Table image (online)

David aka Zarbuck

My response:

Table image represents how your style of play is perceived by other players.  I don’t think it has anything to do with the physical stack size as the perception is really moot.  People are going to play you by your stack size when there is a large variation in relational stack sizes.  Table image becomes more of an issue when you are dealing with similar size stacks in a tourney or when sitting at a ring game.  It is this intangible factor that influences how an opponent plays his hand.  If he is making a decision on how to play a hand based on you, then you have table image (be it a good image or a bad one).  To me, table image needs to be addressed for 2 situations:  online and real-life.  I’ll talk about online table image today.

Online players have a very short term memory.  So table image is generally going to be confined to the session you are playing or even less.  On ring games people are jumping around so often they don’t have a chance to ‘get to know you’.  Thus, your style of play is often going to fall on deaf eyes.  There are the exceptions however that do pay attention or have played long enough on the same table as you that they do have some idea of how you play.  Typically, the easiest table images that are going to stand out are maniacal play and cold calling play.  You don’t want either of those images.  Yeah, I know some people might say you can present these images and ‘sucker’ people into thinking that’s the type of person you are, but you just don’t have enough time to work that image.  People are going to leave the table or you’re not going to get cards in time to be able to take advantage of faking an image.  My point is that if your style of play is the appropriate mix of tight-aggressive,  at any given time you may not have any table image. 

So, the trick is this:  even though in your eyes you’re playing a tight-aggressive smart game, for the short-term, you may not be aware that you are actually conveying a certain table image.  For example, you have a tight hand selection, but it just so happens you have had a nice run of playable cards and you’ve been playing them all by raising pre-flop.  Well, your opponents are going to see that you’ve been playing a crap-load of hands lately and have been raising them each time.  If you’ve been losing the hands without even showing your cards (either because you folded or mucked) then you could very well be perceived as a maniac or at the least a very loose player by you opponents.  If, however, you’ve been folded to often or won most of your hands and had to show your great cards, your opponents will see that you play great cards, you’re aggressive with them, and you’re getting a lot of good cards.  That is a GREAT table image to have.  People are going to hesitate to your raises or fold decent hands because they are concerned you are in the hand and/or hat you might raise them.  Notice, that with the same string of cards, your image may be completely different — and you’re not even playing any different than you normally do!  The lesson to learn here is that you need to always be aware of how others may be thinking about you depending on your recent hand play.  Online in ring games, you should particularly pay close attention to this after the first bunch of hands into a table.  If you’ve been able to achieve the GREAT table image explained above, you can really make some coin.  If you’re on the bad end of this and appear to be a maniac, well, you may want to leave because your raises have lost impact to force people out of hands.  It’s definitely harder to win hands.  Of course, there’s always money to be made as long as you make the adjustments.  My theory is that there are so many tables to play, why bother trying to work a poor table image into profits when you can just go somewhere else and potentially start off with a good table image there?

Now, MTTs or STTs (aka ‘sit n gos’) are a little different.  You’re going to be at a table for a while so people are going to learn more about you and pay more attention.  Thus, table image is a little longer term.  This allows you to play your cards in a way that will have  direct bearing on your table image.  E.g. if you play little to no hands early on or play a lot of hands this will be noticed and you can accurrately predict how you are being perceived by others.  You can use this much more effectively than at ring games.

So, ring games usually mean short term which means your table image is determined by the last few hands that you’ve played.  It is typically not going to last beyond the session.  You could often play the same people again several times in the future and they still won’t have a clue as to how you play.  They’ll only pigeon-hole you based on the last 10 hands or so.  Thus, don’t try to create table image, just play your game and figure out how at that moment in time you are being perceived.  In STTs, the image will last the life of the game, so you can control your table image a lot more here.

One final note on online table image – the rules change dramatically when you go to higher stakes (5-10 fixed limit or $20> nolimit).  There are fewer players who play these tables so you are going to be remembered.  And, these players ARE paying attention to your style of play beyond the short term.  That is, a HISTORY is being formed.  Table image then becomes a living entity that evolves.  Now, it is your responsibility to control your image that you bring to the table and how you use it.  This will be dicussed further in live-action games where the pace is slower and you are coming up against the same players over and over.