A Game of Perception
In prior posts, we talked about how to use your reads on others to adjust.
Today, we’ll cover how to use their reads on you to do the same.
It’s actually not all that different.
Some adjustments will be obvious to you, like “I should bluff more with a tight image,” and some will be less obvious, more nuanced, and more fun!
And, as usual, I’ll have some caveats and tips for you to be aware of.
Let’s get into it.
Building an Image
Before adjusting to your image, you need to have an image.
Should you consciously construct one?
In my opinion, no – usually not.
There are some rare situations where intentionally
crafting an image might make sense.
But they are few and far between, and I wouldn’t suggest most players attempt it. More often than not, you’ll just be making bad plays in a futile pursuit of a future edge that won’t even be there.
I prefer to play as well as possible, keep an eye on my image, and adjust accordingly.
That said, if you are going to pursue building an image, focus your efforts up front. The first few hands you play will stick out in your opponents’ minds much more than hands from the middle of your session.
As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Identifying Our Image
This, in my opinion, is the most important thing I’ll discuss today. I want you to avoid a very common mistake:
Over-adjusting to an image that exists only in your mind.
You get to look at your cards every hand. Your opponents, I hope, do not.
You might be making a lot of big folds, but as long
as you’re not telling them, they don’t know that.
You might be bluffing a lot and taking down pots. They don’t know that either.
There is so much uncertainty and noise surrounding the frequencies that you bet, check, call, etc., at the poker table.
Unless you’ve shown down some extremely telling hands multiple times or played a large number of hands online against players tracking your stats, your opponents usually won’t have a good guess as to what you’re doing.
What does this mean for your image?
1) When playing live poker, your image will often be based more on stereotypes and generalizations than your actions.
What kind of player do you look like? How quickly do you play? How do you handle your chips?
How are you talking about poker at the table?
These are the things that your opponents are more likely to adjust to than how many hands you’ve check-folded on the river.
As far as reads based on your play, what will more likely stand out than your actual frequencies are things like:
What are your chosen bet sizes saying about your knowledge of the game?
Do you seem fearless or fearful when putting in a lot of money?
Yes, there are plenty of things people will adjust to, but how often you bluff, hero call, hero fold, etc., won’t be at the top of the list.
2) You need to be careful making big adjustments based on the way you’ve played a few hands.
It’s easy to start telling yourself stories like, “I keep running them over, and I showed down a bluff. They think I’m a maniac.”
If you put too much weight into these stories, you might make some very bad adjustments.
These stories are just guesswork
about their guesswork.
To be fair, that’s what a lot of poker and hand-reading is, but in this particular case, I think most of us are equipped with distorted lenses.
Outside of poker, when it comes to how the world perceives you, what others are thinking about your actions, and especially how much others are thinking about you, is it possible that your perception is off?
This is called the “spotlight effect” – a cognitive bias where we mistakenly believe we’re being noticed and judged more than we actually are.
Because we’re so aware of and focused on our own behaviors, we might assume others are noticing, and thinking about, things that they aren’t.
At the poker table, people are trying to observe you more than they do in everyday life, but there can still be a wide gap between our perception and reality for this same reason.
Adjusting to Our Image
So, you’ve avoided all the biases and misconceptions listed above, and you have a good idea of how you’re perceived.
What should you do?
The main thing I’d encourage you to do
is think beyond one street of play.
Yes, you’ll figure out the basic adjustments like “they think I’m a calling station so they’re not bluffing me.”
But go beyond that to think about multi-street strategies.
Let’s say you’re the only player in the game who makes big overbets on the turn and river, and you’ve shown down a few big bluffs.
This is a great one because big overbets are emotionally impactful, meaning they’re more likely to be noticed and adjusted to.
Basic:
Your opponents may expect you to make a lot of big overbet bluffs on turns and rivers. Don’t overbet bluff as many rivers until you’ve shown down more value.
Intermediate:
Your opponents fear the multi-street overbets from you, so they’re going to simply fold the flop more often to avoid facing them with weaker hands.
You should bluff the flop even more than usual!
Advanced:
Your opponents are excited to trap you with their big hands by check-calling the flop, so when you get raised on a flop of K♦️8❤️6♠️, it’s very likely to be a semi-bluff like T❤️9❤️.
Their normal raising range might be two pair, sets, and straight draws (simplified), but now that they slowplay two pair and sets, it’s just straight draws. Call them down!
For any particular image, think about how your opponents are likely to adjust, and play out the consequences of that on all of their ranges.
My Image in Action
In my early twenties, I was playing a $25k WPT event at Bellagio when an interesting image-based hand came up.
It’s day one, and stacks are plenty deep.
I raise J❤️4♠️ on the button because I’m a young hotshot and think I can outplay everyone.
An old-school player calls in the BB.
Flop: Q❤️9♦️6♠️
He checks, I bet ½ pot, he calls.
Turn: A❤️
He checks, I bet 60% pot, he calls.
River K❤️
He leads into me for 60% pot.
We could discuss my preflop, flop, and turn plays, which may or may not have been good at the time, but the river is the most interesting street.
What would you do?
I have jack-high. I block the nut flush and the straight.
It seems like one of the best possible combos to bluff-raise.
But, here’s the problem – my image.
We hadn’t played that many hands together, but at this time in the game, $25k was as big as tournaments got, there weren’t that many young kids playing in $25k High Rollers, and we were all aggressive.
Further, I sensed that in the minds of the old-school pros, we were even more aggressive than that.
Even without having built an image with my play on that table, I knew how I’d be perceived due to the way I looked and acted.
I was a young online hotshot maniac idiot.
I’m the preflop raiser, and there’s an Ace, King, and Queen on the board. He’s not leading with two pair or a set.
His value bets are either a straight or a flush, and those aren’t going to fold to a raise from an idiot like me.
So, as I’m hand-reading, I realize that a raise won’t work out well for me.
His straights and flushes aren’t folding, and… wait a second…
Why would he lead into a maniac idiot on the scariest river card in the deck with a straight or a flush?
A bunch of straight draws missed, and I can even have bluffs with no draw (as evidenced by my actual hand).
What air could he have? He check-called twice, and the only flush draw got there. Literally, 87 and T8, if he decided to play them that way on the flop and turn, were the only air hands he could have. So that’s really unlikely.
But, despite not knowing his game well, I couldn’t imagine how he’d ever decide to lead with a good hand against me there.
T8 and 87 were extremely unlikely, but if good hands were impossible, what else could it be?
I called with my jack high, and I beat 87.
That’s what you get for trying to bluff an idiot.
