You Are Whom You Appear to Be

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

I like to read. It's a distraction from the sometimes tense and often combative world of union organizing and poker playing. I combine it with my morning exercise, usually reading a murder mystery while I walk the three mile loop near my house. I'm blessed, I guess, with good peripheral vision so I have only once collided with anything. The reading makes the walking time go more quickly. And the walking gives my heart and lungs some exercise while my mind gets its fill of plot and character.

My books of choice have, of late, been murder mysteries. I've taken to reading all of the books by certain authors. I'm into Nevada Barr's books right now. I can't get enough of them. They involve a heroine who is a park ranger - who finds herself in the middle of murderous situations in many of the National Parks. Fascinating, not too high brow, but not as trashy as a Harlequin Romance novels.

What does this have to do with poker? Give me a few minutes. You'll see.

Barr's books are relatively formulaic. We're introduced carefully and artfully to the natural surroundings. Lots of details about the terrain and the special aspects of the National Park that make them interesting and unique. And then we see, in better than stick figure fashion, the cast of characters. There are usually one or two particularly odious characters, a couple of innocents, a couple of terrific, morally and physically strong men and women, and then a bizarre person or two added for comic and dramatic relief.

As I walked this morning and read my newly purchased used Nevada Barr novel, Blind Descent, and found myself repelled and attracted to different characters I paused and wondered how I would be perceived if I were in the situation Barr had crafted. Would I be the strong heroic man, the buffoonish oaf, the evil self centered one or the banal, boring misfit? It occurred to me, as I walked, that few if any of us see ourselves as the villains in life's stories. Though we may see others in a truly negative light, which of us sees ourselves in that way? We identify, I imagine, with the heroes or at least with the benign supporting characters. If we are not particularly virtuous and brave in our own eyes, at least we give ourselves credit for trying - for being well intentioned.

OK. Enough background. Now imagine yourself at your most recent poker table. You can probably pick out the weak players and the strong players pretty well. You can probably even figure out who are the bluffers, who are the timid ones, and who the rocks are. If a new guy sits down in the game it doesn't take you too long to put him into a category as well. It's what we, as poker players do.

But here's what few of us do well. Now imagine yourself inside the mind of one of the other players. They are looking at you. You aren't looking at you. They are looking at you. What do they see?

That's one tough exercise for most of us. We tend to see ourselves as we want to be seen. We judge ourselves by our intentions. And so, since we want to be fairly strong poker players, who think about our hands and have a good mix of aggression and caution, we tend to project that self image onto what we imagine our image is to others. How many of us are strong minded and thick-skinned enough to say that we are seen as assholes or villains or selfish pricks or mean SOBs or loose calling stations or boring nonentities or buffoonish wannabes or silly dabblers or weak-tight pansies?

How many of us can see our flaws not as we'd like them to be seen - not as the aberrant detris that is left over from the hard work of our good intentions but as the key to our play?

But we must. We must be prepared to honestly admit that to the other players at the table - to at least some of the other players at the table - we are, at least from time to time - seen in the same negative light as we see poor players. Because, rest assured, we are sometimes the objects of scorn in other people's scripts. And just as those villains would not see themselves as the villain - but really as just a misunderstood hero - so too do we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are perceived as favorably as we would want ourselves to look.

I write this not to give everyone a case of depression but rather to give you a leg up on the opposition. Because the first step to taking advantage of your perceptive opponent is to understand how he perceives you at the table. It is the foundation on which deception rests. And it is one of the hardest things to do at the poker table because it requires, at times, that you acknowledge that your image is not of some paragon of poker excellence but of a flawed poker player.

Here's an example of how image comes into play in a poker game. We'll start with the example you're most familiar with - how you perceive your opponents.

Suppose you are against a super, ultra-tight opponent. He is an unimaginative rock. He is not tricky. He never gets out of line. He folds, folds, folds, and folds. When he raises, you've noticed, he is loaded.

The bring-in is to your immediate right. You have a split pair of Kings and you raise. The rock is to your left. He has a 7h. He re-raises you. Since you know that he is a rock, you figure he must either have wired Aces or trip 7s. You put him on a hand because of his image. If he were known as a maniac you'd put him on any hand - anything with an Ace or even with two suited cards. You use his image to discern his hand.

Let's take on the more difficult example - imagining how your image affects others. Let's say you've been playing for a while with the same guys and you've been getting awful cards. You've folded every hand. OK, maybe you've played a couple of gambling hands until 4th Street out of sheer boredom. But thereafter you've folded when your hand didn't improve. And none of them have improved.

How are your opponents going to view you?

Start with how you're likely to view yourself. You know yourself. You know that you are selectively aggressive. You wait for strong hands and then bet them strongly for the most part. But is that what these players, with their limited sample size, will notice? No. They're just going to think of you as a rock. All that they've seen for the time you've been at the table is fold, fold, fold, fold, fold. Rocks play like that. Sure, you know that you're much more than that. You know that you are really a good semi-bluffer, an excellent slow-player, a check-raiser, and, all-in-all, a complete player. You play substandard hands when you think you can get away with it cheaply and have a chance to improve to a monster. But so what? Your opponents don't know that.

Or imagine this. You've been getting no cards. You decide to take advantage of your rocky image. You start to play a bit more aggressively with lower quality starting hands - semi-bluffs, pure bluffs, overplays - the works. You're aiming at either loosening up your image, making some money with ante steals, or both.

Only problem is that some of the players aren't cooperating. They're calling you down. And when your hands don't improve and you cease to bet them aggressively, your opportunistic opponents start betting aggressively into you - forcing you to fold much of the time. Where you don't fold you don't improve and you lose with some pretty weak hands. You start getting toasted.

What do your opponents think of you now?

You, of course, understand that you have just been caught in an odd confluence of bad cards and bad circumstances. This happens. You know that you're still a strong, flexible and aggressive player with heart. But, you must throw that out the window. Forget about how you know yourself to play. Imagine instead how players who don't know you or care about you or care about your long term image are going to view you.

Are you thick skinned and perceptive to recognize that you are exhibiting the signs of being a weak-tight, bad player? Can you put your arms around that possibility - that your opponents will think that you suck?

Know that they will. Embrace the fact that under certain circumstances you will be viewed as a fish - as a weak-tight newbie - as a player out of his depth just waiting to be plucked clean.

Can you do that? Can you accept that possibility? If you can't then you're doomed to miss some wonderful opportunities. Because if you can't take advantage of your bad image in the mind of your opponents then you are giving up a lot.

If, on the other hand, you can see your reflection in the eyes of your opponents then you can take advantage of their impression. They see you as a rock? Bluff and semi-bluff them into penury. They see you as weak tight? Then let them bluff into you and call them down with your strong but not super-strong hands. They think you a loose calling station, then check-raise them when they try to get aggressive against you when you're really loaded. There are all sorts of moves you can put on your observant opponents - but only if you are able to understand what they are observing and how they are viewing you - for better or for worse.

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