What to wear, what to wear

30 Jan, 2011 - Posted by Dan Brown in Poker Advice

The poker player has many weapons in their arsenal, and along with your playing skills you should also project a definite image. Psychologically most people make a judgment based on appearance when we first meet someone, whether we admit it or not.

Dress like Jennifer Tilly

Wearing a hat, a hood or sunglasses can help to cover your eyes so no one can tell when you look at your cards or study other players.

When we sit down at the poker table, we usually try to size up our opponents and their clothes are the biggest tell before the first card has been played and you can use this to your advantage.

Dressing like a pro can also male you feel like a pro (but nor play like one). However like Poker itself, there’s still a deeper level, consider the idea of fashion as a bluff.
While playing poker at a big Vegas Casino I shared a table with a guy who was wearing shorts, socks, a hard Rock Café hat and a horrid Hawaiian shirt, this guy looked for all the world like just another tourist. The way he acted fitted his clothes down to a tea, telling stories, laughing hard, complaining about the heat, amazed at the size of the casino and joking with the dealer and other players.
But for a tourist rube he played the cards like a Ungar. He played very few hands and when he did he played tight and aggressive. This was no travelling mug, and I treaded very lightly when we found ourselves going for the same pot.
Beyond dressing like a chump, there are a couple of things you can do at the table to improve your chances of winning.

There are some big tells that can be deduced from your eyes. If a player quickly looks at the flop, looks down at his stack and swiftly looks away, the flop most likely helped his cards. On the converse, if a player is intently studying the flop it probably hadn’t help him and he’d be trying to figure out some combination that’ll work for him.

Recently it became legal to have headphones at the poker table. Initially, there was a little hoo-ha as reading players’ emotions and their cards should be tantamount and headphones were considered a distraction.
But the idea caught and many professionals were seen sporting headphones and winning pots. A headphones wearer may give off the impression that he is not bothered about the game in front of him, and trick the opponents lean into the punch. That may have worked when headphones were a novelty, but that ship’s pretty much sailed now.

The great thing about online poker is you can wear what you like, be it your favourite gown, hockey shirt or tuxedo, as you can when writing about poker.

Bookmark: