Mad Man Poker

Choosing a tactic for the day is like picking out an outfit with different layers.

First of all, you need an overall style. When people see you walking into the room they need to get some sort of impression from the way you look.

This will make sure that if you regularly come into a room, after a while you’ll tend to know how people will look at you.

That’s about as far as I’m willing to cling to this clothing analogy, since accessorizing in clothing is something only people really into fashion will notice.

But in poker: your accessories are the salt and pepper to your game!

Let’s get back to a system we already know and put a player out of my own surroundings on the block.

When entering a TPC-hall you’ll notice right away that the wardrobes are yet again getting stranger and stranger.

One clothing style however never changed.

Jeroen Van Acker plays in suit. Completely suited up there’s this spic and span small blond dude at your table and you don’t know what to put to him.

Why? It frustrates people! They want to mock him. He looks like he came out of his fathers closet with an old fashioned hat and blazer.
It puts a cherry on top of the entire illusion of pure disdain from Van Acker. He feels better than you, he dresses like he’s better than you, he talks about how he’s better than you and people want to pull his guts out of his arse and strangle him with it for it.

To make it all complete: you’ll rarely meet a maniac like Jeroen. He denies you your position, has no respect for your blinds, taunts you where ever he can and gets his opponents on steam in the blink of an eye.

When playing a TPC you’ll regularly see a guy jumping up in complete aggression about the idiot that put him out of the tournament.

Well, that idiot is a suited up blonde freak, raking in the other guy’s chips with a smirk on his face because this guy was not willing to let go of his pocket kings to the turned straight in Jeroen’s hand.

Besides the fact that I’m not urging you to go taunting your table and be an ass, the tactical advantages shown here are enormously!

We in our small group of friends, by now, know the steam inducing way Jeroen plays, but if you’re new, you’ll completely change your way of playing.

And that’s what it’s all about. Getting your opponent out of his comfort zone.

So what do you do?

First of all:

Get a characteristic. For people like Jeroen and me it’s arrogance and table talk. For guys like Michiel it’s a frustrating calm. Other guys are slow, and then again a few are so fast you have no time to catch any tells.

All these things should have 1 purpose. Pulling your table out of their lair.
They need to attack you. The responses might be different for every player, but the basic point always stays the same.

In poker, attacking a player is never the best defence! Attack pots, attack plays, attack blinds if you will, but never ever ever attack a player! In order to attack a player you have to get onto his grounds.

People wanting to attack Jeroen need to get under his skin, need him to lay down to bluffs and then shove it his face! Because that will teach him! They don’t want a pot (if they did, they’d attack that), they want to crush him! In the process however forgetting that there is a possibility that he is actually paying better attention to their types of hands than they are to his.

Players like this have no specific “type of hands”, they play them all! Whether they are in a pot or not does not depend on their hand but on implied odds when that hand would hit. Put in some bluff moves and you have a guy that brings up a lot of problems for classic players.

Let’s get specific: Jeroen will play more hands against me than he would to Michiel. Why? Because I’m more likely to pay him off when I miss and he hits. With Michiel he has to take the initiative for betting the pot. If Michiel bets, guys like Jeroen usually need to get out or get lucky. When I bet, I’m usually still trying to assess where I am in the hand.

Mind you! This is risky! When tight players like Michiel decide to get frisky, it’s usually to guys like Jeroen! When players like me hit hard, guys like Jeroen will pay us off big time! But both of us have the same problem. When we fall into the trap of starting to attack him, we’re out!

I realise this post is a bit more abstract than usually. Mostly because I can’t tell you to mimic a player you might not know. And even if you knew him, you need to find a suit of your own. A style that hides your accessories well enough for people to start attacking you in disdain of your strengths.

This post is simply one example and in the future I’ll make more player analysis articles like this. Jeroen was just the most fun to start with because he is in no way a standard player.

Untill next time, try to find a style that suits you! Doesn’t it work out? Come see us! We’ll strip you dry!

The Mad Man