Does Appearance Matter?

Obviously appearance impacts image. Headphones and hoodie are stereotypical grinder attire. I recommend against headphones, especially for someone who is quiet by nature, as they will lean you way farther in that direction than you realize. Hoodie is whatever, as long as you aren't wearing the hood, imo, but combined with the headphones, quietness and tightness, it's no bueno.

Showing bluffs will not give off less "knows what he's doing" vibes, unless you can pull off a really convincing proud donkey act when you do it. Beer in the cup holder might help, but you actually have to be seen drinking from it. The biggest help though, would just be to talk more. Not about hands. About sports, local breweries, where people are from, etc.

Appearance/stereotype only matters like initially. Eventually if you stick around long enough, even a fish can tell if you play tight or not.

If everyone thinks you're a nit and not pay you off then bluff them until they adapt. You can 3bet a wider range.

I am an asian guy so I tend to be nitty at first until they don't pay off that's when I start to get a bit aggro.

Also when you show 0 aggression in hands early on in the session, the less of a chance you'll get paid later on when you do hit. The more aggression you show, the bigger and the thinner value bets you can extract. By aggression I don't mean bluffing but if you were pot controlling/trapping alot, others will take it you're passive/tricky/trappy player. But if you 3bet and/or barrel frequently even without showdown, others will take it you're aggro. You could be 3betting or barreling with the nuts but they don't know that. It stands out to the table when a guy is firing 3barrels every single hand.

Yesterday I saw an asian going crazy aggro initially then later on he gets paid off every single time even in spots where he is never bluffing for sure. He was getting paid by the whole table because his image is shat.
That same table an aggrofish adapted to my tricky/trappy style, he wouldn't stab with his marginal range anymore when I check it to him after he has seen me trapped twice. But I was getting to see alot more showdowns and without getting bluffed being out of position when I play vs him. People will adapt/adjust to your play, that's when you need to counter adjust.

Then there are games where image doesn't even matter at the slightest, you'll get paid by the whole table just because they have also have a hand. Some tables are so fishy that they don't have a fold button period. They don't care how you play or don't even pay attention to the slightest. They only care about their own poker. So in such cases, non of that image stuff matters at all.

Imho, image only matters in "marginal" spots. To a whale a marginal spot might mean he doesn't have a pair. To a reg, it might mean top pair. So yea, maybe you can get your image to get regs to fold top pair to you but they ain't folding 2 pairs+, draws or what not.

Also, don't trust others image that much. They might create such image to fool you. Tread carefully. But any hands that showdown are valuable info and off insights to their thinking. Their image/style might lie, but showdowns don't.

As for the headphones thing, you can switch to earbuds, people will notice it less. Or even if they notice it, it's very very common for players to have earbuds on, it doesn't really standout.

Personally I think it's a -EV mistake to wear headphones or use ear buds at the table. Also a mistake to be focused on your phone or a tablet between hands. Lots of reasons...

1. You should be paying attention to the game, developing reads on your opponents, watching showdowns, looking for tells, etc.

2. It's annoying AF when the guy wearing headphones pulls one off to ask what the bet is. Just pay attention and stop holding up the game. It's an obvious tell that you have a hand when you do that.

3. The fish are there to have a good time. It's up to the regs to make the game fun for the recs. Talk to them. Engage in some table banter. Tell them "nice hand", "good call", whatever. The fish don't mind losing as much, and will play longer, and keep dumping, as long as they're having fun.

4. Observant opponents will take note that you're not paying attention to the game, and assume you're just nitting it up. If the recs notice, the regs for sure notice.

As a reg, I absolutely despise seeing other regs playing from inside their own personal cone of silence. They're bad for the game. They don't just hurt their own win rate. They hurt the win rate of every reg at the table, to the extent the fish feel like they're just dead money and being targeted by one or more grinders.

Poker is supposed to be a social game. Sitting at the table, but engrossed in your own little cocoon is scummy.

Although I grow fond of many of them, it’s important to remember that these are acquaintances, not friends. It’s -EV to focus on people that at the end of the day, only care about themselves. Who cares what some bozo says?

I stay mad at one reg because all he does is walk around. He comes back and I’m like, “O, you’re checking in at the poker table” We go round and round but I think he’s a nice man, so I can’t get too mad.

Don’t be self-conscious, just get used to the crowd, if you’re going to see them a lot. But be yourself, be nice and don’t sweat the small stuff.

I will say if I’m amongst any unknowns, I create a sloppy chip stack - seems to look a little more like a loose player.

Finally, I would not let anyone make you mad, it’s your choice. We used to say in football, “in the heat of the battle, many things are said”
It’s often an emotional game, control yours.
Keep being nice to people that don’t like you and they often come around.

When I walk in a room, my opinion of me and GOD’S opinion of me are all that matter.

I would recommend the ‘Joy of Poker’ by Jason Su. Some great stuff about emotions

I don't necessarily disagree and the comments in the OP are what ever BUT I do think we as regs need to do better.

I played a lot of live poker in Europe traveling EPTs and what not and European(Italians mostly) regs are without question the worst regs by an absolute mile. Hoodies, headphones, focused on phone/tablet and barely talk and when they do it's in Italian.

Point I'm trying to make and Doc touched on this and I agree, being a reg with a hoodie and headphones on is not good for the game.

No headphones and being social will do a lot for your image.

Short answer, yes, appearance matters. Any time you go out in public appearance matters.

Hoodies, headphones, and sunglasses have been a talking point at the poker table for 20 years now. And not in a positive manner. You never see someone talking about player X in a hoodie in a positive light. Same with headphones.

Dress for success, don't just throw on a crappy shirt and gym shorts to sit in public for hours at a time. Not everybody is overly talkative but nobody wants to talk to someone wearing headphones. Ditch those and you'll find yourself in more conversations naturally at the table.

I'm quite social when I'm at the table, have never lol thought of wearing headphones / watching a movie on my iPhone, etc., and yet over time obviously people are going to get a general idea of how I play (I'm a nit, it's pretty obvious to even the biggest whale in the game). But it's possible (?) people don't mind as much playing with me (which in the long term means me taking their money) due to my sociability, ability to poke fun of myself / engage in the jokes said at my expense, etc... at least when compared to the hoodie/headphone type. Come to think of it, the like top ~5 players in our pool, even though a few of them can be a little socially awkward, are most definitely not headphone wearers and do a decent job engaging socially at the table.

Overall, I'm not really sure how much the $$$$ EV is affected by our image; the aware players will figure that out, the terrible players won't. But the personal enjoyment EV of the game is increased dramatically when partaking in the sociability (although I could perhaps see that not being true for introverts).

GcluelessimagenoobG

I guess I should add:
I usually wear a hoodie

But my phone stays in my pocket and no headphones. I’m socially awkward, but I feel right at home at the poker table.

Just being myself, but I make it a point to engage with everyone at the table. Like gg said, if they enjoy your company, they don’t mind losing to you.

How many times have I heard, “I’ll pay you off this time”?

Also, I don’t let any anger linger and just keep being nice. For instance, a reg tried to shove thru AK missing everything, I hero called with TT (you guys prob wouldn’t approve, but that’s a different story) and he was pissed off and stomped out of the room.

The next week, he was sat to my right and after inquiring about his health and listening to a long story, he completely forgot he was mad at me last week.

honestly the headphones thing is wild to me, i can barely focus WITH music on

Yes, appearance matters, mostly because it triggers other people’s biases. Some players will avoid you because they’ve tagged you as “the serious grinder.” Others will lean into you because they’ve tagged you as “the one who'll feel good to beat.” As a quadriplegic, I’m very aware of how fast people build a story off surface cues and then start treating the story like scripture. You can tweak your look to be less stereotypical, but you can’t stop judgment from happening. The best players (in poker and in life) eventually do the disciplined thing: they look for real proof that supports or contradicts their first impression and update from there.

The main thing is that you're in your mid-30's and are at least 20 years younger than most of the rest of the player pool. Nothing you can do about that. "Hoodie and headphones" is just another way of saying young and more aggressive than the typical old man coffee. I'd get rid of the headphones because you're missing information at the table, not because of the image it creates. Otherwise, dress to please yourself.

The best thing for my game has been to stop wearing headphones at the table for all of the reasons mentioned above. In addition, sometimes I will wear a bucket hat at the table. And I will joke when I get a lot of callers with a good hand that nobody believes the guy wearing the bucket hat. And that usually gets a few chuckles. YMMV.

I mostly agree with docvail and others RE: headphones.

I will say, I don't think it's a bad thing if your image is "this guy always has it." I think it's more profitable to be able to generate extra fold equity than to be able to get paid when you have a good hand, in part because it's hard to make a good hand, but also because the biggest fish at the table are going to call either way.

Appearance definitely matters -- it's one reason we ask for descriptions of players. If you want more action, I would lighten up, Francis. Ditch the headphones, be more engaging, wear a jacket instead of a hoodie, etc. You don't have to change your playing style -- just change your persona.

My husband dresses like a whale-y LAG in Vegas (Reyn Spooner shirts, fancy dress shoes, etc.) just so people will give him action. I try to use my "grandma" vibe when I'm playing NLHE waiting for PLO, but I'm not very good at it. I'm always drinking and talking/joking and giving action. LOL. Unfortunately for both of us, we know all the PLO regs, so appearance there doesn't really matter.

In regular life, it shouldn't matter, and good for the people who don't give a sh-t!

At the poker table, it depends on if you care that your appearance affects how others play against you and if so, what outcome you are looking for. If Perrone66 wants everyone to think he's a TAG grinder who always has it, he should keep wearing the hoodie and headphones 😉

Really if you're playing live games in a significant capacity you should really get social and get involved with interacting with people - no one wants a guy at the table who's solid, not talkative, listening to music, boring. You look at a guy like Daniel Negreanu - he has fun, keeps it lively, fish love it, probably gets invited to awesome private games. You can do the grinder thing but it'll cost you a lot of ev over the years I think.

Obviously appearance matters, poker is a game where you have to make assumptions and appearance is the first information we have. Even if you want to keep the tunes, swap to ear buds. And yeah, don't be the guy who isn't keeping up with the action. Generally I avoid the headphone types because it's annoying as hell when a nit holds up the speed of the game.

when driving to the poker room tomorrow , roll down the window and throw the headphones in the river and while you got the window down toss your phone as well.

buy a real coat your not a teen ager any more .

the regs I play against know I'm a pro , but I engage in conversation , laughs , etc... and make the game fun.

hoodie & headphones = douche

It just occurs to me after reading some of the other replies, with respect to OP's age...

I don't think a player's age should matter. I'm thinking about a local reg who appears to be around my age (50-ish), and he plays wearing headphones. I don't care if someone is 25 or 52, I hate seeing it.

As for hoodies - meh, I don't really care. I wear hoodies. I don't play with the hood up over my head, because I don't know why I would. Wear whatever makes you comfortable.

Except open-toed shoes, if you're a man. Nobody wants to see your toes, bro.

Someone wearing sunglasses doesn't bother me. Wearing a mask over your face, and then trying to speak through it, forcing me to choose between asking you to repeat yourself multiple times and pretending I understood you clearly absolutely does bother me. Don't play poker in a card room if you're a germaphobe, Poindexter.

I agree with the consensus. But I'll advocate for the devil a bit.

I play for profit, but only a few times a month. So it is very easy to have the image of a rec, as I really am playing partly for fun in my spare time.

However, this can be a little more difficult if OP is a legit 30 or 40 hour a week grinder.

Having a beer... even one a day that you don't want is a lot of calories. Having a few a day is a bigger problem.

I like talking to the other players, mostly inane chatter. Doing that every work day would get old.

If you are using your headphones to learn about history, learn another language etc. It might be worth the image hit to get 100s of hours of that instead off hundreds of hours BSing about sports.

While it may be negative EV, I think at low stakes some of the "EV" comes from us enjoying ourselves. We all could be doing things more profitably than the 10 or so bucks an hour you may be able to grind out.

So what does that mean? You have to balance whatever changes you make - taking your headphones off, talking more. etc. - with is it worth the couple of extra dollars asn hour of actual dollar EV it gives you?

When I used to play a lot of live poker my image at the table was invariably one of someone with a winning aggressive strategy, unless they were complete random at the table.

Having said that it was seldom that people would get particularly annoyed with me, or make comments about not wanting me in the game and I think there a few pointers to that.

1) get involved in conversations at the table. Doesn't have to be every conversation, doesn't have to be all the time. For me I'm a big sports fan, so if there was anything on the tv's.. Even a sport I don't really care for I would chat about it.....
A solid thing to remember here is that bad players really don't remember every hand and how it was played. They just remember who is active at the table, if your talking then you will be given more credit for being involved at without doing anything your image become much less nitty.

Couple this then with a recognised image of being a good player, and when you beat someone in a pot, they won't feel particularly bad, but will engage with your after saying what they thought you had, etc. Don't brush this off, engage with them, chat to them about what your thinking was. I'm not saying get into a deep discussion, but stuff like when you make a good call against there bluff, say stuff like 'I nearly folded there, thought you had the flush, but I just couldn't put it down' (middle pair no kicker, lol) you will be amazed how much info they give away here also.

2) and this is the big one... Get involved in side bets, straddles, bets on sports or whatever.
I used to forever play a game where we bet on the colour of the flop. It's a straight 50/50 and you play for long enough with no rake the money evens out so it makes zero difference. But to your image at the table it works wonders. Playing 1-2 and betting 10 every hand into a side bet on the colour of the flop.... You must be a crazy gambler. In reality it's something to do whilst I am nit folding my way through the game, that is costing me nothing in the long run. But oh my does this make you active at the table. Your spewing money around every hand, your involved all the time. Every single hand your involved in what happens on the flop. You can boo when everyone folds pre-flop... Even though you did because you don't get to play your side bet game... Good players will see though it of course, but the fish, the omc's, all they will see is someone involved in every hand... Super loose image.

3) my personal favorite, especially if you know the drinks girls. Order a non-alcoholics cider and get it in a fancy glass. I used to order a cider at the table and all the girls (and guys) working knew what I meant and would bring me a non-alcoholics cider in a fancy glass with an umbrella and some fruit stuck in it so for all the world it looked like booze. Does it make a massive difference, no, but it certainly helps.

Combine these 3 things and you will be well on your way to establishing a much looser image than your game play deserves.

Not only does this help with your image, you will probably find you enjoy the game a lot more also. I am generally a pretty low key guy, I'm quite happy listening to my music and ignoring everyone. But people will actively talk to you, they actively want you at the table. Not because your bad, but because your involved in the game, your an active member of the little bubble that is a poker table. The bad players would rather have you there, then a whale spewing money who doesn't talk because your having a good time with them.

Its hard to get involved at the start, I was the same, still am at a new table. But you will have a better time, and make more money if you engaging with the other players.

More thoughts….

I guess like everything else in poker - it depends, but in my games a young guy with headphones sticks out like a sore thumb. We get some ‘cocky’ internet people spill in sometimes, but they are usually covered with aggressive fancy play syndrome.

Most of the players in my pool are paying attention to the game. It’s not like it was 20 years ago, with people throwing money around carelessly having fun without a clue.

Some people (actually surprised at how many) want attention. They want to stand out, want to be seen, want to show you how great they are. As a humble guy, it’s hard to understand.

Bottom line:
I think you want to blend in at the poker table. You don’t need to be the ‘class clown’ - just a friendly & respectful person.

I guess this is for the young guys. Don’t show up with that ‘internet grinder’ attitude and expect to run over a bunch of old guys that have been playing for fifty years.