Being nice or tilting others?

[miketurner]

In live tourneys, are you the “nice guy” or the guy who puts everyone on tilt?
What are the advantages & disadvantages to the style you choose?


I am generally the nice guy. It seems to me, that the problem with being the jerk at table is that you would have to catch cards. It seems like you wouldn’t be able to steal as much because people would play back at you. Maybe I’m wrong, as I don’t have first hand experience at being the “jerk”.

When someone raises in LMP and a LP player calls. As the “nice guy” I feel like I can re-raise from the button or the blinds and they won’t think that a “nice guy” would do that without AA, KK or QQ. It seems to work really well for me, as long as I don’t do it too much. I like to do it in the middle stages of a tourney against medium stacks.

I would like to hear from you “jerks” out there as to what psychological advantages you might have by being a jerk and maybe some examples of when it comes into play. Of coarse, nice guys comments are welcome here too. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[BarronVangorToth]

Being nice, making a table friendly and personable, is +EV not only in the literal, but in the figurative.

If you're going to spend any amount of time frequenting a card club, the last thing you need is to be labeled the jerk; you're going to play (and take the money from) repeat players time and time again, better to not have them mind sitting with you than be the pariah.

Don't force it, but be as polite and as friendly as you can, even in the midst of cold cards and bad beats.

[fortunesknave]

We have a guy at our game who is super aggressive, but he's a nice guy and not at all a jerk. He does play crazy, and he's very open about it. He tries to run all over the table and acts the know-it-all about poker. I think that, though he's not a jerk, his style of play is such that it tilts others.

People react to him differently. He gets a lot of action from the "I'll play any ace to the river" type players, and gets instant fold from the rocks. In fact, the tight players practically throw him their blinds when they put them in the pot, they're so committed to folding.

The better players wait for half-way decent hands, and reraise him. That works until the blinds get big and he starts to push all in on just about every hand.