Do you Really Need to Create a Table Image?

Quite often you will hear players talk about the need to create an image in a poker game. While I am not going to talk about whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing, I am going to point out a few facts. Firstly you have to factor in where you are playing. If you are playing online then making plays to throw your opponents off the scent may not be as necessary as you think.

Firstly, the turnover of players in your games will be greater than it would be in a live game for the simple reason being that it is all to easy to join and leave games when you are in the comfort of your own home. So your hard work of trying to create an image could be all for nothing when your entire table has changed within the space of forty five minutes.

But even if you are playing live then you need to consider the fact that the way that the cards fall naturally may present you with an image. Let us say that you have sat down in a live game and your first three hands are AA, AK, AQs and JJ. You choose to raise and re-raise with all of these hands. Now what do you think the other players will be thinking if you haven’t shown down any of these hands?

They will be thinking that here is a player who has sat down with the intention of bullying the table. If they are thinking this then this may be not a good time to launch a bluff on hand number five if the opportunity arises or even for the next couple of orbits. Your opponents will likely call you with lighter hands than they normally would or even bluff raise you.

Remember, they don’t know that you had four premium hands on the spin. Your image can build in numerous ways. If you have been playing nothing but solid poker and have been dealt a series of poor hands, your constant folding will not have gone unnoticed.

But another reason as to why image plays don’t work as well online is to do with the fact that your opponents will be often using software that will classify you anyway so they will know what type of player you are. Software like Poker Office and others of their kind should tell your opponents everything about you so your attempts may just be in vain. Of course, this does open up a whole new interesting dynamic.

If you can get access to data on how you have played in the past and you are also aware that your opponents may have this data on you then you can look to deviate your game by exploiting what you know that your opponents know about you.