The poker game that relies on creating an image is in another dimension than rule or tactic-based poker, although all of these are essential to a good game. Image concerns everyone at the table and is the total of all you know about your opponents and all you let them know about you. Image-making will sometimes cause you to make moves which your opponents perceive as odd or ill-conceived.

Your opponents are attempting to analyze your every move or lack thereof. There are times when it is best to hide your image and times when it should be on display. Some will play with an image that obscures their thinking and actions and some will create a major display of activity with much vivacity and fanfare which can completely disorient and befuddle opponents.

If you want to increase your profits with a few bets and then back off, bluffing is the solution. But if you want to sacrifice the now for long term profitability, you will need to create and project an image. You might make a couple of lame moves in a particular circumstance. You will lose here, but in similar circumstances in the future, when your hand is strong and you are a good player, some expert opponents will have noted your previous play with the lame hands, and still others will just be confused you by your lack of predictability. This sort of strategy can get you long term results and substantially increase the worth of your strong hands.

Chess players employ image-based strategy quite a lot. Whether the player’s strength is known to you or not he may make credible bad moves or even strange or stupid ones. He will sacrifice pieces, fail to protect his position, or to take positions. His opponent will be disoriented by his lousy play. The image-based player will then make a subtle sweep of valuable pieces or attack a weak point that no one even thought to be his focus.

The main idea is the same in both games: you sacrifice current advantage in order to seize greater advantage later in the game. Instead of playing every concrete hand the best way, you envision less palpable but likely future possibilities. The move seems for the present to have put you at a disadvantage, but the game allows you to recover later and when you are ready to recover with a vengeance, your image will be your primary means.

You need to learn to project a wide variety of images. You will educate yourself on which “bad” moves to make to reach which goal and with which image. You may wish to disorient your opponents only in certain situations involving certain of your skills. Or, you may want to impress upon them how weak your game really is, or that you are the perennial bluffer.

It is probably better to generate the image at the outset of the game, when the bank is still small. Otherwise, a few consecutive “bad” moves with a big bank may cost more than the eventual win.

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