Table Presence
First off , before I begin to discuss the importance of portraying yourself to be an invincible force on your table, I will introduce myself as I’m a new author to the poker team. My name is Matty D, On line you will know me as; COHO72 on UB , SILVERKING on Poker Stars , FEELEYEVEE on Prima and the list goes on. I’m a ten year professional poker player from the north east with Foxwoods and AC being my second homes. Early on in my career I had dreams of becoming the next superstar, as most of us do , that have above average skills in the game we love. I played WPT main events in Paris , Aruba , and at Foxwoods in my second year of trying to obtain my goal as the next “world class” player to hit the scene. This was at a time when poker was just exploding. I had some early success with a few cashes and was taken on by Oakley as a sponsor. Although I had all the confidence in the world to sit and play with anyone , it quickly became obvious to me that I needed more than just confidence and great play. I needed a HUGE bankroll. It was taking too much time away from my cash games to play satellites to win my seats , so I didn’t have to pay the $10,000.00. I then made a conscious decision to give it a rest and go back to my grind so the phone and lights didn’t get shut off.
I’m going to start this off by saying maxing out the number of chips that go into the pot on your winning hands and minimizing the amount you have to take off your stack on a loser or to call your “open ender” is critical if you want to be a successful 8 hour a day player. There are plenty of other skills that you need to be a “daily grinder” , but in this article I want to talk about the total importance of table presence. One of the biggest misconceptions and mistakes that amateur players make , is wanting to be involved in big pots. It’s always a great thing to have a pot “shipped” to you that takes the next two hands to stack up , but the reality of that is most of the time you are investing more chips than the value of your hand just because of the number of players involved in “monster pots.” Don’t get me wrong , I have no problem stacking for 20 min after taking one down , but the real consistent player typically does not want to be in a hand with more than two other players and “heads up” is the optimum situation.
If you play small to medium stakes poker , most of the time you are going to be sitting with about five or six “donkeys” that just can’t wait to give you their money and a couple of players that know the game and maybe one that you just shouldn’t get involved with , especially in no limit cash games. You should have all of these players identified within the first 30 min of play and in those same 30 min create your own “presence” at the table as an unbeatable player. This will greatly reduce the number of players (donkeys or pros) that want to be involved in a hand that you choose to play. The first and easiest way to start creating this energy of invincibility is to simply “FOLD”, a word of taboo for your everyday average Joe. For the at least the first hour I fold everything and play only the most premium of hands. I promise even the alcohol drinkers at the table will take notice of this. The second thing is you have to make a decision of how you want to portray yourself , the “good guy” or the “bad guy” I personally choose to be the “bad guy.” I’ll be honest , you are not going to make a lot of friends , but let’s face it , we are at that table to take peoples money not to take them to a movie. When I sit down to begin my session , it’s all business! I don’t make small talk , I don’t smile and I stare at everyone when it’s their turn to act. Even if you are not advanced in the art of reading “tells” they don’t know that and if you do these things you will quickly come across to your table as someone that is not there to have fun , but someone to be feared and once you have done this you will see a dramatic increase to your stack. You have beat them mentally before ever playing a hand. As simple as it is to create this ora , you have to maintain it and that is not so simple.
On top of striking fear into your opponents it will undoubtedly have another consequence and that is it will create anger and “I want to be the one to take down the pro” attitudes at the table , those are the players that are going to come after you and play with their emotions instead of their brains. That is great for you and your stack , but remember we want no more than two other players involved in our hands , if your “table personality” creates a situation where you have too many players wanting your blood , this can easily be reversed with simple psychology. Poker players typically have huge egos and by simply complimenting a player on his play sincerely and loud enough for everyone to hear (even if his play is awful) will immediately make that player feel like a king ( “I was just told I’m good by the best player here) and it will do two things , first it will stop him dead in his tracks with the personal game he was playing against you and second he will want to live up to the compliment you gave him , he will play fewer hands and in most cases will no longer want to be involved in our pots. This simple psychology works! Try it! I promise an increase in your bankroll.
The other way to go that I’m not going to spend too much time on is being the “good guy”. Although this is another way to increase your bankroll , I don’t believe that it comes even close to being the “bad guy” in terms of financial gain. Most of us do not possess the mojo to make players like our company so much that they want to fork over their money. There are exceptions and the best example of this is Daniel Negreanu who has taken millions of dollars from people that just want to say they played with him. I’ve had the opportunity to pick his brain about his table presence and the psychology behind the “good guy” and it is, don’t mind me , I’m just one of the boys having a good time and I’m just happy go lucky. Most importantly you come off as being no threat to take anyones money and by the time your table realizes that maybe your not as much as a moron as they first thought, it is too late and you have done your damage.
The downside to this is eventually at some point most of your opponents will catch on and realize. Another great example of this is Phil Laak (the unibomber) won his first WPT tourney a few years back acting and I emphasize acting like a huge likable jackass at the final table and had every single player believing that he had no idea what he was doing and acted so surprised every time he won a pot , like it was pure luck. In reality he had been playing professionally for a year prior and his teacher was “The Magician” Antonio Esfandiari , it was one of the most brilliant strategies I’ve ever seen. He put on a show that literally made him a millionaire. That being said , I’ll repeat myself and say that most of us just don’t have that level of mojo , but whether or not you choose to be the “good guy” or you choose to be the “bad guy”, make a choice! Don’t just sit a the table and play an unnoticed game , create a presence , sometimes it’s not good enough that you are a better player than your opponents. Maximize your wins! Minimize your losses! You will see it works. — Matty D
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Categories: Poker Strategy
