When you feel like your image is weak or too passive what do you do? How much do you worry about this? Do you just keep playing your game or do you make adjustments in some way? Do you approach it differently in cash vs tournament play?

I only have a couple years online and 6 months or so live. Trying to find way to address some of my more complex?? issues.

in general, you want to project a table image of as bad player as possible - since playing weak as passive is pretty bad, your image seems to be quite desirable

So ideally I want to look weak and be the guy calling in live play? In my few hours at the table I have seen alot of aggressive players and have been trying to fight fire with fire but it seems to not be working well.

you gotta be aggressive in the right spots. You don't want a image of being weak. loose aggressive is a better image to have in tournaments. unpredictable. live you can pick up things on rivers when people bet and just spew shove over the top and they fold showing your 7 high. you don't need to do it often only when your sure you have alot of fold equity.

TBH my experience as someone who will sit tables and open 10x and overbet just to show 82o is: MOST people dont adjust as much as youd hope, they just sit there waiting for good hands. its pretty disappointing.
the real value IMO is if u can convince good players/pros that you're a nit. if theyre good enough to make big folds your image can work wonders for you, but vs rec fish na they just see their cards.

Sounds like I may dumping a bit too hard before the river. Probably gives the impression I am bluffing. In live games, I haven't played one of the local tournaments yet I hear the rake is pretty so I didnt look.

I had a guy do this sitting on my right one day. Its very hard to want to get into a pot with a guy that 10x's to open and will consistently shove just to see cards. Even opening a nit range I found it tough.

your not going to make money out playing better players than you are. you save money against them by playing very few pots with them.

establish the image that is best for you to the person you most likely can break at the table. it doesnt matter too much what image you have. most just play their hands. so your image is not too important but for what it is you want to use that for some kind of advantage.

not to be a dick but your image is probably the last thing on your check list you need to be concerned with. time would be better spent paying attention to how you opponents play. frequency and holdings telling you everything you need to know about your perceived image anyway.

profitably , table image is not comparable to having a solid foundation anyway at live low stakes, thats where i would focus if i were you.

I play like the nit I am. Preflop it makes little to no difference since people want to see flops and they want to crack the nit's big hand. Postflop I probably get a few more folds on my cbets and semi-bluffs from the more thinking opponents at the table but some players just don't notice or don't care when I suddenly start shovelling the money in for the first time in 4 hours.

I agree with this in cash games. nit play is better for the most part. Tournaments on the other hand go hard or go home. you need to get lucky to win them, you need to gain chips so you don't have to get lucky anymore times than you need to. winning flips with a 60BB pot is better than winning flips with a 20BB pot in alot of spots. Get those chips by either stealing them or donking them when your steals fail.

you gotta gamble it up with the aggressive players and you will look stupid when they have it and you don't. and also make players hate you when you donk them lol.

cash games and tournaments are a total different beast. online and live is different in many ways as well.

if your playing it to just cash and not win the tournament then strategy probably leans towards nitter play as well at some points.

Thats kind of why I asked if I should even worry about it in the original post. From the advice Ive gotten so far image is just something you want in the back of his mind not necessarily his first thought.

Thank you, I should reevaluate my bet sizing and be a bit more patient on my hands.

Are you saying I should donk more or just they will hate me if I do?

I lol'ed at this

your going to have to donk to win tournaments. that's why they are called donkaments.

I will keep this in mind when I play my first tournament at this local place.