up. I always say good fold, cause thats what they want to hear. And then move on.

To say image doesnt matter is like saying your cards dont matter. Sure lvie you have the ability to draw on much more information then you do online, but ignoring image is retarded and that author sounds clueless.

so does this statement:

contradict/agree/it depends with this statement:

?

thanks, this was an incredibly helpful post, particularly what you said about the unlikelihood of being viewed a maniac over a sample.

even though im not too experienced, my biggest strength is profiling a player and making a gameplan out of that (just simple stuff, folding when a tight player raises me on the river or calling down mediocre hands against a loose and aggressive guy). that all has to do with my perception of other ppl's image though, i'm wondering now if its worthwhile to try to establish a distinguishable image of my own? or to just play my hands if my opponents arent too savvy?

my favorite advice on this subject is to understand your image, not manipulate it

How long is a piece of string?

no u

If you're playing someone who's paying attention, your image is important. If you're playings someone who isn't, it's not. If the tourney buy-in is <$1K, 90% of the players aren't paying attention, and of the 10% who are the overwhelming majority won't the have the sack to play back at you w/o a hand anyway.

(I know, I'm in the sackless 10%.)

It's important, but a lot of people overcompensate and end up playing worse than if they hadn't made any adjustments.

First it depends if the people sitting on your table are paying attention to that haha imo. Second, if they in fact are taking into consideration your image at the table its truly important ONLY IF you analize it whithin the context of the situation, meaning stack sizes, positions, villain tendencies, stages of the MTT, past/recent history, table dynamics, among other factors. Table image its just one ingredient you will need to master in order for decision making to be closer to optimal.
My 2 cents


EDIT: CCuster_911 thank you so much for taking a time to write that post, appreciated.

To say that image in live poker doesn't matter, is just either way out of touch with reality or the guy was just high when he wrote the blog.
So many of the hand histories I discuss with my friends are so dependent on images of the players involved and their tendencies. Each time I play a hand of live poker I think about the resulting information that can contribute to my image, and try to keep it in mind to make decisions accordingly.

I myself am also guilty of occasionally blaming image for playing a hand atrociously and I think everyone has done this at one point of their lives. But overall, live poker has lots of information that most people are just not disciplined enough to recognize, and a big part of that is your own image.

whos Jon Hemmer and why are you reading his nonsense

I don't think Jon Hemmer knows what image means.