Poker Qustion From Apak

[Brocktoon]

[ QUOTE ]
Pro's of proving competence (and losing "fish" image):
-Less likly players will "make moves" on you
-Your bets having more "respect" behind them


[/ QUOTE ]

I think that the exact opposite of what you said here is the case.

If they think that you are a "bad" player they will not try to make moves on you. When you "make moves" you do it in the hopes that you can get a player to lay down a hand. Since looseness and poor play go hand in hand your typical poor player is the last person you want to make any sort of move against. Good players make moves on other good players, not fish.

Also, passivity is much more closely related to fishiness than aggression, so they will not be giving your bets/raises less respect, they'll be giving them more. Couple this with the fact that even good aggressive players will often clam up at their first big final table and play more conservative (often in an effort to avoid embarassing themselves in front of a lot of people) and they will all be assuming that your bets and raises mean strength. More strength than they can confidently assign to another top teir tournament pro when the blinds get big and the table gets short. Your calls however, will get less respect.

FWIW I believe the answer the original question is that its much better to be thought a fish than a good plaeyr at a table with other good players. I don't think its very close at all.

[Unknown Soldier]

I've heard that this is how george bush plays poker (I forget where), he makes people think he's stupid and uses that against them. I found that quite interesting, certainly goes along with his character anyway!


The original question: it's the same as any image; you can always make it work for you. I don't think it will make much difference, but you have to adjust to your image. It's not really worth it late on in a tournament though. Very little post flop play, and it's best to just keep it simple anyway, no matter who you are.

[Shandrax]

Intentionally playing worse than you can in a situation where you are already -EV doesn't seem correct to me. The gain from this deception would have to be huge to compensate for the downsides. With high blinds at the end of a tourney, it may be worth it though. Didn't Moneymaker bluff Farha out of a huge pot in the end?

[leaponthis]

[ QUOTE ]
who seem arrogantly inclined to assume you're a fish simply -- let's assume --because they don't know you.

[/ QUOTE ]

In poker it is in ones best interest to have others make mistakes about their play. In normal early round play of a tournament the same is probably true. But at the final table of a major tournament it may be better to be looked at as a competent player. The worse scenario is one in which the pros gang up and become very aggressive towards you and also take shots at you. Now if you just happen to be the worse player at the table having them play in an aggressive manner may be to your advantage but if you indeed are a competent player you would not want them attacking you. I believe that a competent image at the final table is best.

leaponthis

[Noo Yawk]

I think it entirely depends on your realistic ability to adjust to whatever level of play they put you on. If you truly aren't on their level of play, then I would think it's best to let them think you are worse than you are. It's just been my experience that when pro's underestimate you, they tend to bluff more, and also call a little lighter, as getting bluffed by a fish is emabarassing to them. Especialy around each other, and even more so if it's on TV.

Once they give you credit for competence, they become tougher to play against, as they will start to play better against you.

[George Rice]

Lol, an easy question I think.

1. Yes, there are good reasons for allowing them to think you are a worse player than you are.

2. Yes, there are good reasons to making them think you are better than they think, maybe make them think you are better than you actually are.

The problem with the above is that you are over valuing how good you are. They pretty much have you pegged. And little of what you say will impress them. If you were competent to the point it would matter to them, you wouldn't need to impress anyone and you might want others to think you weren't!

Look at it another way. Having taken calculus and differential equations in college, most of us know more math than the vast majority of our friends, co-workers and family outside the academic world. If you found yourself in a group of world-class mathematicians discussing their trade, do you think you can impress them by pointing out you know what integration is? Just keep your mouth shut. They might give you more credit than you deserve.

Your best bet is to say nothing and hope they misinterpret your actions as the tournament progresses, giving you more credit than you deserve. If you expose yourself by saying something silly, they won't make this mistake. And not being a world-class player, you have no idea what would impress them or what they are looking at to gauge your competence.

A better question is whether you want the other non-pros at the table to think you are better or worse than you actually are.

But as for the pros, better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

[Jeff76]

[ QUOTE ]
better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

[/ QUOTE ]This was my first thought when I read the question.

I can't imagine anything a solid novice player could tell pros at a FT to convince them to change their opinions of how well he/she plays.

[apak]

Thanks very much for the responses so far, which I've
found intriguing.
Just a few comments and clarifications:

It obviously won't always be realistic, but I want to assume they really haven't had that much chance to see you play. Let's say it's quite a short tournament,
maybe a poker club's monthly Saturday night $500
buy-in game with 100 players. It's taken a few hours to
get to the final table, half of them haven't seen
you at all before the final table, and the others
just haven't seen enough to learn very much.

I also want to assume that for now you care only about
EV of tonight's prize money. If you want to become
best buddies with the pros, you can do it another
week.

The question was meant to relate more to cultivating a table image by your words and actions rather than your play. And the idea certainly isn't to impress the
opposition or instil fear into them: obviously that's
not going to happen. The question is something like,
given that on general grounds they know your skill level
is likely to be somewhere between 1 and 7 on a scale of
1 (total fish) to 10 (pro), and seem to be leaning
towards the bottom end, should you play dumb or give
them some data to recalibrate?

Even if you don't try very actively to project
anything in particular, you're going (at least ime)
to be probed with table talk, and you have a choice as
to how to respond.

Just to take an example, Neil Channing's written about how he tends to try to find out about unknown opponents' experience level by making apparently casual conversation, because it might make a difference in a close decision later. So if Neil turns up on your left and politely explains to you what's going on during the chip race, do you (a) politely take an interest and thank him for the explanation, (b) laugh and say you've long enjoyed his poker essays, especially the ones on the uses of table talk, you'd hoped you'd bump into him on the tournament circuit sooner or later, and it's a pleasure to meet him, or (c) smile ambiguously?

A couple of hands into the final table, you're BB, the
smallest stack goes all-in with a total of 2BB. It's
folded to you, and you pause a second and then call with your Q6o.
After you win, you're asked whether you were seriously
considering not calling. Do you (a) say, no, of course
not, you'd have called with any two cards, or (b) say nothing or something less clear-cut?

It's been suggested there's nothing you can say to a pro that would alter the way they play against you. I don't think that can be right. For instance, if you tell the guy on your left during the drinks break that you're going to play near-unexploitable jam-or-fold short-stacked tournament strategy whenever you get into an
SB/BB game, which you've fully memorised for stacks
up to 10BB, and he's welcome to test you verbally with
strategy questions for the next few minutes, I imagine he'd do something with the information. It might or might not be a bright idea to say this -- on the whole I'd have thought not -- but I'd guess he might play you differently from the way he'd play a random putative fish.

I hope this helps to focus people's ideas a bit.
More thoughts and comments very welcome.

[leaponthis]

[ QUOTE ]
Lol, an easy question I think.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is an easy question but you might just be laughing out of the wrong side of your mouth. Sklansky said that the pro's and semi-pros at the table consider you a fish. If that is the case they will undoubtedly treat you like one. That means they will use unspoken collusion (I think that is the right term). They will attack you like a pack of wolves, try to intimidate you and make moves on you to try and get your chips and/or eliminate you first from the final table. That's how tournament poker is played where I'm from. Even if you were a pro yourself this type of play against you would almost certainly (I believe certainly but can't prove it) be a -EV situation. If as Sklansky states you could wisen up your opponents so they would understand that you are a competent player and treat you as such you would be much better off and I believe improve your EV. Where is Fossilman when you need him? And what about Harrington? How come he isn't a member of the Sklansky forum answering these questions?

leaponthis

[George Rice]

It's an easy question because an amateur well versed in good poker strategy isn't going to know what to say, so it's best to say nothing. It's hard to come off smarter than you are. I thought I made that clear.

As for ganging up on the "fish", I haven't seen that. The pros would rather eliminate another pro first. Do you see why? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] If you and I were pros and you were doing this I might eat you while you were eating him.

Also, there are other players at the table besides you and the pros. Why would they single you out? Unless of course you "remove all doubt." (This assumes your theory of eating the fish first)

Moreover, there are strategies you can use to exploit the pros if they try to push you around. And I suspect this will actually improve your +EV.

And there's another issue I didn't mention. If the pros assume you are worse than you are they will be making wrong decisions. If they think you are exactly where you are they will be playing optimally. If they think you are better than you are they will be making wrong decisions. What you are trying to do is move them from making mistakes (if they don't give you enough credit), towards playing optimally, and hopefully past that to making mistakes again. Seems like a lot of work and effort to me. And you don't even know if you're up to the task. You just might land them on optimal! Better off thinking about the hands, no? Edit: And if you were inclined to waste energy doing this, wouldn't it be better to make them think you were even more of a fish?

Finally, you don't really know what the pros are thinking, and they will all come to different conclusions initially. The more information you give them, the closer their opinions will come to reality.