Playing Better Poker - the Intimidation Factor

The first article in this two part series gave you everything you need to build up a nice image as a player before the tournament ever even begins. Once you have that good image built up, it's time for you to show your stuff on the table. After all, image only takes you so far, and a single boneheaded play early in the game can completely ruin everything you hoped to gain.

For this reason, I highly suggest starting out the tournament playing very conservatively. If someone makes a comment about it, anyone who played with you the night before will say something also, and once someone validates the opinion, give it a few more hands, and then you're golden to start playing as aggressively as you want for a while.

When it comes to that traditional table talking story time that happens at least once in every tournament be prepared to lay a good one down now and again. If you personally know any pros, make sure to name drop without being too obvious. Don't confuse your stories, tell them in a smooth and careful manner, and make sure that you practice getting your details down. Sit in your room and talk to yourself if you need to. If you can give a daring account of how you outplayed and outperformed someone, players will be more respectful of your skills. Never, I repeat, never chalk something up to your opponent's poor play. That takes all the oomph out of your story, since everyone has outplayed someone terrible at one point or another.

Once you get into a game, you need to move precisely. Make it look like you've been playing forever, which means you want to move fluidly, like you're not even thinking about what you're doing. Add extra steps to your motions, as these are sure to get you noticed. For instance, if you look at your hole cards one at a time, that's doubling the amount of time that the attention of other players is being focused on you. This is very important, because if you've followed my instructions on building an image, you want to milk it for all it's worth.