Blade Article Question

[Georgia Avenue]

Great article Mark. I'm definitely in favor of most of these temporary fixes for difficult situations, except for the third one. You say in: "Your Table Image Is Shot"

"There is one upside to your table image as a loser. When you do bet or raise with winning hands, you will get a few more calls than normal. But this pales in comparison to all the other downsides."

Frankly, isn't this going to quickly make up for any downsides? You say that bad opponents will start to play "perfect poker" against you, but ALSO call you down and reraise you with semibluffs because they expect you to lose, yes? If you can percieve that your T.I. has changed, and you make the adjustment, won't the larger payoffs on premium hands help recoup any bluff equity you've lost? The passive players will be re-raising with toppair now, but when you hit a set or something they'll be capping it with you since "You never win". Frankly at the middle (OK, LOW) limit games I play you're not getting anyone to lay down anyhow, but, maybe you were addressing higher or NL games...

Anyway, perhaps I've missed something...thanks for some great insights...

[Xhad]

You're missing the fact that opponents who bluff you at the right frequency reduce your winrate and increase your variance no matter how you react to it. It's a lot harder to beat people when they're bluffing than when they're playing straightforwardly, to the point that David Sklansky states in Theory Of Poker that a table full of bad players who bluff correctly is tougher than a table full of mediocre players who play predictably.

Yes, their calling down makes you more likely to get paid off on good hands, but it also means you can't bluff, and more importantly their bluffing means you will have to give a lot of money back to them by paying them off when they do have a hand, lest you end up folding winners too often.

[Mark Blade]

Hi Georgia Avenue,

Thanks for such a thoughtful post and questions.

A few points:
- I hope you don’t get too hung up on my wording of “bad players can start to play almost perfect poker.” I think in context you can understand (and probably do) that I was speaking about these specific passive players and their betting/raising/bluffing frequencies. Of course, not even the best player in the world will always play “perfect” poker.
- I think you bring up an interesting point as to exactly how much you can benefit from a losing image vs. a winning image. That is the crux of the question we are examining. If players went crazy with their over-adjustments to your losing image, you would probably welcome it. But remember that passive or (as Xhad correctly refers to many of these types) “predictable” players barely ever raise or bet without a very strong hand and rarely, if ever, bluff. So it is unlikely that these players will see you losing and start capping it against your set or re-raising with top pair. That’s too big of an adjustment for them. It’s way too far out of their comfort zone. But raising with top pair (a good play in many instances) might feel just about right for them now that they are emboldened by your losing image. And if they start to work in some bluffs and semi-bluffs (not way too many as, again, that would be out of their comfort zone), that’s very hard for you to defend against as Xhad mentions is demonstrated in The Theory Of Poker.
- You bring up an interesting point about the differences in limits. In very low limit games, bluffing isn’t as big a part of your playing arsenal in the first place. So losing that ability is probably also not as big of a setback as it is in higher limit games. But I think it still definitely matters.
- Also, here’s another distinction you might want to consider. How important your table image is and the adjustments you need to make because of it are probably even more important in a live setting (vs. online) for two reasons. One is because there is a greater turnover of your opponents online so many of them will not have even sat through your losing streak to be able to notice it. Another reason is that your opponents are less perceptive of how you’ve been doing online just because seeing a human being in front of you in a live game makes for a more memorable impression of everything that is going on. Especially if you rebuy online so it doesn’t look like you’re short-stacked, most of your opponents might not even notice or remember that you’ve been losing.
- One last thought. Remember that my point in the article about table image is followed by the one about when you’re losing, others are winning. So in a practical sense, even if you don’t agree that the table image thing is quite as important as I believe it to be, you may still make the same exact decision about changing tables just because many of your opponents are all playing their “A” game now because they’re feeling so good from winning. These two ideas kind of go hand-in-hand in a practical sense for when you might elect to switch tables for these purely psychological reasons.

I hope I’ve cleared some things up for you.

Best regards,
Mark Blade

[toss]

This is off topic, but PLEASE don't talk about 2+2 at the tables.

well, I think you are right but what is the "right" frequence. it definitely depends on the nerves of the opponents.

[Georgia Avenue]

Thanks again for the reply Mark.

Humorously, a few days after posting this I sat down in a 1/2 nl home game and swiftly turned a LPP into a LAG just by losing a few racks to him! So now I definitely understand the concept. I also think your advice applies particularly to NL, since semibluffs are so much more powerful there. I wish I'd remembered this discussion then!